SIN-HKG-SFO-IAH-FLL on SQ/CO (Many pics)

It has been a while since I did a trip report (I believe the last one was JHB-CPT and back on South African and Mango. Unfortunately I’ve been flying less this year, let alone for work, so please forgive me if I’m a little rusty. Also, I didn’t get any pics of the cabin of the SIN-HKG-SFO and SFO-IAH as the flights were at night and my camera isn’t that good.

Background
7 months had passed and it was time again for another holiday back home. Although I had bought my ticket nearly 6 months in advance, it was about 75% higher than a similar ticket I had bought for the trip last year. The last few weeks before my trip, I was counting the days and the hours to leave. Unfortunately I blew all my miles redeeming round trip flight awards within Asia to travel with a friend of mine, which meant that this time I wouldn’t have miles to upgrade to business, so Economy would have to do.

After trying (unsuccessfully) to finalize some work at the office, I hopped into a cab at 4pm and arrived at Changi Airport’s new Terminal 3 at 4:30pm. I headed for the Business Class counters and checked in and dropped off my luggage. After that I took some pics of the nice terminal and headed for passport control. After this, I went to the new SilverKris lounge. This lounge is a huge improvement from the one in Terminal 2, but I must say it’s a shame and a missed opportunity that there isn’t much more natural light coming into it.


Changi’s new Terminal 3


FID screens


Overview of T3 from the 2nd floor

I had just enough time to take a quick shower and change into more comfortable clothes. After this I headed for gate A3 where First and Business Class and PPS Club members were already boarding.


The new SilverKris lounge at T3


Shower


Sink

Airline: Singapore Airlines
Route: SIN-HKG-SFO
Flight: SQ 2
Equip: Boeing 747-400
Dep (Act): July 11 5:50PM (6:00PM) GMT+8
Arr (Act): July 11 8:15PM (8:20PM) GMT-8


A380 at the adjacent gate

I was one of the first passengers to board in Economy, so I had plenty of time to stow away my bags and get comfortable. Unfortunately soon after that I knew that this would be a flight from hell.

A rather odd couple (white Brit man and a Brit woman from the Subcontinent) boarded with their two very young children (probably 1.5yo and 2-3yo) and sat in the row in front of mine. Damn! “Here we go again with the crying, screaming buggers” I thought. Oh but it was worse. These were some of the worst behaved kids I’ve ever encountered on a flight. Thinking this would be a flight from hell, little did I know that most of the ruckus would be coming from their mother. This woman kept on physically abusing the children in order to get them quiet. She even verbally abused John, her husband. Over the next 5 – 10 minutes I really started to hate the b*tch, at times thinking that if I had a gun I might rip her a new a**h*le in her face. She even treated the poor F/As like her own slaves, even as they were trying to do everything possible to calm the children down. If you thought that was bad, while I was giving dirty looks to this scum, a funny-looking Chinese guy (somehow I felt he was from Guangzhou) sat next to me. After sitting down, Mr Guangzhou immediately started yapping away on his phone. Now I don’t mind people speaking Mandarin or other Asian languages as some Westerners do (I, in fact, can speak Mandarin), but this guy was speaking Hokkien or Cantonese, or any other southern dialect, and that plus his awful tone of voice was just piercing my ears. I just wanted to rip the phone of his hand, go to the restroom, and flush it down the toilet.

I tried to ignore Mr Guangzhou by entertaining myself with the idea that he’d get off in Hongkong and some hot girl would be sitting in his place. Thinking about that got me in a better mood. That and the fact that one of the passengers that boarded look very much like Dwight Schrute, from The Office (USA), except with a better sense of fashion.

Back to Mr G. Just as we were turning into the active did he finally decide to stop yakking on his phone and turned it off.

And then the fidgeting started.

I have never sat down next to someone who moved around and changed positions so much. This was so annoying!

In the mean time, we had already passed 10,000ft, and could now move freely around the plane. The F/A’s then came around to do a drink service. I was quite disappointed that I asked for a bottle of water and was told that they didn’t have any bottled water. Hmmm… I know in Business for sure they do. And shouldn’t they be treating their PPS Club and Solitaire members a bit better? Otherwise, what’s the point?

Right after this the meal service (dinner) came around. The choice was chicken or fish. I had the fish, which came with vegetables and mashed potatoes, and it was very tasty. It also came with a penne salad, a warm bun, and cheese and crackers. I asked for diet coke to go along with my meal (I stopped drinking alcohol when flying), and was served in a glass without ice. I asked for the can, but the flight attendant refused! I would’ve expected this flying on, say, United, but not on SQ. So far, a very disappointing flight experience. If it had been my first time flying SQ I would’ve probably not flown them again.

