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International on Jet Airways: Hong Kong! (2010)

 
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jbalonso777
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 3:00 am    Post subject: International on Jet Airways: Hong Kong! (2010) Reply with quote

Apologies for this unscheduled TR, but with all this ample time I had, I got it done!
On the back of CX TR, I would like to share this TR, featuring CX's home. I wasn't a TR writer back then, so the 2010 details are all remembered today in 2013. Apologies for no pictures whatsoever Sad

INTRODUCTION
It was a rather uneventful first three months of 2010. Not long before, I saw an advert of Kuoni – an educational trip to Orlando, Florida, the base of NASA. Obviously, aerospace being a keen interest in me, it was easy to persuade Dad in letting me go. And believe it or not, the answer was indeed a yes! My first trip abroad, all alone! This was an amazing feeling! We got in contact with the officials at Kuoni, and it looked all good. Obviously, I was interested in knowing the flight I was going to take. It turned out to be Continental Airlines’ 16 hour Boeing 777-200ER flight CO49 to Newark, and a transit from there to Orlando.
Imagine my feelings when it all came crashing down. A call came saying – ‘There aren’t enough people on any of the dates. The school groups wouldn’t take you too. We are really sorry. However, we you can try again next year if you like!’. We said that we’d get back to them, but that was the end of it. No first flight on the 777, no ULH flight, no trip all alone, no USA. Instead, I went to Kolkata for the summers. Standing in the hallway of my uncle’s house, I said to myself, ‘So this was in store for me – that usual narrow hallway where I spent so many days!’ But then, all I had to do was wait patiently.

SURPRISE SURPRISE!
One day, I got a message from Dad saying – ‘Tell *very weird pet name* that it was an A330.’ For a minute I had thought that Dad had gone somewhere without telling us. It turned out to be my other uncle, who flew into HKG onboard CX’s daily direct A330-300 service. A foreshadow maybe?
That very same day (oh okay, two days later), I checked my mailbox. There was an email from 9W forwarded by Dad. ‘That must be my ticket to BBI which I lost,’ I said to myself. I went through, and the first thing I saw was the aircraft type: instead of ‘CRJ-200’ it said ‘Airbus 330’. I immediately knew that this was FINALLY an international flight for me! It was only a question of where. I had immediately written off North America. So I took my time in seeing the destination. ‘SIN? BRU? JNB? Where are we going? HKG?’ I asked myself. And indeed, it was the last one: Hong Kong. A place I had heard so much about, and I was finally going there! But before adding the Airbus A330 to my list, I had 2 new airlines and a new aircraft to add to my list. Apparently, my brother’s ticket was a redemption ticket, and the rest were the normal full fare tickets. No, it wasn’t through the internet, or a travel agent. It was the IVR process, which was surprisingly convenient and easy, in case a few were wondering. Dates were 21JUN10 BOM-HKG and 26JUN10 HKG-BOM.

It was a rather boring time, after I came back from Kolkata and Bhubaneshwar. Laptop had packed up, and I left the homework down to the last few days. The only interesting thing that was happening was the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. I randomly supported Spain because Fernando Alonso had just moved into Ferrari (and oh mighty of random supporting, Spain won! Razz ). It was a bit of an error to let the holiday up till the end. Only one day to cool off before school isn’t the way to go!

OLCI
Obviously, I was looking forward to the web check in. It was the first time I was doing it for a widebody flight. There was a bit of a shocker when they asked for passport details to complete the APIS. Frantically, I woke up Dad to give me these, and a few moments later, it was all done. I then settled down to watch ‘The Son of the Pink Panther,’ featuring Jacques Clousea’s son, in the morning, almost. Anyways, the day to depart had arrived. We left really early, at about 8, for the 0105 departure. Obviously, staying in Cuffe Parade, we assumed long traffic jams. Surprisingly, we were wrong. We flew through the city! There we were, at the airport at 9 PM, for the 1 AM departure. We had four hours to kill. Luckily, we had the long check in and immigration to go through.....

