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Trip report SYD-SIN-LHR-GVA-LHR-SIN-SYD
In the First Class Lounge in Sydney, watching OQA being towed to gate 9.
http://www.argystar.com/pics/OQA%20at%20gate%209.jpg Looking forward to my first A380 flight. Hope the view from seat 17A is not too restricted by that large wing. Will know soon enough! Boarding delayed 20 mins for cabin servicing and catering. More reports and pics when I get a chance to upload them. |
SYD-SIN-LHR legs
SYD-SIN leg
'Navigator' billboard advertisement on the concourse is still showing 4.04 pm Eastern Standard Time - not too impressive! Boarding of Nancy-Bird Walton is direct to the upper deck via a dedicated ramp - no bottleneck on the stairs as with the 747. Captain for this leg is Gerald Brown. Seat 17A is over the wing so view obstructed to a fair degree, although the extra height of the upper deck makes it less of an issue than I imagine would be the case on the main deck. The cleaners haven't been too diligent - first thing I find is a boarding pass for this seat for QF11 from SYD to LAX on 7 October! Compared to the upper deck window stowage bins on a 747, the A380's are quite tiny and certainly won't hold my carry-on bag. And the middle of the three bins adjacent my seat has a fixed lid marked 'no stowage' - I wonder what's in there? Other rows don't seem to have one of those! Pushback at 17.35 is 10 mins late and it's starting to rain. The window sill is deep, which limits lateral vision quite a bit. And the foam seal around my window is dislodged and torn - how would they have done that? Safety briefing is audio only as there are no cabin screens and the personal video displays remain stowed for taxi. Van number 2 picks up the pushback team - I see it is marked 'A380' - is there an A380-specific van? After 12 minutes we've made it to abeam gate 8. As the engines spool up to taxi to 16R I notice that they're much quieter than on the 747. At 17.49 we're in position and holding awaiting take off clearance. The engines spool up for our takeoff run and we're airborne just after crossing runway 25 and the engines are barely audible. Climbout is effortless without the lumbering sensation you get with the 747. On the long right turn about the only thing I can fix my gaze on is the NO GRAB message marked on the vortex control vane affixed to the outer cover of engine no. 1. Flight path shows us tracking over Bathurst but the cloud cover makes it impossible to see the V8s that I know must be roaring around down below at Mt Panorama. Exploring the personal entertainment system shows it to be very impressive, with extensive instructions including videos on how to work the various features. Air to ground SMS is available but at $1.19 per message I probably won't be sending many. Seat to seat messaging is free, but I don't know anyone else on board. I'll set mine to 'Accept messages' in case anyone wants to talk to me. You can either use the navigation buttons on the handset or touch the screen to navigate, although the support swivel on screen often does not offer enough resistance to the pressure needed to activate a touch screen function, so the screen starts to swivel. The aluminium surround on the screen is badly scratched - it seems to be from multiple stow/unstow cycles without sufficient clearance to avoid abrasion. I like the many programs with text instead of audio, like news etc, so that you can enjoy them without wearing headphones, or listen to music concurrently. A couple of discoveries so far: the trash compactors in the galleys presumably save space on disposed items, And the sensor activated taps in the toilets, with temperature control. The latter are excellent although if you're not careful when wiping the basin for the next passenger, you'll activate the water flow. Dinner is served at 7pm Sydney time. The printed menu is version J31_SYD-SIN-LHR_SEP09. I wonder if there's an October version, or if they're not changed that frequently. The entree of king prawns and green paw paw is tasty enough, and the 'healthy choice' main course of marinated chicken is excellent, although the portion size is surprisingly small. But this is not a flight in which food will be lacking, so it probably helps to pace myself. For dessert some sliced fruit was combined with a lemon sorbet from the self-serve bar, and topped off with a chocolate macadamia nut. The flight path mode seems goes to sleep every 10 or 15 minutes and needs to be touched to re-activate. I don't see the need for that - it's a bit irritating. And the display sometimes seems to freeze as well. The 'time to destination' has said 5 hours and 59 minutes for quite a while - I hope the flight deck has better quality telemetry! Speed is 915 km/h and the altitude is 38,374 feet (a touch under 11,700 metres). The window