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PAL@YWG · Last edited by PAL@YWG on Tue Jan 28, 2014 3:25 am; edited 3 times in total

Introduction:
Ever since in my childhood I read “Around the world in eighty days” by Jules Verne, Phileas Fogg remained all these years in my head like a patch of fog. Isn’t it something to circle the globe at least once in one’s lifetime, I always thought! Achieving this at the early stage of your life is one thing; you are alone, you can backpack, you can survive on subsistence food so that you can be within your budget but when your travel plan has to take into consideration your family(with grown up kids attending school/University) who are traveling with you most of the times, going around the world become more and more a distant dream.

Suddenly an opportunity arose last fall when my family decided that they have to travel earlier (than my plan) and it so turned out that I can choose a routing independent of my family’s. Yeah! But on the surface I kept a pseudo sadness on my dealings at home, “Too bad that you guys are traveling separately!” or “I really don’t know how my routing is going to look like”. During quieter hours, I am busy thinking out of the box. And yes, my round the world dream suddenly started looking doable! I just need to do some planning or should I say Aeroplan-ing!

Serious Aeroplan-ing:

An avid Rewards point collector like me (like the ones who walk into the neighborhood grocery store and ask do "you take Gold Points card?") who would collect anything and everything (lost count how much points went stale or how many Loyalty cards just didn’t see their second year).

Aeroplan is one card that is in my wallet for last 15 years or so. I have seen it evolving. Just like most other airline-sponsored loyalty program, Aeroplan over the years become miser and stepped up charges in the name of fees on rewards tickets. For a YWG-YYZ-YWG, the so-called tax can be as high as $170!

So for my painfully collected 75,000+ Aeroplan miles, I wanted to stretch it as for as I could, or to put it simply, to go around the world! I didn’t want to pay high fees so some quick searches on Internet gave me a clear idea which airlines/Airports I should avoid. AC/LH topped the airlines avoidance list and LHR/FRA/Canadian Airports are airports to be avoided. Technically with 75,000 Aeroplan miles I can do a “Mini Round the world” where I can have one stop over and one turn around point (somewhere I read that if you call Aeroplan call centre, you can add an open jaw also) and I am allowed to cross both oceans if my routing demands that. Good enough. Let me get to work. Though I want to do a RTW, I had a few restrictions:

1. I am actually spending most of my vacation time in Calcutta (CCU), so my Asian turnaround point should be closer to CCU.
2. I wanted to avoid any country where I need a visa except India for which I already had a visa. I avoided China for that reason.
3. I wanted to fly on a new aircraft type. Out of new entrants I already flew B787 and SSJ100 is a distant dream on a star alliance network so I zeroed in on A380.

CCU being very poorly connected (no non-stop/direct) with Europe, I had to choose either BKK or SIN (SQ & TG are only 2 star alliance airlines fly CCU). KUL not being a Star alliance hub, turning around at KUL will cost me 90,000 miles. Since I have been to BKK before, I have chosen SIN as my turn around point. Next question is what will be my stopover in Europe? Berlin was top of my list but in December, I wanted some guarantee that I once I leave Winnipeg I will not see any snow anywhere. So, I discarded Ljubljana, my second preference, a quick search on weather networks gave me no assurance that there will be no snowy, gloomy day there (LJU, visit you some other time!). That left me with the other alternative, Athens. I should mention here that TXL, LJU & ATH were the only airports that were giving me a connection to a SQ388 (flight # SQ345) out of ZRH.

So the first part of the routing took shape like this: YWG- ORD- LHR- ATH- ZRH- SIN (ORD/LHR/ZRH being Transit airports). I am flying an old, fatigued UA 763ER (ORD- LHR), a swanky A321 of Aegean Airlines (LHR- ATH) and last but not the least a majestic SQ A380 (ZRH- SIN). There is quite a bit of backtracking (ATH-ZRH) but for an A380 ride I am ready to swim across Ionian Sea and scale Alps to reach Zurich if Aeroplan had told me ATH & ZRH is available only for an open-jaw option!

Now, how I come to CCU from SIN and go back to SIN to continue on my RTW? Toni Fernandez and his Air Asia came to my mind. His is a LCC, I should get a decently priced ticket, I told myself. A quick visit to super friendly AirAsia website got me SIN-DMK-CCU for CAD259 on Thai AirAsia(FD). Should I call it decently priced? Well it started like that but when you add some essential extras (seat selection, checked in baggage etc.), it came close to a SQ non-stop SIN-CCU pricing. But I said to myself “my money is going to Tony”. AirAsia is based out of KUL, I thought the ticket would be SIN-KUL-CCU but no, I got to go to old BKK (now DMK).

