Zizou From Australia, joined Oct 2000, 1526 posts, RR: 5 Posted (10 years 1 month 6 days 5 hours ago) and read 2470 times:
Well, I took this trip some 2 months ago, sorry for the delay. Well here goes....
I had taken a holiday to Sri Lanka and India for some r and r on December 10th for 2 months with 5 nights in Singapore stopover, so now it was time for me to go back home.
My route would take me Colombo - Kuala Lumpur - Singapore - Sydney.
Colombo - Kuala Lumpur Date of Departure: 3rd of February Flight: UL 312 Estimated Deprature time: 7.20am Estimated Arrival time: 12.45pm Actual Departure time: 7.25am
Actual Arrival time: 12.47 Flying time: 3hr 40min Aircraft: A330-200 Registration: 4R-ALA Seat: 7K
Got up early in the morning at about 2am, since I had some last minute packing to do. Anyway left home after saying good byes to my relatives at about 3.40am. With the roads practically deserted at this time of the day, made up for lost time fairly quickly and mad it to the airport at 4.15. Since the July attacks in Colombo ans September the 11th, security had gone up to unprecedented levels. Coupled with the early morning rush, it took almost an eternity to get through the mad rush. But finally after much patience finally go through to check in desks, with the time reading 5.35!!.
I tried without luck for an upgrade, but I managed to get the seat that I wanted 7K, just behind business class, with plenty of leg room. Anyway, having got through immigration it left me with about an hour before boarding time at 6.20.
Bandarnaike Airport isn't too flash, its got a few shops and a cafe and thats about it. The prices are quite cheap though, and you can come up with a bargain, just the selection isn't too vaired though. Anyway, out on the tarmac today was a Sri Lankan A340 (4R-ADA) leaving for Hong Kong via Bangkok, my aircraft (4R-ALA) and 2 other SriLankan A330s, one leaving for Male and the other for Trichy. Anyway time went by fairly quickly shopping around and soon enough the boarding call went out for UL 312 to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. By that time a SriLankan A320 had arrived from Chennai, a Royal Jordanian A310-300 from Amman and a Kuwait Airways A300-600 from Kuwait was taxing to its parking spot.
Well, at Bandarnaike Airport there is no airbridges, all boarding and disembarking is done via the stairs. So there I was waiting in the Boarding lounge for the bus to pull up. It seemes that the flight was pretty full today. When it did pull up, it was mad rush to the doors. Everyone pushed their way to the doors. So I decided to avoid being pushed around and bided my time, as slowly the crowd dispersed. Anyway, about 15 min or so later, I was on the bus heading towards the waiting aircraft. By now the morning light was starting to break out and it made for a beautiful view. Made my way up towards the plane, where I was met by a pretty SriLankan stewardess welcoming me with a friendly "Aybowan" (her other companion was much better looking and I kept an eye on her throughout the rest of the flight, he he!). I noticed that all the FA's had the old Air Lanka logo on their name tags, why is that? Anyway, found my seat an made my self comfortable and got to know my nighbour, who was going to Kuala Lumpur for business. He said he always flys SriLankan to KL, for he prefers it to Malaysian ( I found that suprising). Anyway looking out the window, 4R-ADA was also boarding on its way to HKG via BKG, it was leaving some 10 mins afterr us. Anyway, once all the checks had been made. With a jerk, we started to move. Once we got to the runway, we almost immediatley took off. I found the A330 engines (rolls royce) to be quite noisy compared to the EK 777-200s (that I had flown earlier), we used up almost the entire runway and then slowly lifted off the ground and then made our way to Malaysia.
The PTVs came into action, and that soon made time past fairly quickly. About a hour into our journey, breakfast was served. The options were, scrambled eggs with sausages, danish pastry and fruit yougurt with the other option being a traditional SriLankan fish curry with stringhoppers. I choose the egg option, and it was ok. My neighbour took the other option and he said it was excellent. (Unfortunatley, they took up the menus soon after, so I cant post what exactley the choices were). Maybe I should have taken that option, anyway next time perhaps.