PRE-BOARDING
.....which didn’t go as planned. It was empty. EMPTY, absolutely empty I say! Where did we wrong? Obviously, it was the end of the holiday season; we were on a last minute holiday. Big brother called our early arrival into the airport as ‘insanely early’. Being my first time here, I had noticed one thing: no baggage screening! I was..surprised. I didn’t take note of this new system: direct check in! Anyways, the very nice check in lady, although took a bit long, got our bags through. She re-confirmed if we web checked in, affirmative it was. We were all separated, according to our preferences. Big brother wanted ‘a legroom’ seat, I wanted a window in front of the engine, mum a window and Dad an aisle. I decided to take a bit of revenge against my elder brother. Obviously, elder brothers know how to trick the younger ones; however, I had this unique advantage. We are usually under the impression that bulk heads give us more legroom, which is not true. It’s actually the other way round. So I gave him the bulk head, 14H, I sat right behind in 15K, Mum and Dad 33K and 33H respectively. The seat map showed rows 14-38 in Economy (herringbone), as opposed to the 5-35 rows in Economy (the ILFC leased aircraft).

After the check in, one of the helpers there guided us to the annoyingly empty immigration queue. There was a slight dilemma in my head: my passport photo does not look like me! And obviously, it was my first time using this passport, after the second one expired. Here we go. I stood in the line. The immigration person looked at me. *Ding* went something on the computer, and there I was, officially out of India for the next few days!

I really didn’t know what to look for in the Sahar International Airport. We reached the surprisingly empty security check. I was now beginning to wonder if Dad was just making a lot of lies about the international terminal being so crowded, because he does like Kolkata more than Mumbai. But then again, I heard many other stories of the same. We headed straight down the escalators into the duty free. With about 2 and half hours to kill, we really did not know what to do. Best thing? The restaurant at the end of the terminal (uh, I don’t remember the gate numbers, but it wasn’t the slumber zone end!). I had a heavy dinner, so did mum, so did big brother. However, Dad was extremely confident of a snack straight after the take off.

I then excused myself, while everyone was glued to the FIFA World Cup, as there was nothing else to do in the restaurant. I browsed through the rather depressing duty free (it has changed now though!), and came back. One thing I noticed was: a lot of security guards. What was going on? Something in the duty free hit my eye, and I decided to turn away from the restaurant and head the other way. There were a lot more security guards walking towards me. ‘Oh okay. You may well get screwed this time. If they ask you anything, tell that a branch fell on the glass, I didn’t break it! Tell that it was Nikh who came up with the pizza-box prank, it wasn’t me!...’ I told myself. As these weird thoughts went by, there was someone quite big in between those guards, wearing a gray suit. Who was it? It wasn’t very difficult to notice! Mumbai Indians had suddenly started doing well in the IPL 2010, and he was spotted along with his wife, celebrating his teams’ success. He is, obviously, MUKESH AMBANI! ‘Wow!’ I said to myself, ‘Everyone talks about seeing celebrities in the international terminal, and you have found someone in your first attempt! Brilliant!’ He then headed down the escalators, where an Air India flight from either HYD or BLR was scheduled to arrive.

1230 on the clock, we had 35 minutes before boarding started. Oh well, we headed to the gate anyways. 2010 was I think one the last years where the check in agents told us ‘Please look at the departures screen, the gate number would be shown there.’ As we did so, 9W075 was stated to leave from gate 12.

We waited there. A young looking cabin crew (other than one, she looked to have a lot experience) headed down the aero-bridge. I couldn’t believe it! My first international flight with Jet Airways was going to be my first aero-bridge departure from Mumbai! Fantastic! Then came the cockpit crew. A young female first officer and a cheerful, funny old Captain. Oh yes, he made his presence known, talking loudly, cheerfully joking with the ground staff. All passengers looked at him, and he didn’t bother! Well, I didn’t mind if he was a humorous person, as long as he got us down into Hong Kong safely in about 7 hours time.


