April 21, 2012
Qantas
QF8
BNE-SYD
VH-OEJ B744
Seat 35A
Boarded OEJ and made my way down to 35A in Premium economy with Josh going to 8A in Business. Was very surprised with premium, it was fantastic! So much legroom and very comfortable seats. As soon as I sat down I was offered a pre-flight drink by one of the f/a’s, I took an orange juice. I had no one sitting next to me for the flight which was great. There were only about 20 people in premium for the flight.
Boarding was done quickly and we were pushed back just over half an hour late. The safety demo was done but we stayed for about 10 minutes. The captain then said that there was a technical issue and it was required an engineer come on-board to check it out. So we returned to the gate. We were at the gate for about 45 minutes and then we heard the good news that we would be pushing back shortly. Whilst waiting, N171UA had departed for SYD and gate 80 was taken by British Airways B744 G-BNLW.
There had been about 8 more diversions since I last checked. CX111, VA2, VA30, EK412 (A380 No. 3!), VS200, QF94 (A380 No.4!!), QF108 and UA863 had also diverted taking the total amout of international diversions to 15 and 1 domestic! 4 of these being A380s and 5 747s, as well as the 3 scheduled 747 flights to BNE that morning.
So finally, one and a half hours late we pushed back for the second time.
Pushback Number 1
Back to the gate
VH-VPE operating VA2 LAX-SYD
G-BNLW operating BA15 LHR-SIN-SYD and VH-VPF operating VA30 AUH-SYD
Great to see BA in Brisbane
A380 Number 4 – VH-OQB operating QF94 from LAX-MEL
Pushback Number 2! Nice line-up of tails at BNE
Taxiing to RWY19 we pass A380 Number 3 at Brisbane that morning – A6-EDP operating EK412 from DXB-SYD-AKL
3 A380s can be seen in this photo, from 3 different airlines!!
VH-OJF operating QF108 from LAX-SYD
Virgin Atlantic A340-600 G-VBUG operating VS200 LHR-HKG-SYD
N128UA in new United livery operating UA863 from SFO-SYD
Taxied out to RWY19, no aircraft to wait for so we lined up and took off straight away. Josh took a video of the take-off, it can be viewed here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A4UL...3bFAAAAAAAABAA
Climbing out of Brisbane
Left turn to the south
We climbed up to 28 000ft for the flight down to Sydney, we got good views of the Gold Coast and Northern New South Wales. Once we reached our cruising altitude, breakfast was handed out. I had an option of hot banana bread or fruit and yoghurt. I had the fruit and yoghurt. While having breakfast I took out my IFE screen and watched an episode of Two and a half men, afterwards I just watched the flight map. So much to choose from on the system, would be great for long flights.