While in India, I had to go to DEL for a short day trip. Since it was a business trip, ticket was paid for and I had no say on picking the airline. It turned out to be Indigo on both sectors.

I wanted to spend couple of days in KUL on my way back, so I bought one more AirAsia ticket, this time mainline AirAsia (AK), CCU-KUL. For KUL-SIN there are plenty options, Intercity Train, Jetstar, Tiger, MAS, AirAsia- all offer very attractive pricing. Initially, I was inclined to take a train ride but at the last moment went for a Tiger Airways CAD53 late evening KUL-SIN flight.

Once you choose BKK/SIN/PVG/PEK/HKG and some other Chinese airports as your Asian turnaround point for your "mini RTW", Aeroplan search engine will offer flight over Pacific Ocean only to complete the trip routing. So, I got SIN- NRT- ORD- YWG (NRT & ORD being transit airports). Am I complaining? ORD- YWG is again a bit of backtracking but to avoid Canadian airports and its high airport taxes, I had very few options.

So when the dust settled down, I have the following routings:
YWG- ORD: ERJ145 Expressjet dba United Express
ORD- LHR: 763ER United Airlines
LHR- ATH: A321 Aegean Airlines
ATH- ZRH: A320 Swiss Airlines
ZRH- SIN: A388 Singapore Airlines
SIN- DMK: A320 Thai AirAsia
DMK- CCU: A320 Thai AirAsia
CCU- DEL: A320 Indigo
DEL- CCU: A320 Indigo
CCU- KUL: A320 AirAsia
KUL- SIN: A320 Tiger Airways
SIN- NRT: B772 United Airlines
NRT- ORD: B773ER All Nippon Airways
ORD- YWG: ERJ145 Expressjet dba United Express

Aeroplan tax amount was princely CAD424.46 and total air ticket cost was CAD902 (excluding CCU-DEL-CCU).

courtesy: Great Circle Mapper

Aegean/Swiss/Singapore/Thai AirAsia/AirAsia/Tiger/All Nippon – my first flight with them, so my “Airlines Flown” count now stands at 52. A388 is also got added to my “Aircraft type flown”, stands at 39.

Once ticketing done, I wanted to grab a upper deck seat for by ZRH-SIN sector. So I called SQ call centre, a friendly agent picked up the phone and readily assigned seat number 76E and noted my contact phone # and email address for any future communication while I am on road. Smart agent and they really sent me a text msg when I was in Athens that my SQ345 will be delayed by about 3 hours. Superior level of customer service just what one expects from SQ!

courtesy: Great Circle Mapper
Part 1 of this TR will cover the above flights

Date: December 6, 2013
YWG- ORD
Airline: ExpressJet dba United Express
Flight: UA5952
Equip: ERJ145
Seat#: 2A
Departs: 17:39
Arrives: 19:53

UA thru Expressjet connect YWG with DEN & ORD. As the date came closer, I was following flights between ORD and YWG on flightradar24 and noticed that most of them are chronically late and some of them are getting cancelled altogether. Not a good sign especially when I have only one hour in ORD to connect to my LHR flight. Over phone, I tried to change my flight to an earlier one but I was told no seats available. I left my workplace earlier than planned to try my luck at the airport for an earlier flight.

UA5928, the earlier flight to ORD was already running 90 minutes late and most of the passengers have already checked in. I ran to the counter and explained my situation (long journey and tight connections), the agent said “Sir, your flight is on time, but if you want to fly on UA5928, I have one seat left. Our same day change fee is CAD75 plus taxes”. I grabbed the seat, thank god I did! My original flight UA5952 was one and half hours late! That would have essentially killed my RTW trip before even it started! It would have still been a RTW, instead of World, it would have been Winnipeg Airport (Round-the-Winnipeg)! UA938 being last flight to LHR that night, missing that means loosing a day because next flight to LHR/FRA/MUC is only departing next day noon-ish…well I am not delving into this more…but I had a close shave!

United Check in counters

Other side of the Check in area..

Eastern perimeter of YWG

Few well appointed shops

Here is my ERJ arrives albeit late...

Not much actions at this hour

Embraer 145 is a regular feature on this route. This particular flight was full with lots of disgruntled passengers who will be missing connecting flights upon late arrival at ORD. Lone flight attendant was handling all these and his drinks cart.

My 2A seat allowed me to see some actions in the cockpit

Bye for now, Winterpeg Very Happy

Can't ask for more...

Inching towards ORD..

Sky was crystal clear with no turbulence our way, we landed at ORD.