BOARDING
Well then. Boarding time came and went. The ‘general’ Indian passengers decided to get up and form their own line. The others, which included foreigners (both western and eastern), and a few of the ‘aware’ Indians (aka, frequent flyers, like us and a few others) kept sitting, and waited for the crowd to go. Boarding finally began at around 0030 hours, and I was now worried if it would be possible to prepare a fully loaded Airbus A330 in about 35 minutes. We then joined the quickly shrinking line, and headed down the aero-bridge of Gate 12. My first aero-bridge boarding......
.....didn’t go according to plan because we were diverted to a staircase on the right. Down we went, and a coach was waiting for us. Oh, the international apron was busy! Gate 12 was soon to be occupied by VT-JWM, which was most likely heading off to EWR. A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER had its loud Trent 800 fire up for its flight into the sunshine. The coach was filled up to its maximum capacity (or beyond?). We then slowly moved towards the remote bay (opposite to runway 27), only to be stopped by the Maharaja; the AI B744 which did its domestic flight.... There were various assorted aircraft too, ranging from the Jet Airways Boeing 737, to the massive A340 of Swiss Air. Fantastic it was!

WHICH AIRCRAFT?
The moment of truth of arrived. Which aircraft would it be? (Psst – I wasn’t that good with engines. I only learnt A LOT about engines just after this trip. So the RR Trent was the ‘open hole’ engine, while the GE CF6 was the ‘spiky’ engine.) I hoped for the ‘open hole’ engines, because they are the most common, while the ‘spiky’ engines were ones I haven’t seen much. VT-JWD, one of the ‘open hole’ engines was waiting there. It was dark, no lights on it. The front cargo hold door was the only one open, with a blue light casting a shadow of a massive net over it. A quick glance at the watch, 0045 it was. ‘Nope’ I said, ‘One surely cannot fill an A330 in 20 minutes!’.
There was another ‘open hole’ Airbus A330, with a blue tail and yellow markings in it. No, it wasn’t VT-JWE, it was a Lufthansa Airbus A330-300. Next to that, stood another A330, this one with spiky engines. Could this be it? Yes, yes it was. VT-JWJ had a packed cargo hold with trucks and tractors waiting beside it. We were one of the last coaches to reach the aircraft. As compared to boarding a Boeing 737 from the stairs, this beast was loud! Extremely loud! I got off the bus and looked at the ‘spiky’ engine. ‘It isn’t that small as it looks! Obviously it won’t be that small! This thing powers an amazing wide body aircraft!’ I said to myself.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS
The bright yellow lights suddenly grew brighter and brighter, as I went up the stairs to board VT-JWJ from door R2. There was a brown wooden floor, which looked neat and clean. A young Indian purser welcomed all of us, with a big big smile. ‘Hello Mr. B! *looks at the boarding pass* the second aisle, towards the end. Enjoy your flight!’ Yes, that was for Dad. ‘Welcome aboard Mr. B! *looks* second aisle, the seat would be on your left!’ ‘Thank you!’ I said. ‘Enjoy your flight!’ I walked down the brown mat aisles. The usual feature of Airbus was present: that humid vapour which was there throughout the cabin, giving a rather appealing feel. I looked at the herringbone J class seats and said to myself ‘Wow! They sure look tiny as compared to the pictures on the internet! I hope they have the comfort as promised!’ But this was only J class. I didn’t know what to expect from Y class....
....and it wasn’t as bad as many of you would think. Yes, it was crowded, but my seat towards the front meant I could avoid that. The depressing sight of an Aava 250 ml bottle in my leg room area really....depressed me. There was a beige-coloured pillow along with a blanket in maroon and beige wrapped neatly inside a plastic. Also, a pair of headphones. The seat got a bit further depressing when I found out that my tray table holder was cracked, so the tray table won’t hold on. However, the markings on the PTV were there, the remote was as good as new, the screen was working perfectly! Overall, a positive first impression of the product. I looked out of the window. The Lufthansa had all its doors armed and was ready for push back. A middle-aged Cantonese lady then came and took seat 15H.

