Review: Emirates A380 Business Class Dubai to London

October 31, 2019October 31, 2019 ~ Alvin ~ Leave a comment

Emirates Lounge Hong Kong
Emirates 777 Business Class Hong Kong to Dubai
Emirates Business Lounge Dubai Concourse C
Emirates Business Lounge Dubai Concourse B
Emirates Business Lounge Dubai Concourse A
Emirates A380 Business Class Dubai to London

With all the glamour that Emirates’ A380 has boasted over the past decade, I knew I had to try it out at some point. Emirates introduced their A380 in 2008, and it started the innovation of inflight amenities such as onboard showers and bars that we see on quite a few different airlines today. Over time, though, the actual hard product on Emirates’ A380 became slightly less competitive, especially as it competed with newer revolutionary products such as Qatar Airways’ QSuite, so I was curious how it would fare in the grand scheme of things in 2019.

Now, I need to note that my flight experience was hindered by a purser who accused me of taking photos that were against the rules (he had the rules mixed up, and I’m still trying to sort things out with Emirates to see how this never happens to other airline bloggers out there). I’ll obviously mention it in the report below, though I’m going to strive to make this report as objective as possible, as my experience – prior to my interaction with the purser, of course – was stellar.

Anyway, my Emirates A380 experience began at the boarding gate B17, where boarding started at around 2:10 PM. It’s worth mentioning that as a business class passenger I could board this flight through a separate entrance for premium passengers, right outside the lounge – however, boarding starts a few minutes later for the upper deck, so boarding from the main gate area afforded me a couple of extra minutes to photograph Emirates’ beautiful A380 cabin.

Emirates Airbus A380 Dubai Airport

I was one of the first onboard the Emirates A380, and boarded through the lower deck.

Continue reading “Review: Emirates A380 Business Class Dubai to London” →

Review: Emirates 777 Business Class Hong Kong to Dubai

September 26, 2019October 31, 2019 ~ Alvin ~ Leave a comment

I’d originally booked myself onto the Emirates A380 from Hong Kong straight through to London Gatwick, though unfortunately anxiety about upcoming protest situations compelled us to change our flight to an earlier one, since traffic was less likely to be affected at this time of day. This was a pricey switch, and I’ve written about it here. Fortunately, though, I’d once listed Emirates’ 777 business class product as one of the most underwhelming products I’d been dying to try, so I was glad to have the opportunity to do so.

I arrived at gate 32 around 6:45 AM in anticipation of boarding at 7 AM. It was a beautiful day outside, which served as a nice backdrop for the 777 that would be taking us to Dubai.

Emirates Boeing 777 Hong Kong Airport

The crew were standing around the gate at this time, and they boarded the plane at around 6:55 AM. Unfortunately boarding was delayed a bit beyond that, and it finally started at 7:15 AM, fifteen minutes behind schedule.

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Review: Qatar Airways 777 QSuite Business Class Quad Suite Doha to Hong Kong

September 18, 2019September 18, 2019 ~ Alvin ~ Leave a comment

Introduction: Home QSuite Home
Plaza Premium First Lounge Hong Kong Airport
Qatar Airways 777 QSuite Business Class Hong Kong to Doha
The Sad State of Transit at Doha Airport
Qatar Airways 777 QSuite Business Class Doha to Amsterdam
Hilton The Hague Family Suite
The Hotel Brussels Panorama Suite/Superior Twin Room
British Airways Galleries Lounge Brussels Airport
Qatar Airways 777 Old Business Class Brussels to Doha
Qatar Airways 777 QSuite Business Class Doha to Hong Kong

If you’re trying to learn more about the QSuite experience, I’d highly recommend you check out the review of my flight from Hong Kong to Doha, where I gave an extensive evaluation of the hard product. On this flight I assigned my family a quad suite, which is one of the ways Qatar Airways creatively customised their QSuite product. This trip report will mostly focus on that, as well as how the soft product differed of that of the other Qatar Airways flights I took on this trip.

After clearing immigration, I headed towards the E gates, since our flight was leaving from E4. I’d never taken the train at Doha Airport before; while modern, the trains were quite hot, and poorly ventilated (which isn’t exactly a complaint, since I realise Doha doesn’t have the coolest climate). Fortunately the train ride was quite short, and I made my way towards the “other” end of Doha Airport.

