kann123air From United States of America, joined Jun 2009, 333 posts, RR: 0 Posted (10 months 2 weeks 3 days 4 hours ago) and read 10656 times:
Hi everyone!
From the time I booked this trip (10 months ago), I had been drooling at this reservation every day because of all the new firsts for me. Here is my trip to India, starting at Fort Smith Regional Airport in Ft. Smith, Arkansas.
(If there are any pictures in this report that look airliners.net quality, please let me know!)
We (me, my dad, and my mom) had not been to India in 5 years, so we were craving to go back and see family and friends. I was determined to fly the A380, since the last time we went there it was not in service yet. So, on orbitz I had to select "multi-city", and route us FSM-SIN-MAA-FSM. This pulled up VS 7317, which is SQ #317 from LHR to SIN. I booked it immediately, and ever since I have been waiting for the day of departure.....June 1st, 2012.
Friday, June 1st, 2012
American Eagle #3232
FSM-DFW
Embrear ERJ-145
2:10-3:10 p.m. (scheduled)
Seat 7C
We arrived at the airport at noon with plenty of time to spare. I killed some time taking pictures of the check-in counters and aircraft models:
We then proceeded to the security checkpoint, and went into the secure area. I then checked our aircraft's progress on flightaware, since the aircraft we were going to fly on should have been on it's way from DFW already. Flightaware said it was delayed at DFW, and that's when I started to worry. We only had a 90 minute connection in DFW to catch AA #50 to LHR, and more of a delay and we would miss that. So we waited. And waited. A person sitting next to us called AA to see what was going on, since no-one had made an announcement at the airport that the flight was delayed. (He was nervous too, since he and his family had a tight connection in DFW before going on AA #48 to CDG). We heard him say, "so the crew hasn't showed up yet?" That is when we realized we would not make the connection, and my dad called AA. The agent routed us through BA #192, which was leaving for LHR an hour after AA #50 was scheduled to leave. I was thrilled, since I though my last 744 flight in 2007 would have been my last, since they are getting rarer and rarer.
A C-130 roaring by:
Finally, our ERJ left DFW, and arrived 40 minutes later:
Before getting on:
Good view:
Our cute little ATC:
Our terminal taken during takeoff:
Drinks were served, and a few minutes later we were over Celina, Texas:
On final:
AA 738 taking off as we landed:
What airline is this? (Sorry for the terrible quality)
Terminal E with a couple of DLs
Seeing my first Virgin America
AA 738 after arriving from SNA:
General Aviation, with Terminal D in the background and a QF 744
LH 333, BA 744 (my plane!), and QF 744
AA 752 heading to LAX, and later tonight, Lihue:
More shots:
That was my former plane, AA #50 to LHR:
Skylink peeking out:
Bye N642AE!
Walking through Terminal D
Friday, June 1st, 2012
British Airways #192
DFW-LHR
Boeing 747-436
5:30 p.m.-8:50 a.m. (scheduled)
Seat 48K
Here's our gate!
Me with the monster G-CIVD:
I think he'll win in a staring contest.....
Sun Country to MSP:
That's us!
Boarding:
My entertainment for the next 9 hours:
View from our seat:
Taxiing:
Komen ERJ:
I'd love to see the view the captain of this CR7 had of us!
Waiting for this Maddog to vacate the runway:
DHL 767 during takeoff:
After doing a 180 degree turn, we got a spectacular view of DFW:
Heading towards LHR!
Good legroom:
Soon after reaching our cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, dinner was served. I chose the Chicken Curry:
Killed some time after dinner with some family guy :-P
Let's see where we are:
Took a nap, and woke up to see that we had left North America:
A few hours later, during sunrise:
Hello, what's this?
A Delta 763!
I rushed to the back of the aircraft to catch more shots of him through the emergency exit window. A 7 year old British boy was waiting in line for the lavatory, and I tapped him on the shoulder and said "look!". In an awesome British accent he said "Wow! That's so cool!" The expression on his face was priceless!
About an hour later we started to descend:
On final:
Seeing my first ever A380s:
UA 767:
A few other pictures:
A poster in the train that we took from T5 to T3:
San Juan De La Pina EC-ILR after arriving from Barajas:
First time seeing the BA OneWorld 744:
Inside T3 now, SQ 317 is on time!
Next stop: Nairobi!
What 744 is this?
First time seeing a SQ A380.....wait.....that's my plane!
That's our gate!
Gulf Air A330 to Manama, Bahrain:
C-FIVR, just after coming in from Calgary, crossing the pond again and then some for Vancouver.