DELAY!
The inevitable announcement from the Captain came: WE WOULD BE DELAYED! Obviously, the time slot rule was not implemented (I think that was in August? And once it was implemented, I experienced it, and hell yeah I was early!), so we had to wait for others to take off. Like I mentioned before, this cheerful Captain sounded like he was in a rush, but he gave us every detail of the flight, in fact, over flooded us! The only thing I remember him saying was, ‘There is a high chance of rain when we land, however, I will get back to you when we are about to begin approach.’ Obviously, 0105 came and went; we were looking at a big delay. The empty space beside us quickly taken by yet another ‘open hole’ A330-300, and ironically, it was the Cathay Pacific aircraft! It was just too dark to note any registrations down. It also quite boring, because the PTVs weren’t switched on. The only thing they showed was local time, time at HKG, a few more self advertisements, etc, etc. It also said that ‘Entertainment would be switched on after takeoff’ fair enough then, I waited, we all waited. The announcements by the purser came, our Captain for tonight was Captain Vikas Monge, alongside him was F/O Ms. Kyathi Shah. (I’m not making up names, it’s there in the video!)

DEPARTURE
Finally, JWJ was pushed back at around 0135 hours, half an hour late. As we were pushed further away from the parking bay, the A/c’s were switched off and straight after that (not even a half a second wait) the GE CF6’s were fired up in formation. I then said to myself, ‘See? Spiky engines sound fantastic!’. Quickly, the flaps were lowered. While this was happening, there was this weird sound above (maybe in air cons, or somewhere!), which sounded like stones being rattled, suspended somewhere in the aircraft. All of us in the front looked upwards, wondering what was going on! Anyways, JWJ was slowly manoeuvred around the twisty taxi ways of Mumbai. There wasn’t a hold short required, and half way down the holding point, Captain Monge applied a lot of power even before entering the runway, which gave us a lot of momentum entering the runway, and finally when he straightened (or aligned?) the A330 with Runway 27, optimum power was applied and we sailed through into the air, over the lighted WE Express way, and that lonely Mumbai Local with not many people onboard. Whiskey Juliet then flew above the Juhu beach and turned eastwards. We were on our way!

Sleep, was not on my list this morning. I wanted to see the beautiful sunrise. By my calculations, we were to hit sunrise while crossing Myanmar, but with this delay, it was possible to see it while being in India itself. Lights were kept off, however, annoyingly the lights near the engine were turned on. This was quickly turned off as we neared Aurangabad.

INFLIGHT
The service began. Here we served non-alcoholic beverages and of course, alcoholic beverages. This was being served with a sandwich, with a coleslaw salad filling. The crew, well, I don’t know if this is a positive or a negative. They kept asking, ‘Would you like to have anything?’, and when the answer from the passenger was a straight and simple NO, they’d ask again, ‘Are you sure sir/ma’am?’ Well it was really late at night (or early in the morning?) so this was asking again was unnecessary, but can we count it as a courteous part of the crew? I do not know. Anyways, I took my glass of Pepsi (yes, Pepsi. Return was a Coke. Smile ) and a coleslaw sandwich. I think about 20 minutes after I was given my Pepsi, the trash was collected. No, there weren’t seconds.

I decided to check out the IFE, JetScreen. My first time on an IFE equipped 9W aircraft, it could have happened so many times in 2007 and 2008, on the B73Hs. I started off by creating my jukebox, with songs from Bon Jovi, Metallica (obviously Razz ), Guns ‘n Roses, etc. Following this, I watched a Paresh Rawal movie, ‘Mere Baap Pehle Aap.’ With the window open and now flying over Orrissa (present day – Odisha), I fell off to sleep. Yes, sunshine I had expected over Bangladesh, but well, I slept.

I was woken up by a sudden drop in the aircraft. Just a mild cloud it was. However, I did notice a hand go in front of my face. It was the FA switching off the reading light for me, which I had forgotten to. What a nice gesture. We were now over Burma (present day – Myanmar). The sun had risen. I missed my first sunrise from onboard a plane. The lady beside me asked me to pull my shade down. Fair enough. It was too bright anyways. Lucky for me, she woke up and headed for the washroom, so I went too. Well, I remember there was a moisturizer, but not sure about the other bottle.