Doha Hamad Airport E Gates Area

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Review: Qatar Airways 777 Old Business Class Brussels to Doha

September 12, 2019November 6, 2019 ~ Alvin ~ 1 Comment

While three out of our four Qatar Airways flights were operated by the spectacular QSuite, the segment from Brussels to Doha was operated by Qatar Airways’ older 777 product. I knew going in that the product would be inferior, though I was excited to try out a new product nonetheless. This flight served as a nice juxtaposition between the experiences you get on Qatar Airways’ QSuite-equipped 777s versus these planes, as the QSuite experience was superior in almost every way. This sounds obvious on the surface, though I was surprised by how different some of the soft-product elements were, too – keep on reading.

It also seems like we drew the short end of the stick – I’ve seen reviews of Qatar Airways’ Brussels-Doha route operated by 787s and A350s, which feature Qatar Airways’ newer, reverse herringbone business class product. I’ve flown it before, and find it a very nice product. Occasionally Qatar even swaps out this flight for a QSuite-equipped 777, which would’ve been a nice treat, though that wasn’t the case today. So with that in mind, I made sure to catch one last glimpse of our 777 before boarding through the jetbridge onto the plane.

Qatar Airways Boeing 777 Brussels Airport

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Review: Qatar Airways 777 QSuite Business Class Doha to Amsterdam

September 4, 2019September 18, 2019 ~ Alvin ~ Leave a comment

After a disappointing transit at Doha Airport, we headed over to gate C5, where our flight would be departing. While I have my issues with Doha Airport (mainly the WiFi), it still comes across as almost psychedelically modern on first glance, with high wooden ceilings and the occasional train passing by overhead. The C gates occupy the “center” of Doha Airport (with the A and B gates on one end and the D and E gates on the other), so this part of the airport felt particularly open and airy.

Doha Airport C Gates

The gate agent scanned my boarding pass, and thanked me for choosing Qatar Airways. Doha Airport has “holding pens” where boarding passes are scanned before you enter a dedicated waiting area for your flight, so I waited. Eventually boarding was delayed for 10 minutes (until 7:15 AM), though at 7:15 AM boarding was called by zone, starting with business class passengers and Qatar Airways Privilege Club frequent flyers.

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Review: Qatar Airways 777 QSuite Business Class Hong Kong to Doha

August 26, 2019September 18, 2019 ~ Alvin ~ Leave a comment

Boarding was scheduled for 12:30 AM ahead of our 1:20 AM flight. I’d been monitoring our aircraft until it departed out of Doha – an hour late – so I knew it was going to feature QSuites ahead of time. My biggest gripe with booking the QSuites configuration is that you’re not guaranteed it, as many flights get swapped out last minute. Heck, as of writing, this exact same flight has been swapped three times in the past 7 days, which represents a 57% QSuite probability – not too much of a “guarantee”, if you ask me!

Qatar Airways Boeing 777 Hong Kong Airport

Anyway, we were on a QSuites flight, fortunately (we didn’t have any equipment swaps in all four segments of our booking, which I largely consider to be a blessing). Boarding was called shortly after it was scheduled, at around 12:35 AM; I was the first one in the Qatar Airways QSuite.

This was going to be a fun Friday night (or Saturday morning)!

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Review: Cathay Pacific’s 10-Abreast 777 Economy Class Tokyo to Hong Kong

August 18, 2019September 8, 2019 ~ Alvin ~ 1 Comment

Introduction: Revisiting Tokyo…Twice
Cathay Pacific The Deck Lounge Hong Kong
Japan Airlines 777-200 Business Class Hong Kong to Tokyo
A Tale Of Two Observation Decks: Tokyo Haneda vs. Narita
Hotel Century Southern Tower Tokyo
Scoot 787 ScootBiz Tokyo to Taipei
Cathay Pacific A350-1000 Business Class Taipei to Hong Kong
Cathay Pacific A330 Economy Class Hong Kong to Tokyo
Cathay Pacific 777 Economy Class Tokyo to Hong Kong

There’s not much I can add to Rupert Hogg’s “resignation” other than the fact that I’m shocked and disappointed by the entire situation, so I won’t be posting about it here.

