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aditya466 · Member Joined: 17 Dec 2014 Posts: 9

Hi!
This is my first post here, so I'll give a small introduction about myself.
I am Aditya, and I have lived in Sri Lanka all my life. I have loved aviation all my life, however, my interest in commercial aviation is very recent, and actually was accelerated by Jishnu. In fact, he convinced me to start writing TRs.I can trace my love for aviation to my father, who also is interested in aviation. My father travels a lot and flies almost every 2 months in J class. I have flown quite a bit, but not as much as I would like Laughing

. Some of the journeys I have done are:

Colombo-Singapore-Sydney-Melbourne-Hong Kong-Singapore-Colombo in J class on a combination of Sri Lankan and Qantas

Colombo-Kuala Lumpur-Colombo in Y class on Sri Lankan

Colombo-Delhi-Colombo once or twice a year in J and Y class on 9W or UL.

I would love to elaborate on my journeys, but this TR is for the CMB-SIN-CMB
Cool

.

Introduction

This trip was organised on a very short notice. I had to rush my visa application, and it indeed is a wonder that I am writing this TR. The plan was to depart Colombo on EK348 on Y class on the 19th of December with my friend who lives in Singapore. I submitted my application for the visa on the 15th, fully expecting the visa to take at least 5 days to process. Therefore I booked EK348 on the 20th in Y class and the return, EK349 on J class on the 25th, one day before my birthday on the 26th! I primarily chose EK because they are the only airline which has flatbed on the CMB-SIN route, other than SQ, which was outrageously expensive It was a miracle that I received my visa on the 18th, confirming my departure on the 20th. The plan was to arrive in Singapore and get picked up by my friend, who happens to own an apartment here. We would then visit the National University of Singapore along with Nanyang, along with general sightseeing.

The Departure

EK348 was due to depart CMB by 14:45 for its Singapore Leg. I woke up rather early at 08:00 and double checked if the seat I had chosen had a companion. I chose 48A( Jishnu's advice again Laughing

) and sacrificed an amazing seat by the wing for some privacy, which 48A offered, as there was nobody next to me. Note, this part of the plane has a 2-4-2 configuration due to the curvature of the plane. I wasn't particularly thrilled about EK's Y class and consider it inhumane and almost criminal to do a 3-4-3 in Y class and 2-3-2 in J.

I arrived at the Bandaranaike Airport at 12:00 and went through the quick security and was done with check-in and immigration in 15 minutes, which included me trying to negotiate a failed upgrade to J Laughing

.
I did some Duty-Free shopping and went straight to the Palm Strip for some spotting. Please excuse the quality of the photos, as I used my phone.

EK's Boarding Pass

A very ugly Mihin!

4R-ALD which came in from Frankfurt

British Airways B777 from Male. I missed the landing because I was too busy eating my food. Cool

SriLankan's OneWorld livery A330-200 just came in from London.

This is the only UL flight which I was not able to track, because Flightradar24 was having some issues. Unfortunately, I could not identify the the city of origin nor the flight number:(

This is probably the best shot I could take.

Jishnu informed me that my ride for the day was A6-EGM, and it was slightly delayed. About 20 minutes later, I got a notification on my phone from the Emirates app saying my gate had opened. I walked to gate 9 where a line had already built up, when I saw my ride for the day. I never even saw it landing!

A6-EGM

I killed time at the gate by calling my friend. Meanwhile I noticed that the boarding is going to be very late. In fact, boarding began at 14:45, our supposed time of departure. Nevertheless, boarding was quick and was in its usual 'Asian' fashion, all the people rushing to board with no proper line. The staff managed it very well and announced F,J and Skywards Gold and Silver to board first, followed by C class, which I was. As I walked to my seat, my expectations were further reduced. The narrow seats, and crowded plane was very unpleasant. To make thing worse, 3 infants were in the middle seats with their parents.

Moderate legroom

View from the seat.

ICE Widescreen. Excellent selection of movies and music. They even had Nirvana and Metallica!

We started pushback at about 15:05 , 20 minutes behind schedule. During taxi, I managed to spot a Turkish A333 land. Takeoff was smooth and quick, but thats where the good stuff ends.

Soon after takeoff, we headed into the thick rain clouds, and turbulence immediately began. We crossed 25000ft, but the seatbelt sign was still on. To make things worse, the lady in front of me reclined her seat fully, and the babies on the other seats started crying.
Evil or Very Mad

Soon, menus were distributed, about one hour into the flight, and they looked okay. I went with the Black Chicken Curry. First, it took 20 minutes the crew to begin serving lunch. Second, when the food trolley finally got to me, the stewardess told me she is not sure if the Black Chicken is available. Great! She handed me a tray which had my desert and the smoked chicken salad. The salad lacked salt, and was mediocre. After about 20 minutes, the same stewardess showed up with my chicken curry! Yay! I tucked in. The curry also lacked salt. Confused

The chocolate cake was the best part of the meal. The meal filled my stomach, but was very mediocre in taste.