About an hour from landing, all lights were turned on. Window shades opened. VT-JWJ was suddenly one lively bird flying. We were now, strangely, taking a course towards Vietnam. Breakfast was served, the usual Veg or Non Veg options being handed out. The non veg option consisted of a fruit bowl, croissant, tasteless scrambled egg and mashed potatoes. Not a very international meal if you ask me. I was a bit gutted, as I got sausages very often on the BOM-CCU route. And here we are, flying to HKG. Anyways, once service was done, every passenger headed for the washroom to their morning stuff. I took decided to stroll down the aisles, I have trained myself when to do stuff and when not to Mr. Green

ARRIVAL
Descent started. Through some really thick clouds. It was another fun roller coaster ride for me. Despite this, Captain Monge got JWJ down on a carpet. Nothing was felt. We soon taxied along to the parking bay, about 25 minutes behind schedule. The airport was...wow. I loved the long walks, the terminal transfer, and obviously, I met Captain Monge at immigration, and had another fun-ish chat with him.

Alright people, I won’t take too long in describing the second flight, laziness has taken over 
A few things:
*VT-JWJ it was, JWF was off to DEL.
*Seat 28A, behind the wing
*A guy of my age got a bit scared about the air con humidity thingie, thinking it was a fire.
*Food took FOREVER to arrive. All rows till 27 were served, all rows from 29 were served, I WASN’T SERVED!
*And when I asked for Non-Veg, it wasn’t there. I was annoyed. They served me a veg, and went to check if there was a non-veg. I said I’d wait instead. And indeed, on a tray, with apologies, a warm Non-Veg dinner came Sad
*Indian food, a relief to eat that!
*I got woken up for duty free. Annyoying.
*Landed about an hour late. Double annoying.
*Bags took 2 more hours to arrive. Triple annoying. Many more people were even more annoying.
*Not a very international experience on the return flight sadly Sad

Start up BOM: http://youtu.be/gNK748hRWrc
http://youtu.be/rC_vNWtlf5s
Take off: http://youtu.be/dLhPC_CibHQ
Approach: http://youtu.be/_XNEOOl-bz4
Landing: http://youtu.be/2X8OrX8THJU
Taxiing: http://youtu.be/JIenSqziov0
http://youtu.be/O7ZM50IaeKU
http://youtu.be/SyEIvuqqBQc
HKG start up: http://youtu.be/Dm6BDVNqUi4
HKG take off: http://youtu.be/7y_XbQHzZkg
BOM Landing: http://youtu.be/nQrQNM5MeKs
BOM taxiing: http://youtu.be/O47G1r4Llzg

And now, my horrible attempt in trying to win your interest back, a few snaps from HKG:
Please note, going to Disney Land was possibly one of the worst mistakes ever made Smile
And these pictures were all by Dad, the only I got the camera was in the cable car and HKG Airport terminal..
Enjoy HKG!













My first A380 sighting Smile





































Po!

Master Shifu!










































WORST. FORESHADOW. EVER!
Everything would have been so much better if this a SQ tail, or any other tail other than UL Sad














I know you have noticed many things.
1. There was fungus on the sensor. We got that cleaned AFTER the trip.
2. My pictures are quite bad. I took a step forward only in 2011.
3. Dad's pictures too aren't that good. He took a massive leap forward in 2011.
As promised, my next TR would feature
-my first flight on a B73W
-my first flight on a B788
-my first flight on a B739 (all these in 2 days! Very Happy )
-my fifth time on flight 9W256.

Regards
Jish
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A2A
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 9:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good stuff! I almost felt like I was on the plane itself Smile

Keep it up!
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jbalonso777
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 10:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