First time seeing a DL 764:
The A380 is so big that the nose itself is as big as an Aeroflot A320
Virgin A340 also heading to Vancouver:
We are flying 9V-SKA, the first commercial A380:
Boarding!:
View from 75K (upper deck!)
My seat:
Taxiing now....I think we are in London, what do you think?
MEA A330 heading to Beirut:
YES! I wanted to see this little guy so badly!
OneWorld buddies!
Ethiopian from Addis Ababa:
Taking off while this UA 777 waits:
Notice the Pink DL 767
Crossing the channel:
A few minutes after takeoff, lunch is served by the Singapore Girl:
I chose the Wok Fried Chicken. The other options were Shepard's Pie, and Indian Prawn Curry:
The Ice Cream for dessert which was.......ok
I ran up and down these a few times to burn off those calories.....just kidding!
KrisWorld!
About 90 minutes later, savoury sandwiches were passed out:
Bathrooms were awesome, with fresh flowers:
Over the Black Sea now:
Night time already?
Yep.
Killed some time with some Despicable Me:
While my parents were snoring away, I decided to walk around and explore the mammoth. The Singapore Girl took this picture: (apparently she wasn't used to DSLRs, because she held the button down for about 10 seconds before I had to tell her to stop I went back and deleted about 19 copies of that picture.
Already over India! No! Time goes so fast when you're having fun! By the way, we were flying over our final destination.
Later the Singapore Girl and I got into a conversation at the back of the aircraft. She asked our final destination, and I said Chennai, India. She asked me why I flew through SIN then, if I could have flown directly LHR-SIN, and I told her I did this just to fly the A380 and experience SQ hospitality. She then left, and returned with a bag full of SQ paraphernalia--three decks of cards, extra Givenchy amenity kits, socks, SQ postcards advertising their IAH-DME-SIN service, and many other neat stuff! I thanked her profusely and went back to my seat.
Almost breakfast time, what shall I have?
I chose the noodles, and it didn't disappoint!
After breakfast I had a picture taken with the Singapore Girl!
And we soon were approaching SIN.
Touchdown Arkansas! Oh...sorry....I meant touchdown of our A380.
And I was planning to go to Changi Beach Park to take pictures......I think it's impossible in this weather!
Bye 9V-SKA! Thanks!
The immigration hall:
Wow....now I know why Changi is considered one of the best airports in the world:
I decided to try out the beach park anyway. Here's the cab we took there:
Here are many pictures from the beach park. Again, if any look airliners.net quality, please feel free to tell me!
Oops! Almost stepped on these guys while shooting!
Bye bye beach park!
We then decided to go back to SIN. During the drive back:
Changi Airport's famous display board:
We then went to the Terminal 1 viewing deck:
kann123air From United States of America, joined Jun 2009, 333 posts, RR: 0 Reply 1, posted (10 months 2 weeks 3 days 3 hours ago) and read 10420 times:
Continuing with Singapore Terminal 1 pictures:
Changi's famous flight status board:
That's our flight to Chennai!
Checking in:
Soon after passing into the secure area, we saw Scoot! I was hoping to see this guy so badly!
The coy pond:
Departing next to our gate:
I wish I could spend the night here!
That's our plane!
Soon after boarding, smoke started to come out of the vents. Just kidding! It is humidifying the aircraft.
Our gate soon after pushing back. We started pushing back before half the people had taken their seat, and were still struggling to put their bags in the overhead compartments.....sigh, typical Air India!
Changi's ATC:
LH 779, my first LH A380, heading to FRA.
Bye Changi Airport! I'll miss you!
Soon after takeoff. Bye Singapore!
And soon after taking that picture, I was out like a light. I barely remember eating dinner. The next thing I remembered was the BANG of landing in MAA.
Kamaraj Domestic Terminal
After disembarking, we got a great view of VT-ESE, our plane.
An overview of Anna International Terminal:
I tried to get a good picture of the Thai A330 parked.....didn't work out to well.
9W 226 a few minutes before leaving on the MAA-BRU-JFK route:
Another view of Jet Airways 226:
The end!
Overall, the trip to India was awesome. The switch to the BA 744 was a nice surprise, and SQ service was, in one word, awesome. Thanks for reading, and, as always, comments are welcome!
p.s., next trip report is the return--MAA-AUH-ORD-XNA on Etihad!
ElPistolero From Canada, joined Feb 2012, 614 posts, RR: 2 Reply 2, posted (10 months 2 weeks 2 days 19 hours ago) and read 9738 times:
Great report. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Too bad you missed out the finer details on the AI flight - I was curious about their short/medium haul intl product.
Very cool about the amenity kits. Do you have a picture of them? And the deck of cards?
kann123air From United States of America, joined Jun 2009, 333 posts, RR: 0 Reply 4, posted (10 months 2 weeks 2 days 9 hours ago) and read 8993 times:
Quoting ElPistolero (Reply 2): Too bad you missed out the finer details on the AI flight
Yeah, I was out and in a deep sleep. However, my parents were awake, and they weren't too impressed. For example, we were sitting in row 16 seats A,B, and C. Sitting in 16 DEF was another family, with a 3 year old daughter. She was fine for a while, but soon she started throwing up. The parents searched for the vomit bag-there was none. It was good that my dad had a newspaper open, and gave it to her in the the nick of time.
The flight attendants didn't come even once, despite us pressing the flight attendant call button. Any other airline would have at least done something to help!
Also, when we reached MAA, we realized one of our bags were missing. We informed the AI baggage desk at the airport, and they said they would try to get it back. Two weeks later, they still hadn't got it back. My mom had to ask her brother, who knows the baggage manager for Air India at the airport. He called her, and in two days we got it back. It's sad that you need influence to get things done with AI!
kann123air From United States of America, joined Jun 2009, 333 posts, RR: 0 Reply 5, posted (10 months 2 weeks 2 days 6 hours ago) and read 8691 times:
Quoting ElPistolero (Reply 2): Do you have a picture of them? And the deck of cards?
Yep, here they are:
Here are a few postcards, two kits (which included the socks and a toothbrush, two sets of playing cards, two eyeshades, two pairs of ear plugs (as though you need them on the silent A380), an edition of SilverKris magazine, and a KrisWorld guide to entertainment. The rest are airline tags to fuel my personal hobby: Batavia Air, Malaysian, Royal Brunei, and Qatar.
Close up on the cards:
Close up on the kit:
Front of the postcard advertising the IAH-DME-SIN route:
Back of the postcard advertising the IAH-DME-SIN route:
emirates202 From United States of America, joined Nov 2011, 237 posts, RR: 0 Reply 6, posted (10 months 2 weeks 2 days 6 hours ago) and read 8668 times:
Yea, as kann123 said, their short haul product is not appealing at all. I used to fly AI before EK started flying to JFK, and the BOM-HYD flights were terrible. We lost our luggage every time except for twice! And that was flying once or twice a year in Business or first class! You need to know people at AI to get things done.
I'm curious to why you didn't fly Emirates though. You could have done DL: FSM-LGA/JFK, and then EK: JFK-DXB-MAA, and still try out the 380 on EK 202 from new York to Dubai. I suggest you try that next time!
Great tr and pics nonetheless!
kann123air From United States of America, joined Jun 2009, 333 posts, RR: 0 Reply 7, posted (10 months 2 weeks 2 days 2 hours ago) and read 8433 times:
Quoting emirates202 (Reply 6): I'm curious to why you didn't fly Emirates though.
Yeah, I guess I could have. I just plugged in the dates on orbitz and it gave me the SQ A380, which was I think about $200 less than the EK option. But, as you said, that would be awesome to try out next time. It also would be faster to get to India through that route.
I was forced to fly AI because orbitz gave it to me, but next time I'm going to avoid as much as I can and fly competitors such as Jet and IndiGo. I actually flew IndiGo MAA-CJB-DEL-CJB-MAA just a few days ago and I was VERY impressed. I'll have to write a report on that one, too.
planiac787 From India, joined May 2012, 217 posts, RR: 0 Reply 8, posted (10 months 2 weeks 2 days 2 hours ago) and read 8377 times:
Good Trip Report! I am sorry to hear about your baggage problem with air india.
I recently took a flight from Newark to New delhi on united. I tried hard convincing my father to book me on air india as I badly wanted to experience there product , but like a wise man he booked me on the united flight.. Believe it or not , on my date of departure , the pilot strike started and all international flights were cancelled. But I would really like to try there international service soon.