next to me has a torn and dislodged foam trim partially obscuring the view. I wonder how that happened. Let's hope it doesn't compromise pressurisation. Unlike on a 747 the dining table doesn't swivel to let you out of your seat, although it does fold in half. The window lockers aren't deep enough to put a tray, so basically you're stranded in your seat until the tray is cleared away. The view from the tail-mounted Skycam is a bit fuzzy at the moment - I wonder if it's because the ambient light is fading. I'll check it again when we next get to daylight. The back massager in wave mode is very relaxing with lots of personalisation variables. And there's no draft down the side of the window that I get on other aircraft (the 767 is worst for that). The lie-flat seats are true lie flat and certainly superior to their 747 counterparts. I might even get some sleep on the next leg. Descent into Singapore commences at 1.03am Sunday Sydney time and we landed a minute early at 1.29 am. The 14 minute taxi to gate C26 was longer than I expected, and no-one seemed to be concerned about the large "Maximum Wing Span 65m" warning sign that we ignored approaching the gate. Lots of construction work going on in Changi Airport - my favourite shops have gone! SIN-LHR leg 82 minutes late out of Singapore with pushback delayed until 4.21 am Sunday Sydney time, apparently because we couldn't get an earlier slot to transit Afghanistan. I wonder who we have to book that slot with - NATO? Captain Carl Bruce advises a flight time of 13 hours and 15 mins should help us make up some of that lost time. I should be OK getting from Terminal 4 to Terminal 5 for my BA connection to Geneva but we'll see how it's looking by the time we reach the gate at LHR. This seems like a good time to switch my body clock from Sydney to Geneva time so now I'll have dinner at 9pm Saturday Geneva time. I filled in both the breakfast menu and the Dine Later card and nominated "as soon as possible" for the dinner service time. It made no difference since the service cart arrived to serve everyone at the same time and I was asked what I wanted, as if my card had been lost. Garden salad with a pan fried sea bass was nice but again I thought the portion size was quite small. I eat too much anyway so this is probably good for me. Watched a couple of movies - Charlie and Boots - the new Paul Hogan film - was mediocre. The Proposal with Sandra Bullock was much better. I then reclined the seat and enjoyed some well earned rest - all this finger exercise is tiring! The entertainment system still has bugs in it – I had three instances where the screen just went blank and then after about 15 seconds commenced its ‘loading’ sequence from scratch. Then followed the laborious task of tracking through the menu hierarchy to get back to the chosen title, selecting play, and then using the 64x fast forward to get back to the point at which picture was lost. I don’t know why this hasn’t been fixed by now – the aircraft has been in service long enough for this to have been remedied. Some pax couldn’t get their lost show back at all as it had disappeared off the menu when they went back to find it. So, while generally an excellent system, the bugs still do need a bit of focus to avoid irritating people so much. A bit scary to watch the flight path display as we track over Afghanistan at just under 39,000 feet. Hopefully the Taliban and other baddies are asleep and won't bother us. It seems a bit surreal that we are flying over the top of one of the world's critical hot spots with most of the passengers blissfully unaware that we're less than 12 km vertically from the action! http://www.argystar.com/pics/Nav%20d...2020091011.JPG At 4.45 am Sunday London time it's already getting quite light outside but all the shutters are down and most people are sleeping. I allow myself the indulgence of reading instead of sleeping since it's 2.45 pm Sunday in Sydney and I can't be expected to adjust to the 9 hour time zone change that quickly (10 hours if I use London time)! Not sure if Europe goes off daylight saving today so I may be an hour out in my calculations. The cabin lighting intensity is gradually increased to simulate sunrise at 5.15 am London time. Hopefully they didn’t lose my breakfast order as I’m getting peckish. Don’t tell anyone that I’ve had a piece of cheese, an apple and some roasted almonds during the night as well when I went for a walk from the lounge up the front of the top deck to the staircase at the rear. The lounge has seating for about 5 or 6 people and a large screen TV with a handset control but it is not touch-sensitive. Everyone seems content to watch flight path while they have a cup of tea or do a bit of reading. It’s quite a small area – unlike those lounge spaces I’ve seen on other airlines’ A380 