Aussie Flyer

As part of my India travels last year I took a flight with Air India from Bagdogra to Delhi, it was on a 7 year old A321, VT-PPU and I was actually quite impressed with the flight and service. Here's a quick look at the experience! FLIGHT: AI880 AIRLINE: Air India ROUTE: Bagdogra to Delhi DEPARTURE: 2.10PM ARRIVAL: 4.15PM DISTANCE: 698 Miles AIRCRAFT: Airbus A321 VT-PPU (2009 build) The check-in experience at Bagdogra was typically Indian, kind of 'organised chaos'. There did not seem to be anywhere for star alliance gold members to get priority check-in so I just joined a queue. It wasn't too long a wait and soon we were through security. There isn't much in this terminal but we decided to chance it on the airport restaurant and we had quite a decent meal there at a cheap price. Soon though it was time for boarding so we headed to the gate and then onto a bus for the short ride out to the remote parking spot where VT-PPU was waiting, looking splendid in t...

For my trip to India I decided to start on the east side of the country (Kolkata) and work my way west and south, ending in Goa. Since I was coming in from Bangkok this meant I needed to find a flight from Bangkok to Kolkata and once I realised Drukair was an option, there was simply no other choice! I headed straight to the Drukair site, which is remarkably user friendly, and booked flight KB121 at a cost of USD126. Quite reasonable I think and cheaper than Thai who flew at a much less friendly time of day. FLIGHT: KB121 AIRLINE: Drukair AIRCRAFT: A319 'A5-RGG' (12 years old) CLASS: Economy Class DEPART: Bangkok @ 09.10 ARRIVE: Kolkata @ 10.00 FLIGHT DURATION: 2 hours 20 min After an early start at the Millenium Hilton I grabbed a cab and arrived at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport at about 7am, 2 hours prior to scheduled departure. Arriving at Suvarnabhumi (the King had only recently passed away)

Here's a look at another flight I took on my trip around India from November 2016. This flight was from the beautiful town of Udaipur to the metropolis of Mumbai. I booked it with Air India since their price was hard to beat and the timing suited me too. Originally this was scheduled to be flown with a fairly new A319 but a couple of weeks before departure the timing was changed slightly and the equipment swapped to an A320. Knowing that it was going to be an A320 I was aware there was a chance I might fly on a very rare beast, the double bogey model A320. I believe only 31 of these were ever produced and there is less than 20 still in operation. They were ordered new by Indian Airlines to operate on the rather poor airstrips that were around India in the late 80s and early 90s and were eventually inherited by Air India. By now the runways have been replaced but the double bogey aircraft are still flying around, but I can't imagine for too much longer as they are becoming ...

During my trip to India a couple of months back I used the services of several local airlines, including the LCC IndiGo which is now the largest carrier in India in terms of passengers carried. They are one of the worlds fastest growing airlines with literally 400 Airbus A320's on order! Quite incredible. I had the need to get from Goa to Bengalaru to meet up with my Singapore Airlines flight and IndiGo was one of about 4 carriers flying the route. They offered the best schedule and best price so I booked a seat for just 1900rs (AUD38) and then added a front row extra leg room seat for an extra 600rs (AUD12). IndiGo includes a basic checkin baggage allowance of 15kg with additional at around 100rs per kg.   FLIGHT: Indigo flight 6E 6493 DEPART: 16.35 ARRIVE: 17.40 FLIGHT TIME: 1 hour 5 minutes DISTANCE: 300 miles AIRCRAFT: Airbus A320 VT-IDU (11 years old) Arriving at Goa

Sometimes when I feel like more of an 'adventure' I fly Sydney to Melbourne via Canberra, that way I can ride a B717 or a Q400 instead of a boring B737 or A330. It costs the same amount of Qantas points for an economy redemption whether you go via Canberra or direct (8000 points). A few months ago I did just that, here is my Q400 preparing for the trip:

I recently flew to Bali and back and took advantage of a super cheap airfare Jetstar offered last year when Indonesia Air Asia X announced plans to fly direct to Melbourne from Bali. Here is a quick report of my experience on the flight. For Melbourne to Bali (Denpasar) I was booked on JQ35, departs at 5.15pm, arriving Denpasar 6 hours later at 9.15pm. The flight today was operated by VH-VKB, it was 18 months old at the time of the flight. Check-in was available at the automated kiosks with automated 'do it yourself' baggage tags and baggage check-in. With that done I headed off to the Qantas first class lounge for a while, and then to the gate at about 4.45pm where boarding was just getting under way. I had selected a window seat towards the back hoping for a vacant middle seat. Unfortunately thing's didn't go to plan when a woman with a baby was occupying the middle seat next to me. However as the flight was not full the crew found her somewhere more comforta...