Covering the distance before I reach the check in counter for ORD-LHR

Date: December 6, 2013
ORD- LHR
Airline: United Airlines
Flight: UA938
Equip: 767-300ER
Seat#: 30C
Departs: 21.00
Arrives: 11.05+1

The display board is showing the flight is on time. I was early so I roamed around.
Finally, check-in started for UA938. Passengers were asked to form a line and get their Passport/Visa checked separately. If all Ok, your Boarding pass will have a little rectangular stamp saying “Docs Ok”. One little observation; names of the passengers on waitlist and Upgrade availability was displayed near flight display monitor and once they were assigned seats a checkmark appeared near the names. Good. Passengers on this flight mostly connecting from different states of US and some are from Canada.

Check in finally started..

Here is the proof of the potential Trip killer UA5952 reaching ORD 90+ minutes late Shocked

This one will take me to LHR

I didn’t find out how old the aircraft was, didn’t bother. The PTV was 4”x3” (or 3”x2”?) I guess, try watch anything except Flight map is surely an effort in vein! It’s not only UA, AC has similar vintage aircrafts still plying between YYZ/YUL- FRA/MUC/LHR. Slowly may be they are getting transferred to new low-cost Rouge. But the bigger question is why these established airlines can’t get rid of these old tired aircrafts and replaces them with something newer, be it another 767-300ER? Is it an issue of “squeezing out the last few years of flying left in those aircrafts” or it’s a “difficulty in raising capital to acquire new Aircrafts” issue? And where the customer satisfaction stands in those equations?
How come airlines like AirAsia/Tiger/Aegean/Indigo (flown on this trip) and many more airlines on my previous trips regularly treated their customers with swanky new aircrafts offering better flight experience? These are new start ups (largely depend on entrepreneurs deep pocket or business skills) as against corporate behemoths like UA/AC’s of the world with so much history of buying/leasing aircrafts.

Can anything be uglier than this?

Dinner..

Breakfast..

We landed LHR 45 minutes earlier due to strong tailwind; I thought that’s considerable saving. But LHR at that point was experiencing a computer glitch, so Captain announced that we have no gate allotted and the saving of time will just get wasted by waiting inside the aircraft. Gradually we were allowed to disembark and bussed to the terminal gate. Being a transit passenger, I went thru one more round of security check.
The computer glitch led to Radar failure or vice versa, my LHR-ATH flight got delayed as almost all other flights did.

Mandela's death was still fresh- One of the 3 Great Ms (Mahatma, Martin Luther being other two) all of them espoused non violence...

Date: December 7, 2013
LHR- ATH
Airline: Aegean Airlines
Flight: A3 601
Equip: A 321
Seat#: 23B
Departs: 12.15
Arrives: 17.50

After about two hours delay finally gate was allotted for our flight and we all gathered to a ground level holding area that had no view of the apron at all. Passengers are predominantly Greek; most of them have huge shopping bags that most other airlines will not allow to be considered as cabin baggage. Anyway, none of the boarding agents asked any questions about them.
Olympic Airways was the flag carrier for Greece and nowadays I see almost no trace of them in airports around Europe. So I was curious to know what has happened to them and where do they fly nowadays. I got my answer when I was flying out of ATH on December 9th. A look at the FIDs and you get they answer. They are mostly flying intra-Greece and few longer destinations. So, Aegean is the new face of Greek aviation?

Didn’t know what to expect from this airline, since it’s part of Star Alliance, I thought it would be of some minimum standard. But I was pleasantly surprised once I boarded the plane, nice cabin décor, attentive flight attendants, great food with booze, 3-D flight map, no complaints! Just keep up the good work!

Just before we lifted off the ground...

Decent legroom

Certainly not bad...

I landed at ATH about an hour later than schedule and enquired about X95, the airport to city express bus. There were usual haggling between Taxi drivers and tourists but I did my research and went straight for the bus. The distance from Airport to city is about an hour and it costs 5 Euro one way. Driver spoke little English, he told me he might not be able to drop me to station where I want to get down because there may be a big protest getting organized tonight and roads may be closed. It reminded me of numerous Greek protests we watched on TV lately and I was not against the idea of having a closer look. But I realized my bag and backpack may not be the ideal body armour in case a fight breaks out Very Happy

As we got closer, bus driver told me that all Ok and he can drop us at syntagma square just about two minutes from my hotel.

A quick check in at the reception and next thing I remember that I woke up next day morning just in time for a la carte breakfast at the hotel and full day city tour.

Continued below..
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Tally Sheet:
41 Countries ||55 Aircraft types ||60 Airlines ||75 Airports

PAL@YWG · Posted: Mon Jan 27, 2014 1:54 am Post subject:

Few Pictures of Athens city and its surrounding areas

One of the many centuries old architecture that you expect to see in Athens

Empty roads on a Sunday

Makes me feel super happy that this is December and I see no snow
Very Happy

National guards in front of Parliament building

All kinds of second hand items are on sale...