Here is the TR i wrote. Hope you like it Atl To Delhi Via Newark On United Airlines (by planiac787 Jun 15 2012 in Trip Reports)
Be the change you want to see in the world- M.K.Gandhi
kann123air From United States of America, joined Jun 2009, 333 posts, RR: 0 Reply 10, posted (10 months 2 weeks 2 days 2 hours ago) and read 8355 times:
Quoting planiac787 (Reply 8): but like a wise man he booked me on the united flight
ElPistolero From Canada, joined Feb 2012, 614 posts, RR: 2 Reply 11, posted (10 months 2 weeks 2 days ago) and read 8267 times:
Quoting kann123air (Reply 5): Here are a few postcards, two kits (which included the socks and a toothbrush, two sets of playing cards, two eyeshades, two pairs of ear plugs (as though you need them on the silent A380), an edition of SilverKris magazine, and a KrisWorld guide to entertainment. The rest are airline tags to fuel my personal hobby: Batavia Air, Malaysian, Royal Brunei, and Qatar.
kann123air From United States of America, joined Jun 2009, 333 posts, RR: 0 Reply 12, posted (10 months 2 weeks 1 day 9 hours ago) and read 7850 times:
debonair From Germany, joined Jan 2004, 2096 posts, RR: 4 Reply 15, posted (10 months 2 weeks 15 hours ago) and read 7452 times:
Quoting kann123air (Thread starter): . So, on orbitz I had to select "multi-city", and route us FSM-SIN-MAA-FSM. This pulled up VS 7317, which is SQ #317 from LHR to SIN.
Nice TR, just curios to know- you flew all these routes in once?! I mean, without layover (some nights in SIN)? How long took the journey in total from FSM to MAA airport?!
NorthstarBoy From United States of America, joined Jun 2005, 1713 posts, RR: 1 Reply 19, posted (10 months 1 week 6 days 18 hours ago) and read 6861 times:
Good job with the report and the interesting pictures. I'm also glad you had the chance to fly on the 744, you're right, they are slowly disappearing. Also cool that your parents allowed you to pick the routing. My mother would have taken one look at the notion of flying via singapore to get to India and said, "Find something else," unless it was the cheapest routing. Even then my parents still probably would have said "Isn't there a more direct routing then going via singapore?" So, it's nice that your parents gave you some latitude, i'd have gotten none from mine!
I could have elite status if I wanted it, but flying the same airline all the time is boring.
kann123air From United States of America, joined Jun 2009, 333 posts, RR: 0 Reply 20, posted (10 months 1 week 6 days 5 hours ago) and read 6625 times:
Quoting NorthstarBoy (Reply 19): Even then my parents still probably would have said "Isn't there a more direct routing then going via singapore?"
Haha, it helps that my dad is as obsessed as me in aviation!
reifel From Germany, joined Feb 2005, 1132 posts, RR: 1 Reply 23, posted (4 months 3 weeks 2 hours ago) and read 2750 times:
Thanks a lot for sharing!
Quoting kann123air (Thread starter):
We (me, my dad, and my mom) had not been to India in 5 years, so we were craving to go back and see family and friends. I was determined to fly the A380, since the last time we went there it was not in service yet. So, on orbitz I had to select "multi-city", and route us FSM-SIN-MAA-FSM. This pulled up VS 7317, which is SQ #317 from LHR to SIN. I booked it immediately, and ever since I have been waiting for the day of departure.....June 1st, 2012.
Wow this is an incredible itinerary. Was this all in one booking?
Quoting kann123air (Thread starter): We arrived at the airport at noon with plenty of time to spare. I killed some time taking pictures of the check-in counters and aircraft models:
I was wondering if AA was able to check your bag all the way to MAA and issue boarding passes as well? Or had you go to transit counters in basically every airport you have been? In the end you were traveling on different airlines on almost every segments, most of them not being even close to being in any common alliance etc...
kann123air From United States of America, joined Jun 2009, 333 posts, RR: 0 Reply 24, posted (4 months 2 weeks 5 days 7 hours ago) and read 2434 times:
Quoting anshuk (Reply 22): The plane you saw at LHR belongs to the Sultan of Brunei! Both this and the UAE Royal Family's 747 seem to be regular visitors at LHR.
Wow that's interesting! Thanks!
Quoting reifel (Reply 23): Wow this is an incredible itinerary. Was this all in one booking?
Yes it was!
Quoting reifel (Reply 23): I was wondering if AA was able to check your bag all the way to MAA and issue boarding passes as well? Or had you go to transit counters in basically every airport you have been? In the end you were traveling on different airlines on almost every segments, most of them not being even close to being in any common alliance etc...
Yes, AA checked all our bags to MAA. But, as you said, we had boarding passes all the way to SIN, but we had to get another set at SIN for the AI flight to MAA.
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