configurations. But as a Qantas shareholder I’d rather see the space used for paying pax anyway! Here's the self serve refreshment bar: http://www.argystar.com/pics/Upper%2...2020091011.JPG OK – it’s 5.40am in London and the precise breakfast I ordered is served so they obviously didn’t lose my menu order. http://www.argystar.com/pics/Breakfa...2020091011.JPG I have drawn the purser’s attention to the foam trim and the displaced gasket on my window. He’s reported it to the flight deck and returned to say they aren’t fussed about it unless it gets worse, but will have it checked after we land. http://www.argystar.com/pics/Unseate...2020091011.JPG Plenty of time to freshen up before we commence our descent into Heathrow at 7.28 am. On descent Captain advises that one runway is blocked and that there will be a further 20 minute delay. Don't know what that was about, unless it was really airspace protection for Hillary Clinton as she arrives in London. We landed at 8.16 am and then were chased by a fire engine to inspect a brake that the captain had reported was ‘sticky’. We were then surrounded by security cars as we were inadvertently stopped next to Hillary Clinton’s aircraft. They also checked that we hadn't left any debris on runway 27L: http://www.argystar.com/pics/Checkin...2020091011.JPG Disembarkation was smooth and the purple Flight Connections signs and transfer shuttle bus all worked very well. Once inside Terminal 5 the security screening is a big deal with everyone having to remove shoes and belts and get photographed. Then at the end of the conveyor a system designed to whisk the bins back to the beginning doesn’t wait long enough for people to collect their items, so the manual intervention causes chaos there too! It needs a bit of fine tuning from the looks of it. No gate has yet been assigned to my departing flight to Geneva so I go to a BA lounge where I’m sending this. Hopefully the gate lounge will be advised in time for me to get to it – some gates are up to a 20 minute shuttle train away! To be continued ... |
LHR-GVA leg
LHR-GVA leg
Boarding of QF3661/BA728 commenced on time at Gate A7 – quite a way from the First Class lounge in Terminal 5! But I walk quickly and I’m on board 15 mins before scheduled departure time. Aircraft is G-EUPM, an Airbus A319-100. Pushback was four minutes early at 10.11 am but that time was quickly lost as we were 7th in the queue for our runway 27R takeoff. Wheels up at 10.33 with a break in the clouds giving a good view around Heathrow as we climb out: http://www.argystar.com/pics/On%20cl...0%20G-EUPM.jpg A 109 km/h tailwind helped us get from LHR to GVA 13 minutes early, as the flight crew and then the cabin crew reminded us twice before we disembarked! http://www.argystar.com/pics/Nav%20d...2020091011.JPG http://www.argystar.com/pics/Nav%20d...2020091011.JPG Great views of Lake Geneva and the iconic water jet on approach too: http://www.argystar.com/pics/Water%2...2020091011.jpg Typical Swiss efficiency – a display counting down the time until our luggage starts to pile out of the conveyor, and of course it was spot on too! http://www.argystar.com/pics/Baggage...2020091011.jpg And so, after about 30 hours of travel door to door, I reach my hotel and can get to work, withut having to think too much about the return trip next weekend. I'll try to do better with the picture quality - wife wanted the good camera so I got the old standby which doesn't have shake correction - it really shows I'm afraid. |
Nice one Philip, looking forward to part two of your report.
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Yep great read, look forward to the return journey!
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Hi Philip,
Re your comments on Afghanistan, my understanding is that overflights require prior approval from the Afghanistan Ministry of Trabsport and Civil Aviation. However the actual air traffic control is done by the US Air Force on invitation of the Afghanistan Government. Because there is no radar coverage, only a very basic service is provided with little flexibility. For example, they require 10 minute spacing between aircraft on the same route at the same level. If there was another aircraft ahead at the same level, you aircraft would be denied access until ten minutes after that aircraft had entered Afghanistan airspace. You can see that if there was more than one aircraft ahead the delay would blow out very quickly! Out of interest, if the flight display you posted is accurate, it looks like you took route L750 as displayed on the attached chart. |
Trans-Afghanistan airspace
Most interesting, Oliver. I agree that it looks as though we used what is called L750 on your map, although your map has arrows suggesting that the route is unidirectional eastbound whereas we were westbound.