During dinner I watched an episode of Curb your Enthusiasm. After the trays were cleared, a Magnum ice cream was offered and I watched an episode of Da Ali G show, and following that I watched the first half of Along Came Polly.

The first leg of the flight passed by quite fast, and very soon we landed in Hongkong and parked in between a Dragon Air A321 and a China Southern A319. I disembarked and after passing through a metal detector I headed to the SilverKris lounge. The lounge in HK is quite small, but has the usual amenities plus drinks and hot food. I had two bottles of water, got on the internet for a bit, and then headed back to the gate to board the plane again for the leg to SFO.


Gate area at HKG




China Southern A319


Our plane to SFO


The flight to SFO took off at 10:45pm and it was a bit of a bumpy ride for the first 20-30mins. Also, the pilot decided to turn the airplane into a meatpacking fridge and severely turned down the A/C. Now it sounds all bad, but one of the good things during this flight is that Mr Guangzhou had indeed stayed behind in China, and now I had an empty seat next to me and two Chinese ladies on the other two center seats. About 1.5hrs into the flight another meal service started. The choice was now chicken or pork, and I decided to take the pork as I had recently read in the Economist about an outbreak of bird flu in Guangdong province. The pork came with fried rice, a potato and shrimp salad as a starter, and again with a warm bun and cheese and crackers. Cathay Pacific Catering Services catered all this, by the way. Just a little extra useless info about my flight   

I asked again for diet coke with my dinner, and initially the F/A refused to give me the full can, but after asking again she gave in. After dinner the F/A’s came around with little tubs of Haagen Daz ice cream for everyone. During and after dinner I entertained myself by watching Jumper and Drillbit Taylor. There were some other good movies, but by then I was too tired to watch TV, so I decided to read the Economist and listed to my iPod before I fell asleep.

I must’ve slept for about 5hrs, which is not bad for flying in Economy, and woke up about 3hrs out of SFO. About 1.5hrs before landing, the F/A’s came around with a final meal service, and this time the choice was between a Western breakfast and beef noodles. I chose the noodles and they were quite tasty. I oddly washed them down with coffee and OJ.

Not too long after the trays were cleared we were landing in SFO. The ride in was a bit bumpy and windy. I’m not too familiar with SFO, but we landed towards the north, so I assume it was on one of the 19’s. We taxied to the Int’l terminal, past an LH A346, and parked in between a BR 77W and a NZ 772.

It took me 10 – 15 minutes to get from the jetway, past immigration and baggage claim, out to the street. A new record! Definitely up there with Singapore in terms of efficiency. And such nice people! It just goes to show how different SF and California are from the rest of the US. In Miami it usually takes between 1.5 and 2hrs to do what took 15mins at the most here. The people are extremely friendly both at passport and customs control, the terminal is beautiful, looking a bit like HKG, albeit much smaller.


The beautiful international terminal at SFO

We spent 3 days in the Bay Area. Day one we did a boat tour around Alcatraz and the Golden Gate, went to the farmers market at the Embarcadero and showed off my Mandarin skills to a Taiwanese couple (which got me a nice discount on a purchase), saw the sunbathing sealions, had some sourdough bowl clam chowder, took a street car up California to Chinatown, and had some Dim Sum at a Guangdong restaurant (where again my Mandarin was received with surprise and a few giggles from other patrons). Day two was spent driving along 101 to Napa and Sonoma to visit a friend who runs an oil press, and finally day 3 was spent in the Haight area and at the SFMOMA (Museum of Modern Art). In the evening we headed back to the airport to catch our midnight flight to Ft Lauderdale via Houston.

Airline: Continental Airlines
Route: SFO-IAH
Flight: CO 1743
Equip: Boeing 737-900
Dep (Act): July 15 12:30AM (12:30AM) GMT-8
Arr (Act): July 15 6:10AM (5:45AM) GMT-6

Called me old fashioned, but I usually like it when a person checks me in, rather than a machine. It adds a nice touch, plus usually those check-in machines don’t work quite well anyway. After getting our boarding passes and our bags checked, we headed to the international terminal, as the food there is better landside and we wanted to spend some time in the Reflection Room.


