Another traditional breakfast at the Tsui Wah café chain. The buns are good!
And a very special Cheese noodles at Seng Kee eatery.
4 nights in Hong Kong and it was time to return. The day that I am flying back to SIN also coincides with the mid-autumn, or popularly known as the mooncake festival. It is a traditional festival widely celebrated in Hong Kong and China and hence it would be interesting if CX does anything special on the flight back.
Arrived at the airport by bus and obtained boarding pass with no wait slightly less than 1.5hr before departure. Today's gate would be real far!
Through immigration and security with hardly a wait as well and into the departure hall. Some spotting before hopping onto the train to the other end of the humongous terminal.
Took the shuttle train to arrive at the other end of the terminal. The shuttle train would soon be extended to a new satellite terminal which is currently in construction and operational by end of the year.
It would be another long walk to Gate 71, right at the end of the pier.
More plane-spotting along the way, including a LH B748!
Finally arrived at the gate, with boarding already commenced.
B-HLV, a 12-yr old but recently retrofitted A330-300 would be flying me back home.
27 September 2015
Cathay Pacific
CX 711
Hong Kong (HKG) - Singapore (SIN)
A330-300
B-HLV
Economy Class
Flight Time: 3h12m
Boarding the aircraft. Again, the newspaper trolley at the door was totally emptied by early boarding passengers.
Proceeded to my window seat at the second last row of the aircraft. This A330 was retrofitted with the earlier generation fixed-back shell seats in economy. Comfort-wise, definitely not up to par as the new long-haul seats, but acceptable for the short flight to Singapore. The cabin ended up totally full again on this flight. During check-in, the agent even commented that they were looking for passengers to volunteer for a later flight as the flight was overbooked. Well, I was not offered the option though. Also interestingly, I was initially surprised by the Singapore-accented English spoken by quite a number of the crew. Turned out that more than half the crew, including the Inflight Service Manager, are Singapore-based CX crew. The 3 crew working the aft economy cabin where I was seated (2 junior crew and a purser) are all Singapore-based crew, resulting in a more SQ-ish instead of CX-ish experience. Funny to actually feel at home on a CX flight haha.
Welcome aboard.
Legroom not fantastic but acceptable for the short flight.
Safety card. Rest of the inflight mags are similar to the previous flight.
At the gate.
We finally pushed back slightly behind schedule due to loading of connecting baggage. Safety video played.
Taxi to the runway.
Holding short beside a CX OneWorld-livery A340.
Rolling down Rwy25L.
Climbing out of HKIA.
Tai-O can be spotted in the distance.
Video of departure from Rwy25L.
Breaking through the clouds. Spot our shadow!
Climbing to cruising altitude.
Similar to the previous flight, service started with peanuts and beverages.
Chose the Coke with ice from the beverage tray to go along.
Was watching a Japanese comedy on the IFE when the meal choices of the flight popped out. For this flight's dinner choices, it was either Braised chicken in onion sauce with rice, or Fusilli in tomato sauce with black olives and cheese. As expected, one of the choices catered from HKG is a vegetarian pasta choice.
Dinner service started soon after. With the mainly Asian passengers onboard, the rice option was in high demand, resulting in some of the more difficult passengers (not stating the nationality here but freq flyers on CX's SIN-HKG flights will know) getting rather loud and demanding only for the rice option. Crew tried their best to appease passengers, and somehow managed to settle the situation amicably.
Seated at the rear, we were one of the last to be served and expecting to have no more rice option, we agreed for the pasta option, to much thanks from the very apologetic crew. The crew serving us also passed me a different tray from the rest (guess is a special meal tray which contains a dessert) and asked me to keep the dessert already on the tray. As part of the Mid-Autumn Festival treat, each meal tray also contained a mooncake as well! Had a white wine and orange juice to go along.
Cut fruits, a mango sago dessert and Haagen Daz cookies and cream ice-cream which was distributed shortly after. My sweet tooth was really satisfied on this flight!
Pasta dish. It was not really to my liking, as I am not really a fan of tomato-based pasta dishes and olives.
Halfway through the meal, the purser popped out from the rear galley and passed us a rice option, mentioning that she has got one last casserole. Thanks to her! The chicken with rice tasted better than the pasta dish, but both options were not as good as the mains catered out from Singapore.
Finishing with ice-cream.
Complimentary mooncake for the mid-autumn festival.
Enjoying the mooncake with the full moon at 39,000ft and a cup of Chinese tea. Not everyday that one can have this experience!
Flying over Vietnam after meal trays were collected.
Sun setting and full moon getting brighter.
View of the cabin.
Towards the end of the flight, a few of us passengers were handed survey forms to fill up, and we got complimentary CX pens for it. After completing the survey, I asked if they have any playing cards but the purser informed apologetically that CX has ceased giving out playing cards. Another cost cutting measure…
Approaching Singapore.
We landed in a hazy Singapore Changi Rwy20R ahead of schedule.
Disembarking.
The aircraft will be overnighting in Singapore.
Thanks for reading and all comments are welcomed.
Thanks for this report,
Contrary to you, i would be so happy with Pasta dish!!
Mooncake is a nice dessert also.
I guess there's a very small difference between SQ and CX, even for short flights.
See you
Such a nice gesture by the purser to find one more meal for you