I'll see if I can get a clearer picture on the return leg next Sunday. |
It's a bit hard to see, I agree, but the little triangles I think you're interpreting as arrows are just the standard international symbol used to mark waypoints on the route. All the triangles on the chart are the same way up if you look closely.
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Phil,
Your posted information on L750 is correct. |
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They are the ones who control the departures from SIN,BKK,KUL and other airports in the area, which is what would have delayed Philip's flight in this case. Each flight that is going to transit Kabul's airspace is given a "Wheels Up time" which is based on their planned flight time from the departure airport to the Afghanistan airspace boundary. Because the aircraft are accurately controlled from the time they taxi, there is generally a 10 min separation between aircraft by the time they get to Afghanistan. The system actually works pretty well, but does result in occasional delays on the ground in places like Singapore. Hope this answers everything guys! |
Bobcat
Excellent info, Mike - many thanks. Just one query: why does BOBCAT only control westbound traffic? Is eastbound traffic routed around Afghanistan or is there some other explanation?
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Philip,
Couple of reasons. The main reason is that the flow westbound is very concentrated, with many departures from SE Asia around midnight local time (e.g. QF5/QF9/QF31/QF1 all leave Asia within about an hour of each other). When you throw in Singapore/Malaysian/Thai/BA etc it gets extremely busy. The flow of traffic eastbound seems to be a little more spread out, with various departure times from Europe to Asia, although congestion does occur pretty regularly around Afghanistan. Another reason is that aircraft eastbound are usually a fair bit lighter and therefore can climb to higher levels. Going westbound, virtually no one will be able to make FL390 and even FL350 is not possible when very heavy, so there are less cruise levels available to route the traffic across. Hope that answers your question. Cheers |
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I presume for efficiency and cost reasons however, I am just wondering for those flight planners or drivers out there why this route is used and why another (or deviation) is not considered. |
The only way to Europe , without doing a detour, :) if flying from Bangkok or Singapore is to fly directly over Afghanistan , so its most likely a choice of the fastest way to Europe without burning too much jet A1,
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Homeward bound - GVA-LHR
A taxi trip to the airport at 6am Saturday Geneva time (3pm Sydney time) marks the beginning of the long journey home. British Airways checkin at Terminal M was prompt and efficient but thetypical Swiss efficiency had gone walkabout by the time I reached the Fast Track entrance. The security guard insisted that it was for business class or Swiss Nationals only and that I was none of those. He assured me that class “C” and seat 2A was not business class and that my tax invoice showing “Business Class” and a fare of $11,500 was not his concern. Not being one to give in I tried some Aussie humour by telling him that I’d been made an honorary Swiss national for the week. To my astonishment he said “Oh, that’s OK then” and immediately let me through - The Chaser would be proud of me!
Boarding of G-EUXF commenced early at 7.10 am but the trek out to gate B32 took about 12 minutes as it’s a pod 100 metres out from the main terminal building and virtually in the centre of the parking apron. Amused to see a SwissAir ad for “Shopping Paradise” at Zurich Airport – it was painted on the fuselage of one of its aircraft! http://www.argystar.com/pics/SwissAi...t%20Zurich.jpg Pushback of our Airbus A321-231 was 5 minutes early at 7.40 am and with a short taxi we were airborne off runway 05 quite quickly. The run along Lake Geneva with the rising sun illuminating the Alps was pretty spectacular but ended too soon with the snow clouds at 4,000 feet. Captain Chris Atwood promised us a flight time of 90 minutes. A tasty breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, fried potato cubes and button mushrooms followed about 15 minutes later – exactly my kind of breakfast! The Swedish-made raspberry smoothie was also excellent. British Airways seems to have no problem with all-steel cutlery even though Qantas and many others still insist on teaming plastic knives with sharp metal forks. Go figure! http://www.argystar.com/pics/Breakfa...2020091017.jpg The white cliffs of Dover appeared through breaks in the cloud to mark our successful crossing of the English Channel, http://www.argystar.com/pics/DoverWestbound20091017.jpg but then we were told that ATC required us to stay in the air for another 30 minutes giving us a revised touchdown time of 8.20 am London time. That was honoured with a flawless landing on runway 27R and a taxi to gate 19 at Terminal 5. Here's a good view of Twickenham Stadium on final approach: http://www.argystar.com/pics/Twicken...2020091017.jpg The Flight Connections signs showed the way to the shuttle bus that took us from Terminal 5 to Terminal 4 in about 18 minutes, http://www.argystar.com/pics/T5toT4s...