Domestic check-in area at SFO T1


View from the “Reflection Room.” NZ 777 and SQ 744 getting ready for their transpac crossing

When 10pm rolled around, we slowly made our way back to the domestic terminal, past security, and towards gate 34. We had to wait quite a while, but finally at 11:45pm our flight started boarding. We were some of the last to board, as we were seated in row 10. I had booked a window seat for this flight as it would be a relatively short one and I wouldn’t need to get up from my seat. However, I got a major disappointment when I got to my seat, 10A, and found out there was no window!! And it was the only seat around I could see without a window! Even seat 10F had a window. Can anyone here explain why there wouldn’t be a window only on one side of the plane? What a disappointment! At least this flight was mostly at night, so I wasn’t missing out on much.


AS 737 at adjacent gate with VX aircraft behind docked at the int’l terminal


AS and CO 737s with QF and PR 744 in the background

After take off the pilot came on saying we would be arriving in Houston early. Then the F/A’s announced a drinks service and a movie, which was some Dr Seuss rubbish. Subsequently the drinks came around. I ordered a diet coke and got two small cookies along with it. After this the F/A’s didn’t really come around much more, as most people were trying to catch some shuteye.

Airline: Continental Airlines
Route: IAH-FLL
Flight: CO 1048
Equip: Boeing 737-900
Dep (Act): July 15 7:15AM (7:25AM) GMT-8
Arr (Act): July 15 10:50AM (10:55AM) GMT-5

We managed to arrive early to IAH, which was good news for me. I was having an operation later in the day to get all my wisdom teeth removed, so the latest I could have any food was 6am Central time. Well, I had bought a small pizza in SFO, and believe it or not I took it with me to Houston and ate it there just after we deplaned. Goat cheese and pesto at 6am… yummy!


Gate area at IAH’s terminal E

After this we went to our gate to wait for our flight to FLL. The flight started boarding at about 6:40am and the load was about 70-80%. By 7:05am we were ready to go, but the captain came over the PA informing us that we would have to wait for some bags to be loaded from the LA flight.


Next to a company 757


Notice the fire truck. A few moments before an ambulance had sped by with all its lights flashing

Bags loaded, we were pushed back and taxied to the active (unsure which one it was, but I believe we took off towards the South or Southeast).


Pushing back, all you can see are CO tails, including that of a 777


Taxiing to the active

I was very tired by this time, so I put on my noise-cancelling headphones and tried to sleep. I found the legroom on this 739 was better than that on the same type of plane which took us from SFO to IAH, but the recline was minimal! It was very similar to the recline on Air Asia’s A32X’s, which is pretty much nil. The airplane looked a bit newer than the previous one, but I noticed on this one there were no buttons for the audio and there were also no drop-down screens, so the safety lecture was acted out by the F/A’s


Departing IAH


Early morning climb

Soon after passing 10,000ft the F/A’s came around with a breakfast service. I didn’t have it as I couldn’t eat anything due to my surgery, but I think they gave out cereal and milk, along with OJ, coffee, and other drinks.

In general the F/A’s were the nicest I’ve encountered on a US airline, but still not as kind and gentle as Asian F/A’s usually are.

About 45mins out of FLL, they came around with a second drink service, and on offer were juices, coffee, soft drinks, and wines and beer. Again I passed on all of the above given my surgery, but by now I was not only starving but really thirsty!


Cruising

Soon enough the captain came on the PA again announcing we were 120 miles north of FLL and that we would soon begin our descent. We crossed the Florida panhandle and flew parallel to the East coast, which indicated we would be landing from the East. Indeed there were quite a few storms coming in from the West, so we made out approach to land on rwy 27R. For a moment it seemed we were coming in too high and too fast, and the pilots must’ve really had to step on the brakes, since we used up nearly all the runway. We then taxied all the way back to Terminal 1 to park next to other CO 737s and a few WN and B6 aircraft.


On finals for rwy 27R


Short finals for FLL

Conclusion
I wish I could say that overall I had good flights. Unfortunately all the babies on the SQ flights made it a flight from hell. Additionally, the F/A’s on my isle did a poor job, on more than one occasion resembling US flight attendants. Definitely below what is expected from an Asian airline, let alone SQ.

On the flip side, I was quite happy with CO. All the flights left on time, the flight attendants were relatively kind and did an effective job, and all employees on the ground were nice and friendly. I will definitely be flying them again domestically, especially now that they have signaled their intention to join Star Alliance.

As for SQ, I will be writing a few emails and letting them know that their service standards, especially in Economy, have gotten quite poor.

Thanks for reading, and if you made it this far, please leave a comment to improve on my future TR’s.

Expect the following TR’s soon:
- MIA-TLH-MIA on AA
- FLL-IAH-SFO-ICN-SIN on CO/SQ
- SIN-HKG-SIN on SQ
- SIN-DPS-SIN on SQ
- SIN-SGN-SIN on JQ

Cheers
Coal