Manchester - London - Singapore

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Manchester

The day has finally dawned. In fact, I'm lying - it's not dawned, it’s only 04h00. I'm not sure which is worse; the fact that it's only four in the morning, it's dark or that it's -1.5 degrees outside.

It was a totally uneventful drive across country to Manchester Airport, arriving on time at 05h15. I donned my walking boots and deposited the car in the car park before heading off to check in.

I was asked to use the self-service check-in, despite having a rather large suitcase. All went well until I was asked to prove my identity with the Credit Card used to book the flight. This was the first problem; I didn’t use a Credit Card to buy the flight! Oh well, I had to abandon that and go and join the very short queue (just me) at the desk.

The next area of concern was the security. I don't wear anything metal at airports because of the machines, but I did have to take out my laptop and put that through separately. Yes, it was at the bottom of the case and no, they weren't bothered with the camera and lenses, but it was rather amusing trying to get the laptop back in the bag under all the other odds and sods I’d packed.

So now, here I am, waiting in the lounge with all the others. I'm off to New Zealand, via Singapore, looking forwards to a 3 week holiday. No wonder their faces are dour - they're off to London - to work!

Manchester to London

What a surprise! I met a work colleague waiting to board the London bound plane. It wasn’t a surprise that I met her, it was a surprise that she was travelling! There supposedly are “travel restrictions” in force and for several years now we’ve not been able to fly, let alone, internally. I recently had a travel request refused - even though it was for three meetings over two days at an expense of £50. Oh well - one rule for some and not for others! I hope she enjoys her meeting!

Back to the plot … the flight down to London from Manchester was very boring although I did pick up a copy of a national paper. This will provide me with reading material and puzzles over the next 26 hours.

I haven’t flown British Airways for over 20 years and was surprised when this wasn’t cancelled. I suffered appalling customer service back in March and ended up transferring to another airline. True to type, we departed late although, to be fair, arrived in London on time.

Having arrived in the terminal building, there was an inordinate wait for the bags - time to look at the ‘scenery’, collect a trolley and make phone calls. Once the bags arrived (mine was second), it was time to work out how to get from Terminal 1 to Terminal 3. Not having checked-in in Manchester, transfer was not an option and I was guided to The Underground. I decided against that and opted for Shank’s Pony, which only took 10 minutes.

I arrived in Terminal 3 and made straight for the check-in desk. Not a particularly long queue considering that I was 3.5 hours early, however, the gentleman behind the desk did notice that I had a one-way ticket and asked whether I was coming back. I politely replied that I had a one-way ticket and pointed him to my Resident’s Visa. He smiled, thanked me and gave me my boarding cards.

Having collected my bag, I made my way to the departure area and, as usual, took of my belt, put everything in my bag and proceeded to the scanners. Some guy at the front of the queue was attempting to get a rather large suitcase though as hand baggage. Naturally, he was asked to go and check in the bag but opted to empty the contents into a separate bag - at which point he was reminded that he now had two and was only permitted one. Having called “Security”, he was guided back to check-in.

The trip through the scanners, for a change, resulted in alarm bells. I’d got no metal and had come through the scanners in Manchester but somehow managed to end up being searched twice! They couldn’t find anything (apart from metal zips) and waved me on … to the bit where they say “take your shoes off”. Once there, I was now at the back of a very long queue - which did have it’s advantage - I was asked to “walk this way”, past the queue and into the Departure Lounge.

That’s all for now. I’ve been up since 04h00, it’s now 10h00 and, to be honest, I could have driven to London quicker! However, I’m reluctant to agree that this was possibly less stressful.

Next stop - Singapore for an hour’s transfer and then on to Auckland - arriving 23h30 Thursday.

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It seems I was rather too anxious to leave - the flight had been delayed an hour and, with an hour’s connection in Singapore, I was certainly not going to arrive in Auckland as planned. Still, I wasn’t going to be the only one with a problem in Singapore and the team advised me that my flights would be rebooked and I would get details during the first part of the journey.

Ten minutes before the allotted time, we were called to the gate for boarding. There’d been no where to sit and view the planes but at least there had been shops to visit. We got to the gate and headed for the exit where, instead of the transfer bridge, there was a bus. I was due to be in row 60, in the centre of a group of three. Eventually, we got asked to board the bus to take us to the plane - apparently, there were maintenance issues and consequently the plane was not at the terminal. Finally, over an hour late, we took off …

London to Singapore

I’m sitting in the middle of a group of three. To my right, by the window, is a guy from Wales who has worked all his life in the Far East and Australia but failed to take the opportunity to emigrate to Australia. He regrets it and now travels annually to see his children. To my left is an Australian nurse in her early fifties who has been in London visiting her family. She’s returning home where she’s concerned that her boyfriend has locked her out of the house. It’s going to be a great flight!

Singapore Airlines is renowned for the quality of its service, but something was clearly not right with this flight. The staff all had a smile and were very helpful, but it wasn’t very slick. It was as if the team were all working together for the first time; they all new the procedures, but not how to work together. I was first concerned when they came round with the meals but hadn’t given out any menus - little point in asking what we wanted when we didn’t know the choice. It turned out that they’d run out of menus - and the meat dishes! Only the vegetarian option was left! Needless to say, we were not impressed and made our feelings known - and agreed to settle for a (full sized) bottle of red wine each - and a trip into first class to get their meat dishes! Then they forgot the dessert (we didn’t) although there did only appear to be two meals (lunch and breakfast).

Similarly, the entertainment choice left much to be desired. There was no jazz and the films were dire. I did watch Ocean’s Thirteen and M*A*S*H and fell asleep in Pirates of the Caribbean 3.

At the back of our minds was the concern over the connecting flights. There were a few of us going through to Auckland and, throughout the flight, there was a predicted 3 minute transfer time! True to their word, Singapore Airlines did handle the transfers very well by publishing details of all the transfer gate numbers on the system - but not for Auckland! We were just advised to “see the Ground Crew”

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