A2A wrote:
Good stuff! I almost felt like I was on the plane itself Smile


Thank you for the words sir!
I appreciate it Smile

Regards
Jish
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sabya99
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 6:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jishnu, new Hong Kong airport seems to be huge. It was built on reclaimed land from the sea. At one point this was the largest civil engineering project in the world. Nice pictures.
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sumantra
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 12, 2013 12:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jishnu - I took my time to go through what you refer to as an `unscheduled' trip report, but come on...scheduled or not, you are a master TR writer. It was well worth all my wait to complete reading every word in detail.
I really wonder how you can remember so much, and that too, with all little interesting incidents and snippets thrown in. And I relived my memories of my last Hong Kong trip (not a Hong Kong transit), circa 2010. I had one Hong Kong transit also, in 2011, on the way to China. And the 2010 trip was almost exactly 3 months after yours, which resulted in my first (and extremely amateurish) trip report on this forum, so what I saw then was almost exactly what you did, at just almost the same time. Your descriptions are so detailed that I really wish I had your type of memory - you remember exactly what planes were around you, what engines they had, and what the names of the cockpit crew were, right down to the spelling! If I were like you, it would ease out a lot of my notes taking during a journey. Comparing notes with that of a colleague who had flown the DEL-BRU-BCN and back with the DEL-BRU and vice versa on 9W metal (A332?), the quantity of food had been as small as what you have written about, but the plane was in excellent shape, and the service was good, too.
No, I haven't been to Lantau as yet, nor Disneyland Hong Kong, but the other places I have seen, and this brought back many sweet memories, including seeing 4 A332s at HKG: the two Kingfisher A332s to BOM and DEL respectively, and the two 9W A332s, plus out AI 77L. It was great that you got the Deccan 360 A310 too! I got an Air Macau A320 for my 2011 HKG-PEK trip. And yes, I did not like SeaWorld too much - it was too commercialised for my liking.
Yes, Jishnu - we are waiting for things starting shortly!
Cheers, Sumantra.
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jbalonso777
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 12, 2013 3:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

sabya99 wrote:
Jishnu, new Hong Kong airport seems to be huge. It was built on reclaimed land from the sea. At one point this was the largest civil engineering project in the world. Nice pictures.

Thank you sir Smile
It was a bit of a shame that we missed out on seeing the old Kai Tak airport being stripped down, and a new face lift being given in terms of ferry terminal, I guess? And ironically, while we were in the hotel room, Richard Hammond's engineering connections was aired on NGC, featuring the new HKG Airport. And wow I was amazed by how even the most basic things helped in designing this!

sumantra wrote:
Jishnu - I took my time to go through what you refer to as an `unscheduled' trip report, but come on...scheduled or not, you are a master TR writer. It was well worth all my wait to complete reading every word in detail.
I really wonder how you can remember so much, and that too, with all little interesting incidents and snippets thrown in. And I relived my memories of my last Hong Kong trip (not a Hong Kong transit), circa 2010. I had one Hong Kong transit also, in 2011, on the way to China. And the 2010 trip was almost exactly 3 months after yours, which resulted in my first (and extremely amateurish) trip report on this forum, so what I saw then was almost exactly what you did, at just almost the same time. Your descriptions are so detailed that I really wish I had your type of memory - you remember exactly what planes were around you, what engines they had, and what the names of the cockpit crew were, right down to the spelling! If I were like you, it would ease out a lot of my notes taking during a journey. Comparing notes with that of a colleague who had flown the DEL-BRU-BCN and back with the DEL-BRU and vice versa on 9W metal (A332?), the quantity of food had been as small as what you have written about, but the plane was in excellent shape, and the service was good, too.
No, I haven't been to Lantau as yet, nor Disneyland Hong Kong, but the other places I have seen, and this brought back many sweet memories, including seeing 4 A332s at HKG: the two Kingfisher A332s to BOM and DEL respectively, and the two 9W A332s, plus out AI 77L. It was great that you got the Deccan 360 A310 too! I got an Air Macau A320 for my 2011 HKG-PEK trip. And yes, I did not like SeaWorld too much - it was too commercialised for my liking.
Yes, Jishnu - we are waiting for things starting shortly!
Cheers, Sumantra.

Haha sir, thank you very very much for all those kind words!
Well if I be honest, if I wrote the CX TR about 3 years down the line, I wouldn't have remembered so much. That just shows how much this trip meant to me, and how much I remember from it! Well, I guess I'm getting old now (Razz Exclamation ) so even the memory capacity is reducing a tiny bit!
Sorry to disappoint you, but I may have missed out on your first ever Trip Report sir Sad I will read it in my spare time for sure!
Yes, 9W has been operating A332s on the North America ever since the credit crunch came in the end of 2008. I think the time Konnect was introduced, these birds were deployed. I hate to say this - but 9W does lag behind in the food department Sad
Let it be choices, or quantity, or even quality.
Lantau Island was an unscheduled part of this trip, because we got really bored in Disneyland, oh my God. Well, good that we got bored there, I got SO MANY pictures of the HKG Airport! Very Happy
In addition to the Indian birds, there was another Indian bird. Hiding. It was a 9W B77W in the TK colours. I am a 100% sure about this because TK hadn't got their own B77Ws on the dates I was in HKG Smile
Yes, I remember reading the TR featuring the Air Macau aircraft which was on lease Smile
Uh sir, its OceanWorld, not SeaWorld. It wasn't that spectacular, but it did does have a special place in my heart for all the wrong reasons: My back was 'bowled out' by the roller coaster, and ever since then, I have been on medication and exercises for the same. It isn't easy!

