Flying: China Southern B777-300ER Business Class Beijing to Guangzhou 2017

I thought that the drama of nearly missing flights was over back in Singapore, though apparently it clearly spilled over to Beijing.

The taxi ride to the airport was caught in heavy congestion at downtown Beijing. While we did make the right choice in alighting and transferring to the metro, it was plain bad luck that the Airport Express 

China Southern 3102
Beijing (PEK) - Guangzhou (CAN)
Wednesday, Jun 21 2017
Depart: 12:30PM
Arrive: 4:00PM
Flight time: 3hr 30min
Aircraft: Boeing 777-300ER
Seat: 16K

Further, the plane taking us to Guangzhou was parked at a far flung area facing terminal 3.

I was greeted at the door by the lead stewardess, who offered to escort me to my seat, which I turned down as I only had one small carry on bag.

I was seated in the aft cabin, in front of the premium economy cabin and separate by a galley from the forward business cabin.

As I settled down I was offered a cold towel, though was not offered drinks. However, the crew was obliging when I requested for a glass of water and proactively brought another bottle seeing that I was perspiring from the weather and the rush to the gate.

The seat was fairly comfortable, with a good amount of leg room. 

The space above the footrest was also sufficient, both in terms of height and depth.

There is also a USB charging point conveniently located above the left arm rest.

Reading lights

One of the few advantages of parking at a remote stand was an unobstructed view, particularly as our stand was at the midpoint of runway 18L/36R. We taxied past a Korean Air A330 heading for take-off.

As well as a Hainan Airlines 787 parked at Terminal 1.

We took off after a 15 min taxi and climbed in relatively clear skies above Beijing.

The stewardess came by and set the table.

I offered a choice of a variety of juices and tea, though a menu was again not presented. I chose to go with a glass of guava juice, which was way too sweet and tasted like syrup. The nuts that went with it was however fairly tasty.

Soon lunch was served. I had ordered the beef noodle, which was served together with some savoury sides and fresh fruits.

Soon after lunch I decided to take a look at the IFE selection, and was pleasantly surprised to find Beauty and the Beast available, meaning I can finish up on the movie leftover from the earlier flight from SIN.

I should mention that the noise cancelling headphones provided were also of reasonable quality.

I took a short nap after the movie. The blanket was a little too thick given the summer weather in China.

Soon we

The crew also turned on the mood lighting.

Flying: Singapore Airlines A380 Premium Economy Class Singapore to Beijing 2017

For flights departing from Singapore, the trip to the airport was often uneventful, especially for flights departing in the early morning. Traffic would be light, cabs or private hire cars being in abundance, ensuring that I reach the airport in less than half an hour from the other side of Singapore.

This morning, however, was an exception, I had booked transport on Grab, and twice in a row the ride was cancelled. Unsure of whether it was a system error or the driver cancelling the ride, I panicked as it was only an hour and a half to departure and I would almost certainly miss the flight if I were to take the train. 

Fortunately, staying close to a taxi refuelling point has its benefits and I managed to hail a cab at 6:40AM on a Saturday morning. Phew, and my heartbeat managed to return to a more normal pace as the the first rays of sunrise flooded Changi's tarmac as the taxi drove past airport boulevard.

Thankfully the drama stopped and it was a smooth process from here onwards. SQ premium economy passengers has access to a dedicated row of check-in counters (near to door 5 for departure from terminal 3).

As there was virtually no queue at the counter (well I seldom see long queues at SQ check-in counters anyway, even during my routine flying in economy class), I got the boarding pass in a minute and even had a priority tag fixed to my check-in luggage.

Singapore 802

Singapore (SIN) - Beijing (PEK)

Saturday, 17 Jun 2017

Depart: 8:30AM

Arrive: 2:40PM

Flight time: 6hr 10min

Aircraft: Airbus A380

Seat: 33K

Boarding was from gate B7, which is quite a distance from the immigration counters, instead of the centralised boarding areas just a few steps away after clearing immigration, and are often used for A380 departures to Europe and Australia.

As I had to do some last minute shopping and money changing at the airport, by the time I arrived at the gate boarding was well underway.

At the adjacent gate was a SQ B777-300ER painted in Star Alliance theme heading to Shanghai PVG.

Stepping into the cabin, I quickly realised it's going to be a great flight. SQ's premium economy cabin featured 36 seats on the A380 (in a 2-4-2 configuration), and only 4 were occupied.

Furthermore, the other three passengers were occupying the left side of the cabin, leaving the either right half of the cabin to myself!

Suppressing my excitement, I quickly settled down in my seat and began exploring the seat features, starting with the reading lights.

Followed by the footrests.

During this time hot towels was also offered to passengers. As I had used "Book the Cook" to reserve my lunch for the flight, the stewardess also came forward and confirmed my meal order. 

At about 8:20AM the captain came on the PA to introduce the crew and thanked all passengers for boarding on time, before announcing that he expect to arrive in Beijing on time, barring traffic controls.

We pushed off on time at 8:31AM, though had a fairly long taxi before arriving at the runway at 8:45AM.

From here it was a smooth roll down the runway before pulling up at 8:48AM.

Although I had pre-booked the meal, it was still interesting to take a look at the menu, which was a special 70th anniversary edition.

Here's the menu for brunch, as well as the drinks menu, which is almost the same as the menu in economy class, except for champagne.

And the menu for the return leg (which I'm not flying).

In the meantime, the stewardess suggested if I would like to have some champagne, which was slightly on the dry side. So I passed the idea of a re-fill and opted for some riesling to go with the meal later.

