December 23, 2011

KUL-SIN-KUL-SIN-LHR

Flying to the UK today, and head off to KLIA to get my flight to Singapore and then a connection to the UK.

All seems to be going well and we take off on time to Singapore – I have a connecting flight to the UK, but unfortunately there’s a long layover at Changi – though as I am flying business class, I can use the lounge and get pissed on free champagne and fat on free cheese.

As we begin to land in Changi there's bad weather – and just as we are about to touch down, the plane pulls up almost vertically and I assume that the pilot couldn’t land this time, and I was expecting him to bring the plane about and try again. I was actually a bit scared, and the plane was shaking as we climbed back up into the sky. The pilot didn't say anything for a while and then announced that due to ‘poor visibility’ we were not able to land in Singapore, and were returning the Kuala Lumpur to refuel so we could try again… What? He assured us that the ground staff were prepped and would have more information about getting back to Singapore, so that was OK.

Not convinced, I called one of the crew over and told her I had a connecting flight, and she just said that they’d get everyone with connecting flights onto the next flight to Singapore, and with any luck we’d make our flights… though she wasn’t very convincing and said, almost as a ‘oh, by the way’, that I might not make it. Hmm. I then asked her about luggage, and I needed to get my stuff off the plane, collecting at Lost Luggage etc. I’d switched of by this point, and just knew I’d never see my bags again. Stupidly, the head cabin crew bloke sing-songed our arrival back into KL with ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to Kuala Lumpur International Airport – we hope you had a pleasant flight and you enjoy your stay here’

What the fuck!?

After we got into the gate, there was a lot of chaos and confusion with the ‘prepped’ ground staff – they hadn’t a clue what was going on, but it did appear that our flight would just refuel and head back to Singapore in another 30 minutes, so I was likely to get my UK flight after all. As we re-landed back in Singapore, I looked out of the window at the point we went up in the air again, and we were literally 1 metre off the ground – I reckon that there was either another plane on the runway, or another one coming in at the same time, but I guess I’ll never know.

I was just a bit annoyed that I’d had my BA club lounge experience shortened as my UK flight was due to take off only an hour from the time we actually landed…Bastards.

13 hours later, we land in Heathrow, cold and tired, but it was great to be back home: now to get into that Christmas spirit!

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