The previous legs are at:

Baby Flies The A380 Pt 4: FireFly KUA-SIN ATR72
Baby Flies The A380 Pt 3: MH KUL-KUA 734 (pics)
Baby Flies The A380 Pt 2: 3K SIN-KUL A320 (pics)
Baby Flies The A380 Pt 1: QF SYD-SIN A380 (pics)

The end of the holiday arrived far too quickly. Neither of us adults were ready to go home. I’m pretty certain Alex was happier staying on holiday – it was over two weeks before he returned to his old sleep patterns!

I had selected to return on QF32 for two reasons. One was that it was a day flight, so there should be no issues of trying to force Alex to sleep and stay quiet for the benefit of the other passengers, plus there is scenery out the window. The second was that it was an A380!

It did mean an early morning departure from the hotel, with the morning’s first shuttle bus. One last run along the pretty route to the airport, watching the sunrise out of the window. Outside of Terminal 1 we unloaded our luggage and entered the ageing building.





There was no queue at the Qantas check-in and we passed quickly through immigration, leaving us plenty of time to explore the now familiar airside of the terminal. B got stuck in a couple of clothing and footware stalls, while I visited the minimart to purchase a drink. Ahead of me an older Asian couple were purchasing a huge quantity of Naive (err Evian) bottled water, sealed a plastic bag. I was warned that I would have to drink my fruit juice before boarding the aircraft.

B had a breakfast of kaya toast and egg, while I just ate leftover kuih and other local delicacies. Oh, and I had to buy a couple of slices of kuih lapis from Bengawan Solo! A couple of Qantas flight attendants drank coffee at an adjacent table.

Eventually it was time to go to the gate. There was a large queue in front of the lounge as the passengers waited to pass through the security gate. I thought I saw Mr Qantas Safety Video, their chief pilot walk past, perhaps having flown the A380 across.

Meanwhile, as the queue for security was rapidly shrinking, B was stuck in the queue for the ladies room and was taking ages to return. Beside me, an older Australian woman was getting frantic at her husband’s tardiness in returning. There did not appear to be a sufficient number of toilets in this part of the airport.

We finally entered the lounge. Through the gate windows I could see the massive A380 being restocked and loaded. It was Qantas’ third aircraft of the class, the Paul McGinness, a surname with bad connotations for me and my work colleagues.









Besides it a Qantas A330 was almost ready to depart, probably for Perth.



I watched as a JAL 743 was towed along the tarmac, panels missing from its tail.






Cultural and religious insult! Visa denied!



08/SEP/2009
CARRIER: Qantas
FLIGHT: QF32
SECTOR: SIN - SYD
CLASS: Y
ETD: 09:40 (local)
ETA: 19:05 (local)
AIRCRAFT: Airbus Industrie A380-800
SEAT: 72K

While I was plane spotting one of the Qantas staff came and collected the stroller off B. Then it was time for the first class passengers and those with young families to board, meaning us. What would you know, we were back in the green section again! In fact, I think it was the same seat as my first A380 flight, just on the opposite side. I’ve come to think the green seats are the most attractive of the three colours anyway, so I wasn’t really complaining. I would prefer to be sitting a bit further forward though... maybe at the front of the aircraft in one of those nice suites (and who wouldn’t?). J











From telephone conversations with their booking staff I know that Qantas attempt to give families with infants an empty row. We had nobody sitting in the aisle seat in our set of three, just me at the window, B in the middle and Alex on our laps. He was too small to use a full seat.



While we kept Alex distracted this time I made certain that I wouldn’t have to put up with the Wiggles while watching the tailcam or flight map by straight away selecting a playlist of classical music. C’mon Qantas, get some real soundtracks, not Saturday Night Fever!

We were delayed leaving the gate due to some “engineering issues”. Apparently, some “things” needed to be reset from the inbound flight and the paperwork signed off. Though we were over half an hour late, the captain announced that we should hopefully be able to make up time with good tailwinds over Australia. Great, I thought sarcastically, a bumpy ride.




The strokable carbon fibre weave of our seats







Finally, we left the gate and began our taxi to the runway. Alex fell asleep while we were on our way, and I mainly watched us move on the tail camera view due my view being largely obstructed by the giant wing. Ravel’s Bolero took us to the runway, then we lifted slowly into the air to Vaughn Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, sedate music that felt so appropriate for our gentle ascent.























There were a few small bumps as we entered Singapore’s overcast sky, quickly crossing over the coastline and up above the cloud layer, but beneath the silvery wisps of high cirrus.















The crew brought around hot towels, then, with my view obscured by the wing and Alex asleep, I decided to watch a movie. B was already lost in movieland. Flights are good times for watching movies that don’t stretch the intellect and for those that you kind of want to watch, but don’t want to pay for. I’d heard bad things about Terminator: Salvation and they are all true. But it took me almost the whole flight to watch it. While B fit in two and a half movies, I had to ask her to give me some time to finish off the last 15 minutes of mine.





Being able to pause a movie allowed me to take a look outside when the islands of Indonesia provided some visual interest below. The Qantas system remembers where you stopped even though you watch other programs in between.











Lunch was provided at midday, Singapore time. Unlike all my other recent flights with Qantas there were no printed menus on this leg. Instead, the menu was available on the IFE, which had the added benefit of seeing what you were missing out on in the higher classes.







B had the last Beef Gulai (Beef Rendang with steamed rice and vegetables) in the aircraft, while I had the Fish with Chilli and Egg Sauce with Noodles and Greens. These were served with a marinated cucumber salad, bread roll and chocolate. I liked the soft noodles.





Soon afterwards, the Crunch ice creams were passed around, and it didn’t seem much of a pause until the Cadbury hot chocolate drinks were served. I tried some of B’s peppermint tea and found it quite agreeable.