Soon my meal was served. I guessed this shows how well Singapore Airlines differentiates its premium economy from economy in the details, by serving the meal on a tray covered with pressed linen.

The beef brisket had slightly more tendons than I expected, though was well marinated and braised. 

After lunch I turned on the IFE, starting with the air show.

At this point we were halfway into the South China Sea, off the coast of Vietnam.

I decided to catch up on a movie, and was pleasantly surprised by the noise cancelling earphones.

At this point the cabin lights were dimmed and I ended up watching Emma Watson's version of "Beauty and the Beast".

At about 2:00PM the pilot came online to announce the beginning of our descent into Beijing, with an estimated arrival time of 2:45PM. 

We touched down on time at 2:38PM, and given the size of Beijing Capital International Airport, it was a fairly quick taxi to the gate, arriving at 2:43PM.

The ground staff was pretty quick and in about 5 minutes the jet bridge was assembled and the doors opened. Since business class was on the upper deck, we only had to wait for passengers in suites to alight first.

While the crew did not draw the curtains between PE and economy after landing, unlike the usual practice for first and business class, passengers from economy quickly swarmed into the PE cabin lining up to alight the plane. Nevertheless, since the PE cabin was closer to the door, we got to alight ahead of most other passengers, which was a blessing at a crowded airport like PEK.

Coming out of the aircraft, it was a quick stroll in PEK's sprawling terminal 3 complex before joining a long queue at the immigration check point.

Conclusion

Premium economy on SQ is indeed a solid product and clearly differentiated from economy, primarily in terms of seat pitch and width, IFE, catering and priority luggage. 

And indeed the bid to upgrade system is indeed a great move to encourage passenger to experience the its product and services.

However, looking at the load factor on this flight, I would guess perhaps Asian passengers are slightly slower in subscribing to the PE concept.

Introduction: A week in China

It has been a long 6 months into the life of numbers, and I figured it was time to take a break.

The question however, was the destination. A week of leave can be a comfortable break, or barely sufficient, depending on itinerary.

Europe - too far, too rushed, too expensive
USA - same as above
SEA - too near, a week is too valuable for it, save it for a long weekend
Japan - hmm just visited last year
Korea - not interested anyways

And then it struck me, although I have always been visiting family in China, my itinerary has been restricted to the few cities in the south.

So northern China turned out to be one of the few viable options available, and would enable me to visit some friends in China. 

However, it would also be inappropriate to travel to China without visiting family and I do miss them. Yet given the expansive Chinese landscape, Beijing is literally a thousand miles away from my home town in Guangzhou.

Bullet train services are available on this route. However even with the impressive speed of up to 350 km/h on these trains, the journey takes up to 9 hrs simply because of the sheer distance between the two cities.

Flying was literally the only practical option.

Flying: Singapore Airlines A330-300 Economy Class Yangon to Singapore 2017

It was an early morning departure, which could be a blessing in disguise since it allowed us to bypass the potentially hazardous jams so common in newly developed cities.

Traffic was light along the way and in less than an hour the newly constructed terminal building was in sight.

Our luggage was screened at the entrance of the airport, and there was only a fairly short queue at the check-in counters.

Singapore 997
Yangon (RGN) - Singapore (SIN)
Saturday, 11 Mar 2017
Depart: 10:25AM
Arrive: 3:10PM
Flight time: 3hr 15min
Aircraft: Airbus A330-300
Seat: 42H

From the window seats at Burger King we had an almost unobstructed view of the tarmac, facing the A330 that would be taking us back to Singapore.

I had pre-ordered

After

Flying: SilkAir B737-800 Economy Class Singapore to Yangon 2017

My first visit to South East Asia's most reclusive state came in a rather unexpected way.

Given that we had booked our tickets through a third party agent, we were unable to use the self check-in machines in T2.

Nevertheless, given the light queue at SilkAir's check-in counters we still managed to get our boarding passes in less than 5 minutes.

SilkAir 518
Singapore (SIN) – Yangon (RGN)
Saturday, 19 Feb 2017
Depart: 3:15PM
Arrive: 4:40PM
Flight time: 2hr 55min
Aircraft: Boeing 737-800
Seat: 15A

As it was a rather full flight, the was a long queue at the gate to the boarding lounge.

While we were clearing security, boarding was already underway.

We were among the last passengers to board, and almost all the overhead luggage compartments were occupied.

We got seats beside the emergency exits. As such, the legroom was really generous.

The cabin door was shut soon after we boarded and we pushed off on-time at 3:15PM.

Soon after we took off the captain made a turn to head up north, passing by the Pengerang oil terminal in Malaysia.

I had the fish with tomato sauce, which was decent, though far from memorable.

While the lack of IFE was a major disappointment, it was not unexpected for a regional flight. The mitigating factor was that I could at least entertain myself with the mood-lighting of the 737 Next Gen.

After the meal was cleared, the crew came down the aisle to offer ice-cream and nuts for dessert and snacks. I have to say this is the moment when offerings began to remind me of Silkair being SQ's regional wing.

While not the Mövenpick or Haagen-Dazs as one would have expected from SQ or CX, the ice-cream was actually pretty good. Though then again, I suppose it would be difficult for desserts to disappoint.

We landed promptly in Yangon at 4:41PM and zoomed past an ANA 767 that was pushing off, presumably heading to Tokyo.

Given the size of the airport, it was a fairly quick taxi to the terminal, where we parked beside a chubby MAI A319.