%20display.jpg and I was pleased to see VH-OQB already parked at Gate 6 as we ended our airside tour through the maze of tunnels, service roads and construction zones that abound at Heathrow. http://www.argystar.com/pics/VH-OQB%...2020091017.jpg My attempt to use points to upgrade to first class for the trip home were thwarted by the fact that there were no seats to spare, so I’ll stick with seat 17K on the upper deck. The British Airways First Class lounge in Terminal 4 is pleasant enough and the wireless network is reasonably good with a current speed of 1.5 Mbps. Time to read some email and do a bit of work before boarding commences at 11.30 for the LHR-SIN leg of my return journey. |
Homeward bound part 2 - LHR-SIN-SYD
Boarding commenced on time at 11.30 am London time (9.30 pm Saturday Sydney time) and seat 17K has nothing that isn’t already the subject of my comment about seat 17A in my report on SYD-SIN at the beginning of this thread. Captain is Paul Garland who advises a flying time of 12h30m which should put us into Singapore around 8.20 am Sunday (11.20 am Sydney time). Pushback was at 12.22pm with a wheels up off runway 27L at 12.49 pm London time (10.49 pm Saturday Sydney time).
We crossed the coast just south of Ramsgate and crossed the English Channel to take a northerly route over Rotterdam. I notice that this seat on VH-OQB is not in exactly the same alignment to the wing and the stowage bins as it is on VH-OQA. Even though it should be the mirror image of the seat I had on the flight over last week, there’s definitely a difference because the ‘No Stowage’ bin is not centred and the bin to my immediate right is not as far back as it was on OQA. My line of sight to the ‘No Grab’ labelled airflow vane on engine no. 4 is also different. I wonder if these variations are normal or if there is a reason the position of the seats was adjusted after the first aircraft had been delivered? Lunch of Morrocan style salmon with cous cous and eggplant, preceded by a poached veal and beetroot salad, and followed by fresh fruit for dessert. The entertainment system failed again mid movie and just started its reload sequence uncommanded. The same as I experienced on OQA last week, so this is definitely a fault with the system software. Why is it taking Qantas so long to get it fixed. If you think I’m over stating the hassle, just let me describe what I had to do to get back to where I was, in terms of each selection that had to be worked through on the screen (after it finally booted up): START ENTERTAINMENT MOVIES PREMIERE MOVIES Scroll horizontally one at a time till I get to which of the 18 movies I was watching (State of Play – a great movie by the way and a good performance by Russell Crowe) PLAY CONTROLS FAST FORWARD 2x 4x 16x 32x 64x And then when I get to roughly where I was up to PLAY REWIND 2x to backtrack as I overshot PLAY CLOSE CONTROLS Get the idea? Bloody annoying, especially when it happens two or three times in a flight and sometimes twice in one movie! These comments disqualify me from arbitrating the dispute but Qantas has to move on this because it infuriates a lot of passengers who otherwise love the A380. There’s no question it’s an extremely quiet and comfortable way to travel, at least on the upper deck! But God forbid if the avionics are as badly programmed as the entertainment system. The night past uneventfully including cruising over Afghanistan in what seemed to be the L750 corridor we used last week. Not quite as smooth though as we had light chop for most of the trip – it made it impossible to take any photos of the Flight Path display with my little camera as it doesn’t have automatic hand shake adjustment. Breakfast served at 6.15 am Singapore time and our descent into Changi commenced 35 minutes out due to “defence air exercises” that required us to be below 4,000 feet if we wanted to be out of the way – which we apparently did! A copybook touchdown on runway 20R with a nice contrail generated with full slats. On the taxi up to gate C25 we passed three Singapore Airlines A380s docked at the terminal plus a myriad of other aircraft – it's certainly a busy airport. Finally at the gate at 8.31 am giving us