Travelling halfway around the world is going to pretty much consume a Friday. We’ll start out flights on the a Thursday evening and land in Perth in the small hours of Saturday morning, having crossed eight time zones and flown 9083 miles of distance although our flight paths add up to 9478.
After a lovely lazy breakfast we really should be packing, but I’m still working. Husband is very tolerant and let’s me get on whilst he packs away! It’s not long before I join in and we start to worry that we’re not packing enough, so, given how unseasonably cold it is in New Zealand add in a few extra things such as leather jackets.
It’s a nice drive to MAN, 45 minutes with hardly any traffic, so we’re soon meeted and greeted and the car whisked away. The airport is also very quiet and we pass through security very quickly, and straight to the 1903 lounge which is Air France’s place. It’s a nice lounge, less utilitarian than the other two in T3. A couple of cheeky champagnes, noodles, pulled pork bau buns, cheese and chocolate cake later and it’s time to head off to the gate. The technology’s playing up at the gate but for some reason our boarding passes work whilst every one else’s doesn’t so we’re first on, and it’s only several minutes later that other people start to join us.
We’re late already and our Paris turnaround is tight so let’s hope we get off soon. Great, now we’re told there’s a baggage discrepancy so we’re not moving yet!
Paris interlude - watching our flight on Google’s maps we are horrified to fly well past CDG and on into the night, before slowly turning around. Of course all other things being equal we wouldn’t care, but having left late we are acutely conscious of our dwindling window of opportunity. Us, two other Brits and two French run the gauntlets of security and interminable duty free to get to the gate, but of course it was closed. The staff are as helpful as possible, but unexpectedly the captain comes and intervenes. The other four are processed but we are left standing, as our Australian visa don’t work on the Air France passenger system. This goes on for ages, the lady getting more and more frustrated, thus introducing errors in her frustration. After repeated errors, she calls IT support and somehow we managed to evade the issue, we only hope this won’t now ricochet in Singapore!
Eventually we’re seated, only 40 minutes late, and thanks to air traffic controller strikes, we are still not moving, but happily the champagne is flowing, however it’s a lesson we shouldn't need to re-learn, that one needs a reasonable turnaround time in Paris.
The AF 777 is lovely, only four seats across so we’re in two central ones for this journey. Since we last flew AF the seats have changed and are even nicer, with a much larger fixed table for drinks and snacks plus a little cupboard for stowing camera, iPads and whatever other rubbish one can’t manage without. We elect to watch Rocketman, pause for an excellent dinner as one would expect in France, then finish the film before getting a good six hours of sleep. Our next meal is breakfast, which is fine for 06:00 UK time but a little odd for destination time of early afternoon and once again it is fabulous. I watch Ad Astra with the lovely Brad Pitt, which although mathematically challenged is a good film.
The Qantas lounge at Changi is a bit chaotic but with the delayed arrival we only get an hour before setting off on out last flight, which takes us into Saturday and on to Perth.
Comments
Post a Comment