The menu

The Food

The turbulence was very bad during the flight. As we passed over Malacca, it got worse. In fact, as the drinks trolley was approaching my seat, we hit a bad surge of turbulence. The Stewardess had to grab a seat to stop herself from falling over, and the drinks trolley toppled onto a seat. This was the worse case of turbulence I have ever been in. To calm myself, I ordered a can of Pepsi, where the Indian man behind me had other ideas. In a few moments, I had a very loud, drunk, Indian guy behind me who wouldn't shut up. I was having one of the worst flights of my life!

Fortunately, I managed to take some photographs of the view.

The evening sky

The descent

The descent began very early, and it was a very gradual descent. The only positive feedback I have about this flight is that this was the first time my ears did not pop during descent. When we descended below 15000ft and cleared the clouds, the turbulence completely disappeared. I saw a very beautiful Singapore and lots of ships. The landing was very, very smooth and we had a quick taxi to the terminal, where I cleared Immigration, customs, and baggage collection in 15 minutes.

This was the end of my flight, EK348 to Singapore. If I had to rate this flight, I would give it 5.5/10 Cool

Just Included some photos of Singapore.

The apartments where I was staying

The NUS campus

This concludes my first TR. I will post my second TR of my return flight, EK349 in J class very soon! I would also like to to thank Jishnu for providing 90% of the spotting information, and for introducing me to the world of TR's and commercial aviation!

jbalonso777 · Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2014 10:33 pm Post subject:

Aditya bro! First of all, welcome aboard! I'm sure you'll have a great time over here, its a fun forum and very informative! Trust me I've learnt so much about aviation right here, its unbelievable.

I don't know how long you've told me that you'll write a TR - ever since my Hong Kong trip you've been telling me! And I'm glad to read such a unique one from your, its just your first one! Speaking of which, thanks for all the comments you've given me for my TRs Smile

Wow, so many mentions of me! I am truly honored Very Happy

Really, I never knew you weren't into commercial aviation before I brought you in to it! So I guess its one all then - I brought you into commercial aviation, you brought me Megadeth Wink

Plenty of parallel's I can draw from my first SIN trip alone

pradeep777 · Member Joined: 21 Nov 2014 Posts: 57 Location: Mangalore

Great first TR Aditya(Surely much much better than my 1st report Very Happy

)
As always emirates are the best when it comes to food.
Wish u had clickd the black bean curry. Very Happy

They do give upgrades if ur travelling alone.(I was bumped from Y to J free of cost once)
Overall a wonderful TR.
Waiting eagerly for ur J class review. Smile

sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

Dear Aditya, thanks for a very well-written trip report! You make our mouths water: you have done some rather exotic segments, can you please take time out and write TRs regularly for us? Belive me, this is one part of this forum that always has interested and excited TR readers and writers, and we all appreciate good work!
I start with many happy returns of the day!
Those pictures from the Palm strip are very nice: especially the A332 sandwiched between the no-smoking and the no-videography signs. Are there explicit no-photography, no-videography signs still there at CMB? Given Jisnhu's wonderful photo-journalism essays (as a prominent member of the forum has put it in an apt manner), we perhaps forget about these things.
I'm sorry to hear of your turbulence experience: it is never pleasant, more so with nice things in one's tummy. The EK food part seems to have gone down a bit. Yes, the carbonated drink part was nice: it seems to help a bit, but your neighbours weren't exactly nice. Thanks for some nice Singapore pictures: NUS is a place I haven't been to, I've seen around NTU a bit.
We eagerly await the next part, and many more to come!
Cheers, Sumantra.

jbalonso777 · Posted: Thu Dec 25, 2014 11:50 am Post subject:

sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

aditya466 · Member Joined: 17 Dec 2014 Posts: 9

aditya466 · Member Joined: 17 Dec 2014 Posts: 9

aditya466 · Member Joined: 17 Dec 2014 Posts: 9

Dear Sumantra Sir. I have been told you are a very well respected member of the forum.

sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

ameya · Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2014 1:26 pm Post subject:

Welcome on the group Aditya. Jishnu is getting family and friends to write TRs! Good going !

Thanks for the wonderful TR.. enjoyed the pics pre boarding and the description of the journey!

Did the crew change at CMB ? I am guessing it would be a DXB-CMB – stay, CMB-SIN-CMB – stay, CMB-DXB rotation for the crew of DXB-CMB-SIN – stay and back same way or direct.

Looking forward to the next part 
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