Sun Sep 17, 2000 12:08 pm
SIN-PEN (Singapore Airlines)
5 December 1999
SQ194 –
Scheduled Departure 3.30pm
Scheduled Arrival 4.40pm
Flight Time 1h 10min
In fact, we were booked to fly on SQ192, which was operated by a Boeing 777-300 but instead, relegated to the later flight since we were not ready with the passports.
Anyway, we had 7 good hours to waste at the airport so I won’t bore you with too much detail. We first went for breakfast at Delifrance in Terminal 1. Later on, we went to the viewing gallery to look at planes. We saw a CX A330 land from Jakarta, a SilkAir F70 coming in from Padang and a couple of SIA 747-400s waiting to take off. After that, it was lunch at the food court located at the basement of T1.
After lunch, it was almost 1.30pm, so we went in with our boarding passes issued earlier. Today, we were allocated seats 46A/C/D/E on the aircraft. We went to the transit lounge and lazed in the chairs watching SilkAir’s 9V-SLB being pushed back from E1 as MI756 to Phuket. We also saw SIA’s 747 taking off to Hong Kong and another 777 taking off to Bangkok.
It was 2.45pm. We made our way to Gate E5 where a relatively clean Airbus 310-300 was waiting with its engines running (albeit idly). The aircraft was 9V-STA, delivered sometime in mid 1993 and was about 5 1/2 years when we took it. Boarding began at about 2.55pm for First/Club and passengers with children. We were still filling up the immigration forms and so could not board yet. At 3.01pm, economy passengers from rows 31-48 (whole cabin) were called. As we entered, friendly SIA F/As took over and ushered us to our seats. As I dug into the seat pocket, I saw someone’s boarding pass from the previous flight (SQ181 from BWN Brunei). Anyway, the aircraft looked relatively clean but the cabin walls were ageing, off white slightly. At 3.05pm, the hot towels came around and were collected 5 minutes later. Then the F/As came around with souvenirs and doors closed at 3.14pm. The cargo was still loading and we waited a while more as the ramp handlers closed the cargo door with a BIG bang. We were pushed back at 3.23pm and engines were started at abour 3.26pm. They played us the safety video and we taxied to Runway 20L for takeoff.
Takeoff started at 3.33pm and as the PW4152 revved up, the whole cabin started surging forward and wheels up at 3.34pm. Our flight time was estimated to be about 55 minutes today and 5 minutes into the flight, the captain gave an ETA of half past four. Anyway, I noticed how powerful the A310’s climb was when I looked at the angle of elevation over the southern coast of Singapore. We made a turn around as we passed FL100 and were soon flying on course to Penang, an island off Peninsular Malaysia. The meals were served and consisted on some yellow rice together with a large beancurd and omelette combo with four BIG prawns. I thoroughly enjoyed this meal and included were other essentials like a fruit platter, orange juice, plain water and an additional supplement of coke distributed by the F/As. Today, we got an SIA pouch with a compendium of 4 games and an SIA 777 1:426 plastic model.
The time seemed to pass very fast as we flew across the city of Kuala Lumpur at FL330. A few minutes later, we started our descent, which was quite steep and the spoilers came on quite a few times. Flaps were extended at FL080 and we could spot the hilly terrain around the Bayan Lepas Airport in Penang. We were landing on Runway 22 today and as we descended to around 1500ft, we had visual on runway and made a turnaround to align with it.
Obviously, the turnaround wasn’t very smooth and the captain seemed to have problems aligning with the runway. We came precariously close to the Seagate factory on landing and after bobbing up and down a few times, we touched down quite smoothly on Runway 22. No zigzagging down, just a straight course and thus, we taxied off runway 22 to gate 06 where we saw a Korean Air Cargo 747-200F. As we disembarked, we saw passengers waiting for SQ193, the return flight back to Singapore. According to the flight information display, our flight landed at 4.32pm, which makes for a flight time elapsed of about 58 minutes. Anyway, as we left the airport building, we saw EVA Air 767 taking off to Singapore, with its GE engines roaring out loud over the Malaysian skies.