My little knowledge of Cyrillic was of almost no help here

Where my Hotel was

Sun must be pretty strong during summer months...

Tough times for Greece, had a feeling that lot of people are un/under employed here

Very Interesting to see well trained dogs apparently without their owners (if they have any). I saw them crossing the street intersections when the light turned green Very Happy

Birth place of modern Olympics- we are expected to see athletes here

Nice view of the city from a vantage point

Nice little history here..an orthodox Christian priest (from Russia) who with his followers confronted and successfully repelled the advancing Ottoman army.

From the window of a waterfront restaurant where I had quick Fish & Chips lunch Very Happy

Botanical Garden in the heart of the city; not impressive

Last look at the majestic Aegean sea

Before going back to my hotel

Hope you enjoyed reading this part, next part will cover
ATH- ZRH-SIN-DMK-CCU

Comments are always welcome
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Tally Sheet:
41 Countries ||55 Aircraft types ||60 Airlines ||75 Airports

sri_bom · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 2365 Location: Singapore

Your query on why airlines still fly old planes, typically these would be Samir, A very great start to your RTW trip report, and I am glad that I could meet you in Singapore during your world tour.

Your query on why airlines still fly old planes, typically these would be owned aircrafts and on their books the depreciation value would be near zero. So flying them would only mean more profits but I am guessing from a fuel and maintenance perspective might me higher.

The state of Greece and other mighty European countries is a sad state of affairs. Once a prosperous nation, countries like Portugal, Italy, Spain and Greece now better known as PIGS have fallen apart. Hence I always tell my team who crib about higher pay rise to look at the brighter side. As being in Asia one is lucky as there are enough jobs if not plenty as compared to European countries where qualified people are now working as cashiers in Supermarket.

I am looking forward to the other interesting leg of your journey.

sabya99 · Posted: Mon Jan 27, 2014 9:24 pm Post subject:

It seems another set of nice photo journalism. Please keep posting and I will go on reading!
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Sabya99

Theairplaneguy4ever · Posted: Mon Jan 27, 2014 9:42 pm Post subject:

An absolute stunner of a trip report sir! The very first line sums up the longing of us travel hogs to experience new places.

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

Aeroplan-ing! Ha ha! Thanks for yet another of your characteristically unique reports!
Lovely introduction to set the tune for the rest of the report. You have almost bared your heart out this time, Mr. Pal, and something that some of us often like: travelling, solitude, and travelling in solitude. Your planning of course, is legendary. You had the reader with you at every step, every word, every line, often backtracking to check whether he/she had read the plot correctly, whether he/she was following the same line of thought as well. An optimisation problem, with numerous constraints to be satisfied. By the time I came to your planning for the South Asia part, I was also disappointed at not knowing you would be in my hometown, Delhi. Coming back to the TR, you have an awesome airliners and aircraft flown count! RTW with Winnipeg! Ha ha!
Your ORD-LHR flight: while the dinner seems to be fairly ok, breakfast looks very, very light, indeed. Thanks for those lovely images of Greece! You really have an ace up your sleeve in every report, Mr. Pal. I eagerly look forward to the other parts.
Cheers, Sumantra.

jasepl · Member Joined: 26 Jul 2008 Posts: 4257 Location: bund-bay

Your itinerary takes balls, I'll give you that!

And RTW and Wintrypeg! I love it!

Greece looks stunning, at least from afar.

By the way, the flight display screen says Montreal, QC. For some reason, I recall the abbreviation to be PQ (or did I hallucinate?)
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four years free of jetya punti!

PAL@YWG · Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 10:26 pm Post subject:

PAL@YWG · Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 10:31 pm Post subject:

PAL@YWG · Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 11:04 pm Post subject:

PAL@YWG · Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 11:35 pm Post subject:

PAL@YWG · Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 11:46 pm Post subject:

jbalonso777 · Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 11:09 am Post subject:

By Golly I can already sense what the next parts of this TR would feature! Very well written so far, sir! I'm glad you spent just that bit more and that saved the rest of your trip! I must say, food on Aegean looks good - or maybe its a longish flight, that's why.
Looking forward to the rest of the parts!

Regards
Jish

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

PAL@YWG · Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2014 1:45 am Post subject:

PAL@YWG · Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2014 1:51 am Post subject:

stealthpilot · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 2325 Location: BLR, DXB

Great TR. Took me a while to read it because it was so big (that's certainly not a complaint) ..... I kept putting it off but eventually got down to it Smile

Interesting planning this trip, I can imagine the effort which went into it. Wow.

Nice bit of info about Olympic Airways even I was wondering about them. They have a few 343s lying around ATH - they don't look like they've flown in a while.

Wonderful pictures from Athens, looking forward to the rest.
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eP007

PAL@YWG · Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 12:35 am Post subject: