Went down to the Sunday Market along Gaya Street in the morning. This is the place where locals and tourists hang out every Sunday morning.
With the very hot weather, some cooling down with Taiwanese-inspired dessert is required.
Late afternoon view of Gaya Island.
On the evening of departure home, we took the airport bus from KK to the airport. The new airport bus runs hourly and gets you to KK Airport terminals for a very affordable fare of RM5. Also, we decided to take the bus as when checking the arrival of our flight, I realised that the departure from Singapore has been delayed for 1.5h! What was disappointing was that there were no notification from SilkAir regarding the re-time of the flight through email or SMS at all. Hence the original 1940hrs departure was pushed back to 2110hrs. Till today, I do not know the actual reason for the delay (airport staff just informed of late arrival of the aircraft) but according to Flightradar24, 2 out of the 5 A319s in MI's fleet were not flying on the day even though all were operational just the day before, and 2 of the A320 aircraft were AOG-ed in India. Hence it resulted in staggering delays of flights operated by A319 aircraft (including mine) and a few A320 flights throughout the day.
Arrived at KK International Airport Terminal 1 at around 1845hrs. The terminal had similar interior designs as Kuching airport, and was dimly lit. Not too busy due to the lack of departures at this time. Most check-in counters were closed.
SilkAir check-in counters at Row A. Apparently some passengers were informed of the delay as they turned up for check-in much later. For the inconvenience, we were each issued a meal voucher, only to be used at McDonalds, worth RM15.
Boarding pass.
FIDS
No hassles through immigration and security. Only a few shops after immigration, nothing exciting in this small airport.
Inbound flight arrived on schedule.
01 June 2015
SilkAir
MI 381
Kota Kinabalu (BKI) - Singapore (SIN)
A319
9V-SBE
Economy Class
Boarding started 15min before the revised departure time.
Boarding the baby airbus.
Settled at seat 18F, with passengers still streaming in. The flight was rather full tonight.
Legroom was rather good at row 18. I just flew on MI's A319 a couple of months back on row 20 and the legroom did not seemed as much as on row 18. Not sure the reason of the inconsistency.
Helped myself to a pillow and blanket which were available in the overhead bins. After passengers settled in, crew came around distributing newspapers and wet towels. Again, service was friendly and warm.
Soon, doors were closed and the new safety video was played. Check out the video of the new safety video.
Short taxi to Rwy02 and depart from KK about 15min behind schedule. Flight time of 2hrs tonight.
After takeoff, meal service commenced shortly. 3 cabin crew with 2 meal carts will be serving in economy. Dropdown screens played silent short films.
Meal tray which came with fruits, main and drinking water. The options were Spicy minced chicken with fried rice or Fish in tomato sauce with yellow rice. I had a white wine and orange juice to go along.
Chose the fish option. Quantity was sufficient but taste was just average. A bit too bland and rice a tad too dry.
My friend pre-ordered the Indian vegetarian option, and according to him, it was really tasty! However, it came with the same fruit starter.
View of the cabin after meal service.
This aircraft is fitted with SilkAir Studio, SilkAir's wireless IFE system. I checked out some of the options using my mobile phone.
Soon, we are making our descent into Changi, approaching from the north.
Landing on Rwy20C, 1.5hr behind the original scheduled arrival time.
Disembarking after another pleasant flight on SilkAir.
Due to a lack of parking bays at the terminal, we were assigned a remote stand. It is not very often one gets bussed to the terminal at Changi!
9V-SSF, the infamous aircraft which momentarily lost power to both engines while on a flight to Shanghai, parked beside us.
Our aircraft on the stand.
SQ B772 resting for the night.
** Barely less than a week after returning from KK, I heard the news that KK was struck by an earthquake. Even though the city itself was not badly affected, there were casualties reported from those scaling Mount Kinabalu due to rock falls, including a group of Singaporean young students and teachers. My condolences to all affected by the unexpected natural disaster.**
Hi TerryYong. I hope you enjoy our little city. Regarding the earthquake, we never expect that it would be that significant. Of course, we had earthquakes (of small magnitude) but these weren't serious events then.
I hope to try SQ and MI one day. Looks like the in-flight meal are just so much better although only the flight only last about 2 hours.