Earlier this year Air New Zealand announced the retirement of it' Boeing 747-400 fleet. As part of the farewell celebrations they scheduled a one off Auckland-Sydney-Auckland service, and as a fan of the Jumbo Jet, I booked a ticket. Sadly about a week before the flight the airline cancelled the service with no explanation. It was quite disappointing. However, the replacement aircraft was the brand new B787-9 and that would be a new type for me so I decided to go ahead and fly anyway. I managed to snag a seat in the Premium Economy cabin for a small surcharge, but please be aware that whilst I had a premium economy seat, ANZ do not offer a premium economy service on Trans-Tasman flights. So the soft product that you will see on this review is identical to the basic 'Seat Only' economy class service. FLIGHT NZ104 AIRLINE Air New Zealand ROUTE Sydney to Auckland DEPARTURE 12:30 (Scheduled) / 12:28 ...

The Saab 340 has been on the Australian aviation scene for about 30 years, and it is still going strong. In fact we are home to the world's largest operator of the type, Regional Express, or simply 'Rex'. Rex was created after the collapse of Ansett Australia and is the amalgamation of the former regional airlines 'Hazelton' and  'Kendell'. They fly a fleet of almost 50 of these Saab's to many regional destinations throughout the country. Today I would be flying on the morning service between Melbourne and the NSW regional city of Wagga Wagga. FLIGHT ZL3258 AIRLINE Regional Express ‘Rex’ ROUTE Melbourne to Wagga Wagga DEPARTURE Schedule 0900 / Actual 0930 ARRIVAL Schedule 1000 / Actual 1030 FLIGHT TIME 45 minutes airborne AIRCRAFT Saab 340B VH-EKH  (Age 19 years)

As part of a trip to Europe recently I wanted to try and fly on something a little bit different. Whilst researching ways to get from London to Munich I found a route sold by Air Berlin from Stansted to Munich via Dusseldorf with the first leg being flown by Etihad Regional on a Saab 2000! With so few Saab 2000's in operation, and certainly none in Australia, I jumped at the chance. As it turns out I flew on the first day of Etihad Regional operations to London's Stansted Airport. FLIGHT: F7275 (Etihad Regional, operated by Darwin Airlines FROM: London-Stansted @ 16.10 TO: Dusseldorf @ 18.25 I took the train from London to Stansted which was convenient, fast and easy  (although I think expensive at approx $40 AUD one way, next time I need to book in advance):

Jetstar are slowly changing the long haul fleet over from the Airbus A330-200 to the Boeing 787-8 and so far they have 4 aircraft in service. I recently took a ride on VH-VKE which was just 2 weeks old at the time. I rode on it between Melbourne and Sydney, which was a domestic tag for a flight that originated in Phuket. As such it departs from the international terminal but they do sell tickets for domestic passengers too. VH-VKE at the gate

It is probably obvious to my readers that I am more of a Qantas/Jetstar flyer domestically in Australia, but in the interests of  fairness here is a look at a short flight I took recently on Virgin Australia between Sydney and Melbourne. The flight is VA878, the 6.30pm departure from Sydney with an arrival time of 8.05pm. The flight I took was being operated by VH-VUN which is still in it's red Pacific Blue colour scheme. I assume it will be repainted fairly soon into the much more stylish and modern Virgin Australia scheme. Here is what VH-VUN looks like at the moment:

Following on from my recent look at a short flight on Air Asia, let's now look at another low cost carrier in the region, Nok Air. This carrier is in its 10th year of operations and now operates a fleet of 15 Boeing 737-800's along with several turboprops. It has a very extensive network of flights throughout Thailand and although it is a low cost carrier they do offer several inclusions that a traditional LCC does not. Those are a snack and drink on board, free seat selection and a 15kg baggage allowance. HS-DBO operated this flight Today I am looking at a flight from Hat Yai to Bangkok, flight DD7115, with a scheduled departure time of 19.55 and an arrival at Bangkok's Don Muang at 21.20. The flight cost me 1199 baht (USD40), so it was quite a bargain.