The movies on the PTVs wernt that interesting, with Planet of the Apes, Bandits and an Indian Movie showing, I think it was Nayak (seen it already, very good). There is 20 video channels and 40 audio channels. Exactly the same as Emirates. Unfortunatley, there was no games, so I spent my time watching Parkinson interview David Beckham and his wife Victoria. Being a avid Arsenal fan, I absolultey detest Beckam and any other Man U player, but the interview was quite interesting. Soon the the turquoise waters and the scattered islands of Indonesia soon showed up. Within time we started our descent to Kuala Lumpur Airport (forgotten the name, Its very long I know that much). Anyway, touched down with out incident. Then started our very long taxi to the terminal, boy was it long. It took almost 5-10 mins to finally reach the terminal. During then, I saw the Saudi Arabian B747-300 that had its unfortunate mishap still there. The titles had been removed. Passed a Malaysian B747-400 (9M-MPB) taxying out to the runway. Parked next to a Malaysian A330 (9M-MKA) and a Malysian B777-200 (9M- MRF). From where I was I had a good vantage point of the runway.
About 1/2 of the passengers left, including my neighbour. Unfortunatley, they didn't let us out of the plane so I spent an hour watching the planes take off from the runway. During this time I saw 2 Malaysian B737-400s, a Thai A330-300, a Indian Airlines A320 and a Air India A310-300. Soon people started boarding for the short hop into Singapore. Soon the plane was packed. My new neighbour, was busy talking to his hot girlfriend, she was defintley a looker! across the aisle, so I didn't bother talking to him too much, I was busy staring at them instead! By the way the same crew was servicing this flight as well.
Kuala Lumpur - Singapore Date of Departure: 3rd of February Flight: UL 312 Estimated Deprature time: 13.35pm Estimated Arrival time: 14.35pm Actual Departure time: 13.31pm Actual Arrival time: 14.27pm Flying time: 55min Aircraft: A330-200 Registration: 4R-ALA Seat: 7K
Taxied out to the closest runway (the one that I could see). Takeoff was uneventful. The PTVs wern't turned on and a chicken sandwich and a kitkat as well as some juice was served. Soon we started our descent into Singapore and landed on the one parallel to terminal 1 (name?). There wern't too many planes at this time. An Emirates B777-300 to Melboune was boarding, A Thai A330-300 (HS-TEE). We parked next to the A330, and soon disembarked.
Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed SriLankan. They have improved in leaps and bounds since the Air Lanka days. They are more punctual than before, see my previous flight with them
I am running out of time a bit, so I will post the Emirates leg in the next following days. Stay tuned!
Gardermoen From Australia, joined Jul 1999, 1492 posts, RR: 1 Reply 2, posted (10 years 1 month 6 days 3 hours ago) and read 2286 times:
Hey, nice report Zizou. I think yours is the first Srilankan report.
Is the safety demo done manually or on video?
I take the FAs still wear the same green Air Lanka sari, right? I remember a while back the new management said they will get new uniforms, and also , I recall seeing ads in Time/Newsweek/Asiaweek (one of those) where they FAs were wearing a different, dark blue material. I wonder what ever happened there.
And do they still show the Paradise Boutique video demonstation on the big screen?
I have not flown them for a very long time.
Have you ever seen that programe Airport? They had one episode where at LHR, when they overbook flgihts they offer those willing to offload not only a flight the next day and accomodation for the night, but also a free return trip to Colombo valid for a year. What an incentive to take up! I think they are the only airline to do such a thing. After that, I have actually seen many people checking in at LHR asking about wanting to offload.
And what were the boarding passes ex CMB like? Hand written?? Logo??
Zizou From Australia, joined Oct 2000, 1526 posts, RR: 5 Reply 4, posted (10 years 1 month 5 days 20 hours ago) and read 2258 times:
Many thanks for the replies. Gardermoen, in answer to your questions, the saftey demo was done on video. Yes, the stewardess still wear the green saris with the Air Lanka logo on their name tags (why is that?). I think the green saris are great its very proffessional and gives a clear indication of our culture. I never did hear the dark blue sari story, would have loved to have seen it. I think it would have gone well with the turqoise interiors they have.
Yes they did show the paradise boutique video on the main screen as well as on the PTVs. They have some great gifts there at reasonable prices. No, I havent seen that particular Airport episode. I wish I had that happen to me, then I will go again these coming holidays. I do remember seeing an Airport episode where they had a special on the England cricket team that were flying to Colombo in business class aboard Srilankan for their series against Sri Lanka, this would have been in early 2001.
The boarding pass from Colombo I still have with me, and they are not hand written, the logo is the Sri Lankan and when entering the boarding gates, you slip it into a machine and then it spits out the teared bit. Like most modern airports now.