Later in the flight we were handed some quality chocolate and cherry biscuits, then some chocolate and hazelnut bikkies near the end, thus completing the chocoholic flight.



We weren’t handed Alex’s infant meal until near the end of the flight, but that was okay as we had brought our own jars. The infant meals are far too generous, but that must be because some infants are picky. It gave us a nice stash for future use.

There were also banana and frequent water runs done by the crew, though we didn’t take any fruit.

We cruised over the blue ocean between Indonesia and the Western Coast of Australia. I had checked the turbulence forecast maps before departure and was expecting turbulence over the Australian continent once we entered the jetstream. The ocean regions seemed clear. Yet we experienced a bit of chop, though nothing too bad.





After a couple of hours of visually uninteresting blue the arrival over the Australian landscape provided a complete contrast. The ships waiting to carry Australian dirt across the world provided the first clue that we were about to cross the coast. Then we left the blue and crossed into the red.







Saltpans added the occasional splash of white to the barren brown and red lands, but for most of the time the scenery was about textures, not palettes. A lack of towns in the Australian interior meant that the flight map was little assistance in determining our location as we swept in an arc across the Western and South Australian states. Despite the jetstream, the flight across the interior was smooth.



















With the fading of the day the air took on a hazy appearance. The scenery outside was reminiscent of the photographs I had taken on a 2005 flight from Sydney to Singapore. I had difficultly convincing myself that we were flying home, not outbound on a European adventure. I had no wish for this holiday to end!

















I made a quick trip to the toilets at the rear of the aircraft to change Alex’s nappy. Amazingly it was only wet and not particularly so. He lasted the entire flight with one marginally wet nappy. Amazing, again compared to our last trip.

The short and unattractive “brown” economy section at the rear was partitioned off by curtains from our green section. There were a number of people standing around the rear exit door chatting.

About an hour before landing we were served our final meal, a bland chicken and mayonnaise roll with a side of fruit salad and orange juice. It’s probably the only time Qantas have let me down mealwise this year. There wasn’t even any salad in the roll!



The Sun disappeared, leaving a hazy brown, orange and purple sky which drifted to black. There was nothing to see outside, so we concentrated on our movies, on keeping a restless baby entertained. One of the cabin staff saw us and asked if we wanted a picture together. It was a nice gesture and I had forgotten that I really did want that shot. I really enjoyed the Qantas customer service on our flights. It was friendly, available and proactive.

















Our descent route into Sydney airport took us south across the Royal National Park, then north towards the runway. The IFE switched so that you could only view the flight map or tail camera. I hadn’t seen this locking on my previous two flights and my system got stuck on the flight map with no option to change. I set B’s to tail camera (she could swap views) and watched our computer game descent on her screen, and the passenger in front of me.





The landing was a little hard. We were warned, as we taxied to the gate, that we would have to wait for Quarantine officials to board the aircraft and that we must stay seated.







When we got to the gate the lights went out, the airconditioning stopped and the IFE screens blanked. The captain announced that the APU had failed and we had to wait for power to be connected from groundside! It appears that the Paul McGinness is a troubled member of the fleet.



We waited a little while, then the lights reappeared and the IFE systems rebooted. The Qantas A380 uses a Panasonic system running on Red Hat Linux with an Intel processor.



Then we waited for Quarantine to board and check a sick passenger. Eventually it was our turn to exit.

Immigration was no hassle and our bags arrived quickly on the belt. However, we had to collect the stroller from the oversized and fragile baggage area after a very long wait. It was the most inconvenient stroller experience of any of the airports we had flown through.

The quarantine inspection proved interesting. We had declared some salted fish that B bought in Kuantan. However, the rules have changed and the fish could only be brought into Australia sans guts (no problem with our fish) and heads (uh oh). It was fortunate that it was late in the evening and the queues were short. It was also fortunate that the quarantine officer had a blocked nose (unlike his colleague), because he allowed us to open the packet of the very, very smelly fish, and, using my pocket knife, cut the heads off the fish.

The officer made it clear that normally we wouldn’t be allowed to do this. It must have been Alex’s cute face that won him over – and we were being very polite as well. When I smelled the fish I wish that he had made us throw it away – I don’t eat it. The stench was awful. Thankfully most of it was going to the mother-in-law.

It was late, so we splurged on a taxi with a baby seat to take us home, unable to face the effort of public transport. While it was good to be back in our own house, I struggled to accept that the holiday was over. I think it was the same for baby Alex, as he didn’t return to his pre-holiday sleeping patterns for over two weeks.

Would I recommend travelling with a baby? Absolutely! Alex was pretty well behaved on the flights. More than that, it was spending time with him that was really worth it. He may have curtailed a little of our travel freedom (not much!), but that was more than made up for. What did he get out of the trip, apart from more time with daddy? Exposure to new foods, smells, language and faces. By the end of the trip he was moving around more and chattering more complex babble. Maybe it would have happened anyway, but I like to think he was stimulated by his experiences.

Normally after a long flight I would want a break from flying, that night I could have hoped straight back on a plane and continued a journey. I’ve been on 35 minute flights over the past couple of years where I was ready to swear off flying, but I enjoyed each and every one of my flights on this trip. Qantas, Jetstar Asia, Malaysia Airlines and FireFly all did a fantastic job.

So now I’ve flown three times on the Qantas A380 and thrice on their 744. Which do I prefer? The truth is that I cannot decide. The A380 is definitely more comfortable and has superior IFE, but the 744 has an indefinable “something”. I’m sad to see it disappearing from airlines’ fleets.

Full details of this trip can be seen on my travel blog and photo album

You can also view my other trip reports (not in any order) here.