In 2017, Cathay Pacific stated that they’d be replacing all of their 777 economy class seats with a new seat in a 10-abreast configuration. The first aircraft with these seats emerged in April 2018, and my initial comments of the seat were scathing based on pictures alone. A couple of readers spoke out to me after my initial report, saying that it was unfair of me to judge a seat purely based on the pictures, and the seat itself was more well-padded than they expected. So when I had the chance to get from Tokyo to Hong Kong, I was sure to snag myself a flight in Cathay’s 10-abreast economy class so I could give a firsthand review of the product.

Cathay Pacific’s Boeing 777 Economy Class

I was redeeming some expiring Asia Miles for this flight, and successfully got myself a seat on this flight for 10,000 Asia Miles one-way.

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Review: Cathay Pacific A330 Economy Class Hong Kong to Tokyo

August 16, 2019September 8, 2019 ~ Alvin ~ 1 Comment

There’s not much I can add to Rupert Hogg’s “resignation” other than the fact that I’m shocked and disappointed by the entire situation, so I won’t be posting about it here.

I wanted to spice things up and make my reviews interesting, so specifically sought out a flight on Cathay Pacific’s A350-1000 so I could review the airline’s most updated economy product. Unfortunately on the morning of our flight I received a notification that our flight had been swapped out to an A330, along with a further notification that we’d been delayed.

Especially since I was flying with friends, I was tempted to just put my camera away and not review the flight, though quickly realised that it’s been over three years since I’ve last Cathay Pacific’s A330 economy product. I decided it was worth a revisit, since this seat will still be flying around on longer flights to Australia and the Middle East, as well as various intra-Asia flights.

Our plane rolled into the gate at 10:15 AM, ahead of our new departure time at 11 AM – interestingly I’d flown this exact airframe before (B-HLP), also in economy class to Kuala Lumpur in 2016. Since then, it had received a fresh coat of paint, in Cathay Pacific’s new livery.

Cathay Pacific Airbus A330 Hong Kong Airport

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Review: Cathay Pacific A350-1000 Business Class Taipei to Hong Kong

August 8, 2019September 8, 2019 ~ Alvin ~ Leave a comment

As I hinted at in the introduction, I originally booked a flight on an internationally configured A330 back to Hong Kong, which was switched to a regional 777-300. A week before departure I managed to bag award space on one of Cathay Pacific’s A350-1000 routes between Taipei and Hong Kong on the day, so I went ahead and switched my flight to this one for 1,000 Asia Miles per person.

It only occurred to me later that I’d flown my very first flight on an A350 with Cathay Pacific on the exact same route almost three years prior to this flight, at the exact same flight time (the flight number had changed since, though, and this flight was part of a fifth-freedom flight from Osaka, whereas my last A350 flight with Cathay Pacific wasn’t).

After getting off my flight on ScootBiz, I needed to head over landside to retrieve my luggage, before re-clearing immigration. Taipei Airport’s customs department is an absolute sh*t show, and the agents were also rude, barking for us to hurry up while we were frantically putting our electronics back into our bags. The immigration department wasn’t much better, as they were testing out a new electronic system that – kindly speaking – wasn’t exactly running like clockwork.

Taipei Taoyuan Airport Immigration

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Review: Scoot 787 ScootPlus Tokyo to Taipei

July 22, 2019September 12, 2019 ~ Alvin ~ 1 Comment

One of the pet peeves people have in life is that you always want what you can’t have. I think this became true for me when Scoot pulled their 787s out of Hong Kong, instead substituting them for A320neos. While some low-cost airlines such as Malindo still offer a business class cabin to Hong Kong, none of the major low-cost carriers ~~besides British Airways~~ offer premium cabin service to Hong Kong anymore, which is a bit of a shame.

So when Cathay Pacific failed to open up any direct award space between Tokyo and Hong Kong, I knew that flying Scoot’s fifth-freedom flight between Tokyo Narita and Taipei was on my bucket list. This made me all the more excited when I got to Tokyo Narita’s Terminal 2 at around 9:30 AM.

Tokyo Narita Airport Terminal 2

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