Qantas First Class Lounge - Sydney and Melbourne

Over the past couple of days I have had another opportunity to visit the Qantas First Class lounges in both Sydney and Melbourne. As I have come to expect, both visits were spectacular. I just love these lounges and I think they are both definitely in the top 5 lounges on Earth! What makes them especially great is the terrific restaurant and great wine list. Here is a taste of whats on offer:

SYDNEY FIRST LOUNGE - LUNCH

Bollinger Champagne and San Pellegrino Water

Facebook Page

As of today I have setup a Facebook page. It was suggested to me by one of my YouTube subscribers and I thought, why not? So if you have Facebook and want to 'Like' my page then find it here:

http://www.facebook.com/TheAussieFlyer

I will endeavour to live update the page with some photos and thoughts as I pass through airports, and you will find links to my latest blog posts and YouTube videos. Come on, join up now!

United BusinessFirst - Boeing 777-200ER : UA79 Newark to Tokyo Narita

The recent merger of Continental and United Airlines has created a mega-carrier with over 700 aircraft in the mainline fleet and nearly 90,000 staff. It is an absolutely mammoth operation with a route network covering the entire globe. The airline has so many different aircraft types it is hard to keep up with what's on offer! For my recent trip from the New York area to Japan I booked a flight on an aircraft which was formerly the flagship of the Continental fleet, the Boeing 777-200ER in a two class configuration featuring the airlines 'BusinessFirst' seating. Under the United brand the seating name has stuck and the airline has acquired a new hub in Newark. My flight, UA79, from a very cold New York would be operated by former Continental Airlines crew members.

The United B777-200ER operating my flight

American Airlines AA4462 Embraer ERJ-140 : Montreal to New York JFK

The small regional jets that are so popular in North America never really  became popular in Australia, so when I had the need to fly from Montreal to New York I jumped at the chance of sampling the Embraer ERJ-140 of American Airlines. I have flown on the Canadair CRJ's but never the little Embraer's and the ERJ140 model is quite rare and in fact AA are the only airline using them. They seat 44 passengers in a 1x2 seating arrangement. 

So it came time for me to fly on the Embraer and I had pre selected the exit row on the left side,  a single seat on its own. I arrived at Montreal airport where it was snowing on and off and very very cold! Being Australian, flying in snowy environments is quite a rarity for me so it was pretty exciting. A new type, a new route to fly, plus I was heading to New York and I love New York.... who doesn't?

I have elite status in oneworld so my baggage was priority tagged and I had priority AAccess for security although the airport was quiet so fast-track was not required. As usual US immigration formalities were completed here and I headed to a food outlet for breakfast. There are no lounge facilities unfortunately.

Here is my little Embraer waiting to head to New York  in the snow

Singapore Airlines Suites SQ346 - Singapore to Zurich

It's already over 5 years since Singapore Airlines introduced the Airbus A380 back in 2007, but its taken this long for me to finally sample the premium cabins and write about it. Previously I've flown only in economy on the Singapore whalejet so I was very excited when the time finally came to try the suites.

My journey had started in Myanmar and I'd flown in to Changi airport with about 7 hours to spare before the 1am departure to Zurich. I decided to hit The Private Room, Singapore Airlines exclusive lounge for first class passengers. As you enter the Silverkris lounge area in terminal 3 and present your Suites boarding pass you will be personally escorted past the business class and first class lounges and into the Private Room. I was warmly welcomed and shown to the shower facilities after I requested directions.

Shower Room

Malaysia Airlines Business Class - Yangon to Kuala Lumpur MH741 : Boeing 737-800

As part of my recent round the world trip I had a couple of sectors on Malaysia Airlines. Here is a report on my first. It was actually my first ever flight on the airline and my departure point was Yangon (or Rangoon if you like).

If you have ever been to Yangon you will know that the taxi's tend to be rather old (there are some exceptions). I was in one of these old things when of course it broke down on the way to the airport. The driver was quite insistent I should wait for his friend to come and take me the rest of the way but not knowing how long that might be I flagged down another taxi and recommenced my journey. Fortunately there are quite a few taxi's plying the streets of Yangon so finding one isn't really a problem.

I arrived at the airport and found the check-in area to be large and modern in appearance. I headed straight up to the Malaysia Airlines business class queue and was served immediately and given boarding passes to Kuala Lumpur and also for my onward flight to Singapore.

Check-In at Yangon

Sights of Yangon, Myanmar

For those regulars on Flyertalk and other forums frequented by people like me I'm sure you all know just WHY I found myself in Yangon this past January. For the rest of you, let's just say I got a deal on flights that was too good to pass up. But besides that, I have always had Myanmar on my to do list so I was very excited to visit. It's a pity due to time limitations I could only visit the capital, but perhaps I will  head over to Mandalay on my next trip.

I thought some pics would be appreciated so here we go....

View of Yangon from my hotel the Clover City Centre - some very run down buildings here!

A busy Yangon street near the Shwedagon Pagoda

Blog Design

I am making some changes to the way the blog looks...

From now on I will only show an introduction to the articles that I write on the main page of the blog.  If you would like to continue reading then please follow the 'Read More' link. This way you can see a lot more of what I have been adding from the main page.

I'm also making some cosmetic changes to the way the page looks and at this point it is a 'work in progress'.

Cheers!

Thai Airways Business Class TG301 : Bangkok to Yangon on the A300

Myanmar  (formerly Burma) is starting to really open up as a tourist destination. It's becoming increasingly popular and airlines are increasing frequencies and sending larger aircraft to cope with the steady rise of travelers and business people headed to the country. At the moment Thai fly 3 widebody aircraft a day between Bangkok and Yangon with a planned increase to a 4th daily service coming up soon. Thai recently announced it's low cost subsidiary Thai Smile will begin servicing Bangkok to Mandalay as well so options for travelers are opening up.

I recently ventured to Myanmar for the first time and found myself booked on a Thai Airways A300, the middle of the day departure flight TG301, in business class.  The other two daily flights were scheduled to be A330's with a much better seat but for a flight that is in the air less than 60 minutes the A300 is fine.

Gate D1A - A bus gate for todays flight

Qantas' Boeing Sky Interior (BSI) 737-800 : QF969 Business Class Townsville to Brisbane

As I mentioned yesterday I have been doing a bit of domestic running around on Qantas and after what seems like forever I finally had an opportunity to fly on one of Qantas' latest Boeing 737-800's featuring Boeing's new Sky Interior.

In case you don't already know the BSI makes the 737 a much nicer aircraft to fly in. The windows are the same size physically but the shape of the surrounds are an oval shape to allow more light and make the window seem larger. The overhead storage is shaped like those found on the Boeing 787 meaning more head room but increased storage space and the roof has an interesting new shape with LED lights that change colour during different phases of the flight.  As well as all this Qantas has a new seat in business class, essentially it is the same as the A380 premium economy seat but it's covered in leather. I  found it a nice improvement over the old seat. Row 1 is particularly nice as there is nobody reclining into your space and you can comfortably get up to go to the bathroom even if the seat beside you is occupied.

So as I boarded flight QF969 in Townsville at 5.40am I was very happy to see the new seat...

Seat 1F