Trip report SYD-SIN-LHR-GVA-LHR-SIN-SYD

[Philip Argy]

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?

[Mick B]

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

[Scott L.]

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!

We also sat on the ground in Bangkok for around 25 minutes whilst the pilot advised he was having trouble obtaining clearance from Afghani ATC. This all took place after engine start.

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.

[Laurent Sanhard]

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,

[Philip Argy]

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!

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!

The white cliffs of Dover appeared through breaks in the cloud to mark our successful crossing of the English Channel,

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:

The Flight Connections signs showed the way to the shuttle bus that took us from Terminal 5 to Terminal 4 in about 18 minutes,

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.

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.

[Philip Argy]

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:



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:



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.

[David Knudsen]

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

[Mick F]

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

[Philip Argy]

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!

[Rhys Xanthis]

Great reading again Phillip, absolutely classic what you said to the guard in Geneva, the chaser would indeed by very proud