My other half is originally from Hat Yai so every now and then I find myself visiting this southern Thai city, like I did last month for Thai New Year (Songkran). On this trip I decided to fly via  Kuala Lumpur and take Air Asia. I booked online for a great price and showed up at the Low Cost Carrier Terminal with my pre-printed web check-in boarding passes.  I had baggage to check-in so fronted up to one of the counters and handed over my passport and my bag. Fortunately  there was not much of a queue so the process was fast. My passport was checked, bag tagged and my printed boarding pass stamped to confirm my documents had been verified. Next it was upstairs to passport control and through security. Once through security there is a small selection of duty free shops and food outlets in the LCCT. There is also free wi-fi. This was to be my last time using this terminal as KLIA 2 is opening in May which will see a huge upgrade to the facilities. I sat on a spare...

It was a long time coming but finally I have flown on the Bombardier Q400 (also known as Dash 8-400).  This report covers my first flight on this high speed turboprop airliner and it is on a very interesting route, Brisbane to Longreach. Why is it interesting? Well Longreach is the original home of Q.A.N.T.A.S. The Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial service, which eventually become what we now know today as Qantas. So this Qantaslink flight on a very modern aircraft actually takes us to back in time to 1921 when the airline first commenced operations. The purpose of the trip was to visit the Qantas Founders Museum which I will cover in another post. Arriving at the Qantas and Qantaslink domestic terminal - Brisbane

I recently visited Cambodia to see the incredible Angkor Wat (definitely worth a visit if you can!) and as part of my trip I needed to get from Siem Reap to Cambodia and since I had very little time, a quick 45 minute domestic flight was the best way to go. Serving this route around 5 times a day is the national flag carrier, Cambodia Angkor Air. The route is served exclusively with ATR72's, a 70 seat turboprop. I took the free airport shuttle from Borei Angkor resort and was delivered to the domestic terminal which is separate to the much larger international terminal. This small terminal serves pretty much the few flights to Phnom Penh and a once daily to the beach resort Cambodian town of Sihanoukville. The country is still very poor so most of the passengers on these flights are international tourists. I paid about USD80 for this 45 minute sector on the easy to use Cambodia Angkor Air website. We arrived a little before 5pm and found almost no queue at c...

My last few posts I have been talking about Australian domestic flying, so let's mix it up a bit and have a quick look at a  flight I took 2 months back from Ho Chi Minh to Siem Reap, probably one of the most expensive 45 minute flights I've taken in my life at almost $200 one way! They sure know how to rip off the tourists heading for Angkor Wat!! I doubt many locals would pay that, most would take the bus.

 Some of you may have read my recent report on Malaysia Airlines intra-asia business class on the flight Yangon to Kuala Lumpur . Well now I have had a chance to try them in economy class on a flight of similar length, Kuala Lumpur to Hanoi. I took this flight as part of a recent trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and Nepal. Let's have a look and see how it went...

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 ...

Following on from my previous easyJet post, after exploring Paris I took the train back to London for the Diamond Jubilee. Once the Jubilee was all over I decided to head to Amsterdam and I took British Airways from London City. I have always wanted to land at London City but on this occasion I would only be experiencing a takeoff, I still found it all quite exciting. For those who don't know London City airport has a very short runway and very steep approach, one of the more interesting airports on earth. To get to the airport from my docklands hotel, I took the light rail. Awaiting the light rail to London City airport On board the light rail A few  bizjets can be seen from the train as  we approach  London City airport is very small and it's just a few steps from the curb to check in and then onto the departure gates. For this reason if you have no luggage you may check in at just 20 or 25 minutes before scheduled departure times.  This is id...

After finishing my day sightseeing at Sandringham, Norfolk, I drove the rental car down to London Luton and dropped it off. It was time to head to Paris and easyJet would be taking me there on one of their Airbus A319's. It would be my first ever trip on easyJet. After arriving at  the airport I saw this cute sign at the Pret a Manger sign, Keep It Clean For The Queen. I thought that was really cute and it's just freat to see so much national pride for their Queen. Her face or references to her were simply everywhere you went around England which I really love. Departures Display at Luton - easyJet dominates Spotted a Monarch A321 At easyJet dominated Luton there is very very  little to do if you have time to waste before your flight. Unfortunately I had arrived quite early so I was faced with about 2 hours of sitting in a seat sipping on a Starbucks coffee and having dinner at Pret a Manger. It only takes a few minutes to do the lap around the small shoppi...