Well sir, I wish you a Happy Journey on AI's masked bandit tomorrow morning, we look forward to that TR!

Regards
Jish
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 12, 2013 7:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

jbalonso777 wrote:
Sorry to disappoint you, but I may have missed out on your first ever Trip Report sir Sad I will read it in my spare time for sure!
Here is the link:
1. IGI T3, AI 314 DEL-HKG and AI 311 HKG-DEL
http://airlinersindia.s4.bizhat.com/airlinersindia-ftopic10018.html

I guess you have inspired me to try to remember the past, and put down some trip reports, I will try to dig up some memories, and perhaps some Analog prints as well, and scan them in. Yes, things like there bring back many sweet memories.

jbalonso777 wrote:
In addition to the Indian birds, there was another Indian bird. Hiding. It was a 9W B77W in the TK colours.
That IS a great find. It is sad that perhaps the best 77W interiors have been used by another airline more than 9W.

jbalonso777 wrote:
Uh sir, its OceanWorld, not SeaWorld. It wasn't that spectacular, but it did does have a special place in my heart for all the wrong reasons
Oh - i am really sorry to hear that.
As for the name, I need to be a bit more attentive, and alert. I have quite a few pictures from the 2010 trip, where I stayed within walking distance of the place in Aberdeen. There isn't much of wildlife there, and the rides are a bit scary. I tried one - just being adventurous, and remained nauseatic the whole day afterwards.

jbalonso777 wrote:
Well sir, I wish you a Happy Journey on AI's masked bandit tomorrow morning, we look forward to that TR!
Thank you Sir, wish you the very same! You have a real exciting itinerary coming up.
And I know, you will have a superb trip report crafted in no time at all!
Cheers, Sumantra.
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Theairplaneguy4ever
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Joined: 26 Sep 2012
Posts: 191
Location: Kochi, Kerala, India

PostPosted: Sun Jul 14, 2013 2:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Excellent work Jishnu!

Real great that you managed to dig this TR up!

Hong Kong is definitely one of my favorite cities to be in and HKG airport is the best in the world, in my opinion.

Quote:
This was being served with a sandwich, with a coleslaw salad filling.


Wow, a substantial snack! You don't get that on medium haul nowadays.

The main meal sounds pretty decent, I agree a sausage wouldn't be too bad though.

I see you visited Macau as well, the egg-tarts there are epic!

Thanks for this TR, really well done.
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stealthpilot
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Joined: 19 Dec 2006
Posts: 2325
Location: BLR, DXB

PostPosted: Sun Jul 14, 2013 7:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice TR, great pics.
How did you remember details Surprised
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jbalonso777
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Joined: 05 Jul 2012
Posts: 1501
Location: Never, never land

PostPosted: Mon Jul 15, 2013 2:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Theairplaneguy4ever - There is another TR I hope to dig out and process and post it, featuring the S2 CRJ, on one of its last flights. I'll try and put that in once back in CMB Smile

I have to go back to HKG. I am in love with that place!
It also has an amazing airport for sure!

Yes, those snacks are long gone today Sad
But yeah, a sausage would have been amazing in the breakfast!

MACAU EGG TARTS! OH MY GOD!
I ate a few in Singapore, but not even close to Macau's egg tarts!

Thank you for going through Smile

stealthpilot - Remembering. Its a skill which I have lost today.
In fact, I even forget which page I have to turn to in school, despite the teacher repeating the number many times!
Like I said, if I wrote the CX TR 3 years later, it wouldn't have been as good as this.
Thank you for going through this TR Smile

Regards
Jish
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