You should fly them now, they have improved immensley. They were always good, but now they are even better. If Colombo airport is refurbished a bit (still a 100 times better than Chennai though), aero bridges and all (there was talk of this happening soon), then he Srilankan experience will be that much better.
Gardermoen From Australia, joined Jul 1999, 1492 posts, RR: 1 Reply 5, posted (10 years 1 month 5 days 19 hours ago) and read 2231 times:
Thanks for the answers, Zizou. I would like to fly them again sometime and check it all out for myself.
That Airport episode with the UK Cricket Team was in the same series as the episode I mentioned, i think those epirodes were in consecutive weeks.
I have heard about CMB getting air bridges for REAL sometime soonish (there has been talks on this for years), and Im sure it will definetly make the whole experience hassle-free.
Btw, does Chennai have air bridges?
Mas777 From United Kingdom, joined Jul 1999, 2899 posts, RR: 8 Reply 8, posted (10 years 1 month ago) and read 2154 times:
Your first neighbour preferred UL to MH - interesting because MH does not even fly to CMB - so just as well as he couldn't even choose MH if he wanted to...
BarfBag From India, joined Mar 2001, 2029 posts, RR: 7 Reply 9, posted (10 years 4 weeks 1 day 6 hours ago) and read 2138 times:
Chennai doesn't have air bridges, just the busses and stairs like Colombo.
Wrong. MAA has jetbridges in the Anna international terminal. I have used them on multiple instances, travelling on IC, LH and SQ. There are roughly 4-6 gates at MAA with jetbridges.
OdiE From United States of America, joined Jan 2001, 1641 posts, RR: 1 Reply 12, posted (10 years 4 weeks 20 hours ago) and read 2111 times:
MAS will fly to Colombo very soon, in August if I am not mistaken. They will fly the following route:
Kuala Lumpur-Male-Colombo-Kuala Lumpur
It will be operated by A330 every Mondays and Saturdays.
Ryanair!!! From Singapore, joined Mar 2002, 4608 posts, RR: 30 Reply 15, posted (10 years 3 weeks 3 days 3 hours ago) and read 2078 times:
By the way... there are two runways parallel to one another in Changi. If you are looking at the airport from the south, its Runway 02, due to its rough heading of 20 deg. Since there are 2 runways, the one of the left is known as Runway 02L (Lima), and the one on the right is known as Runway 02R (Romeo).
Position yourself north and looking towards Changi from Johor... Once again, the heading has changed to roughly 200 deg ( 20 deg + 180 deg). Thus, the runway is now known as Runway 20. The one on the left (previously 02R) is now known as 20L. And the one on the right (previously 02L), is now known as 20R.
Confused yet? Hehehehe...
If you noticed, most of the airports in South East Asia has their runways on a north/south heading due to the prevailing NE/SW monsoon. By building the runways in these directions, reduces the risk of crosswind interfering with an a/c on approach. Look at KUL, BKK, HKG, TPE, JKT, HKT, KCH, BKI... see a pattern?
Airports with many runways heading in all directions eg. Chicago, Sydney, La Guardia, JFK, LAX, ... just to name a few, has seasonal winds coming from all directions. Hence, the need for runways built heading not only north/south, but east/west as well. Take San Francisco for example, cold winds from the north frequently clash with the warm southerly winds thus, not only fog is the end result, but creating complex wind patterns in the region as well, emphasising the need to perpendicular runways. Aren't you glad we live in Singapore??
"The runway parallel to Terminal 1", fyi there are 2 runways which are parallel to Terminal 1. That is the advantage abt T1. T2 has rwy 02R/20L and T3 has 02L/20R.
Hope I enlightened your confusion about which runway you landed on...
Welcome to my starry one world alliance, a team in the sky!
Ryanair!!! From Singapore, joined Mar 2002, 4608 posts, RR: 30 Reply 16, posted (10 years 3 weeks 3 days 3 hours ago) and read 2075 times:
Zizou,
I have attached a pic of the airport, a view from the north towards the south. You can see the parallel runways at the left and right edges of the pic.
Zizou From Australia, joined Oct 2000, 1526 posts, RR: 5 Reply 17, posted (10 years 3 weeks 1 day 10 hours ago) and read 2050 times:
Thanks Ryanair. After while, it makes sense to me. About the KLIA name, I was under the impression that the Malay name was the one that was used. Thats why I said "long name". Thanks for clearing that up for me.
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