only a very quick stopover. Here's a shot of OQB from the arrivals concourse at Changi: http://www.argystar.com/pics/VH-OQB%...2020091018.jpg SIN-SYD Reboarding commenced at 9am for an intended 9.40 am departure but insufficient staff at the security screening saw the doors not closed until 9.50. Here's an unusual perspective of OQB taken from the upper deck boarding ramp just before entering the a/c. I wish this camera had a wider field of view: http://www.argystar.com/pics/VH-OQB%...2020091018.jpg Captain Richard Primble (crew change for this sector) told us that one of the flight deck computers needed to be rebooted which could take 15 minutes. It was 10.02 am before we finally pushed back and then had a long queue to join before getting to runway 02L (yes – the wind had swung around 180 degrees since we’d landed only 90 minutes earlier) for a takeoff at 10.25 am. Captain advises an estimated flight duration of 7h5m giving us an arrival of around 8.30 pm Sydney time. The track across Australia was the usual one taking us over the northwest coast, the red centre and into Sydney via Orange and Bathurst with bit of course changing to get us in line for a runway 34L touchdown at 8.33 pm and parked at Gate 10 about 5 minutes later. Then the aircraft was put on quarantine hold because a passenger had taken ill. At one stage we thought they were going to take the temperature of each of the 450 pax on board but luckily we were released after about 10 minutes. Tried the SmartGate kiosk for the first time which required me to answer only two questions on the touch screen, insert my passport at the photo page, and then take a ticket. The ticket then gets inserted at the SmartGate barrier and you have to look at a designated camera which takes your photo and compares it to the one on the chip in your passport. I assume there was a match since it simply said 'take your ticket' and the barrier opened for me. So there was no human to human discussion with anyone at immigration (and no stamp in the passport either although they only do that on request anyway nowadays I think). The quarantine delay had not delayed the bags - they were already mostly out on carousel 12 waiting for us when we got into the Customs Hall. A quick 'nothing to declare' and I was outside again in warm Sydney for the first time in 8 days. No time to relax - I'm on QF411 to Melbourne first thing in the morning for an all-day meeting and dinner so I won't be home again till Tuesday afternoon. Tonight is really a bit of a 'tease homecoming' but at least I can dump my luggage and just take carry-on to Melbourne. So that's my trip report. Don't know if people like more or less detail and more or less personal commentary but there you have it - warts and all - a full paying passenger's eye view of SYD-SIN-LHR-GVA and return in the space of 8 days. :) |
The problems with the A380 IFE were mirrored on my recent trip to SIN on QF A330's - but I beleive its different brand hardware, the problem sounds the same - either rebooting midway through a movie or just locking up.
On both flights the CSM added to his announcement not to press the buttons too fast or it would lock up. But I guess it sure beats the days of trying to watch the projector screen on the bulkhead of the middle row :) |
Yeah but at least the projector screens never froze up and had to be reset mid movie, :).
On a recent trip on V Australia to the US, the entertainment system onboard proved to be flawless the whole time. I would rate it up there among the best onboard entertainment systems going. Mick |
A380 IFE bugs
Overall the IFE is pretty intuitive and easy to use, and I like the option of using touch screen or the handset, although the video intro should be easier to find for newbies. The touch screen sometimes needs more pressure than expected to sense a touch, but it's the random uncommanded re-loading and the consequential hassle to resume that is causing needless infuriation amongst a group of A380 pax that would otherwise be more overtly impressed. My concern is more as a Qantas shareholder than as an irritated passenger.
The fact that I experienced the problem at least 7 or 8 times across two different aircraft and two different weeks proves that it's a design flaw in the system programming or the hardware - if someone is addressing it I'd like to know that, and will be pleased. If anyone thinks it's acceptable or that there's no urgency in trying to get it fixed, I'd like to very strongly rebuke them! |
Great reading again Phillip, absolutely classic what you said to the guard in Geneva, the chaser would indeed by very proud :D:D:D
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I can assure you they do read them and take notice. Thanks |
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