35 HOURS TRIP TO CHENNAI !
TRIP DETAILS
OMAN AIR WY644 - KWI TO MCT - THIS REPORT! OMAN AIR WY253 - MCT TO MAA - CANCELLED
NEW ITINARARY
OMAN AIR WY375 - MCT TO CMB - COMING UP!
SRILANKAN UL121 - CMB TO MAA - TO BE RELEASED EARLIER THAN WY375!
Now this is me , Srihari , I am an AvGeek and I had recently completed my 100th flight of the decade. During my trip in May, I had flown with Qatar Airways to Chennai to attend a competition , A Trip in July by Oman Air's Business Class for a vacation and again in August for to some urgent work
NOTE : EVERYTHING GOES NORMAL IN THE BEGINNING , IT TURNS OUT TO BE A 35 HOURS TRIP
We were originally supposed to fly by Oman Air Economy Class (THE REASON BEING ALL SEATS SOLD OUT). Am not sure why but even after testing the Business Class of SriLankan , Qatar , Emirates , I love Oman Air and the reason is unknown even to me.
We were continuously looking out for the seats availability in Business Class for a peace of mind and we had found out a great deal! This was our fare breakdown
Originally Paid Price for Economy Class : 530KWD
Price paid extra for upgrade : 180KWD
TOTALLY PAID : 710KWD
We had a little change in our itinerary too
WY648 – KWI-MCT – 2105HRS – 0020HRS
WY253 – MCT-MAA – 0905HRS – 1430HRS
And it changed to……
WY644 – KWI-MCT – 0405HRS-0720HRS
WY253 – MCT-MAA – 0905HRS-1430HRS
Okay , Now we come to the main story
At 1 am , We were surprised to see so many taxis at that time also! We took a taxi to the airport. At 1:30am we checked in our bags and we were initially informed about the 40 minutes delay from Kuwait Airport (NOW DEPARTING AT 0445HRS). I was like so sad with the fact that we would be landing at Muscat at 8 AM and I would barely be able to visit the Oman Air Business Class Lounge which I loved it during my last visit in July.
At exactly 0152hrs , we passed the immigration counters exclusively for First and Business Class Passengers and proceeded to the Pearl Lounge and we were very surprised to see that there was almost no food available at the lounge (THE ONLY THING AVAILABLE WAS FRUITS ). Pearl Lounge had never let me down ever since my visit in June 2016 when I flew in Qatar Airways’ Business/First Class and also Oman Air’s Business Class.
Then…..
Every Oman Air passenger was clueless about the flight except 3 of us who were having a live up-to-date status.
I was so sad to know that at 0541am we would be departing.
At 0511am , Oman Air ground staff came and told us that we would be officially missing our flight WY253 to Chennai , At that time I was like Yah! That’s my Boy! I was asking them that ‘’YOU SURE , WE WOULD BE MISSING OUR FLIGHT? ‘’ And when they said YES , I just screamed out of joy and then everybody looked at me again as if I had come from another planet.
Yes , I had predicted the reason of delay RIGHT! A Technical Snag!
The aircraft had arrived at Kuwait at 0615hrs and we were informed that we would be departing at 0732hrs , We were also surprised to see that during the time we were in the lounge , the staff had even changed their shifts and here we, the passengers were starving in hunger…
We went to Bus Gate and we were asked to be seated until we were called up and meanwhile I had spotted some rare planes!
Wataniya Airways A320-200
And A RETIRED KUWAIT AIRWAYS BOEING 747-400 and KUWAIT AIRWAYS AIRBUS A340-300
Looks like there had been some kinda delay in baggage loading , And at finally we were airborne at 0806hrs (04hrs 01min delay exactly)
And my seat was messed up like
After starving for almost 7 hours , I was waiting for the moment to get the food but there was a twist here………………
No Veg Meals on Flight too!!! I couldn’t do anything but just order a coffee to keep me on track for atleast next 2 hours……
After arriving at Muscat at 1030hrs (3 hrs 10mins delay) , we boarded a customised TOYOTA COASTER bus and since Immigration Hall and the gateway to Customs are at the same path , My Eye just took a pic of the immigration hall.
At 1045hrs , We reached the FIRST AND BUSINESS CLASS COUNTERS
They asked us WHY DID WE COME HERE?
I told them we are J CLASS PASSENGERS AND WE GOTTA STAND HERE and they were like NO , YOU SHOULDN’T STAND HERE , YOU SHOULD WAIT UNTIL WE CALL PASSENGERS TO CHENNAI……..
I immediately replied NO , WE ARE NOT ECONOMY CLASS PASSENGERS , WE MUST HAVE PRIORITY BECAUSE WE PAID 5x THE COST FOR BETTER SERVICE
After 3 hours or ONE ETERNITY LATER at 1325hrs , They issued us the new boarding passes (Oman Air and SriLankan) and the itinerary and were informed that we will be staying in Golden Tulip Inn , Seeb Muscat and wait for a while until I complete my draft on more interesting FR
WY375 – MCT-CMB – 2135hrs-0325hrs (31st August)
UL121 – CMB-MAA – 0720hrs-0850hrs
To be continued……
Do continue your journey to Chennai. Enjoyed reading your report.
Thanks a lot for your comment! Stay Updated as I write the SECOND SEGMENT of this trip - Muscat to Colombo and then to Chennai!
No food other than fruit in the lounge at KWI, and you still rate it 7 ? You are a kind man, but then I heard that lounges in the US are hardly better.
Now, three hours for J passengers to get rebooking boarding passes at MCT ? WY/MCT had better do some benchmarking and take corrective action if they want to keep premium passenger traffic. (And there too, I think your Services grade is lenient, but Flight Report etiquette is to not argue about that. The author has the first and final say :)
If I may offer a suggestion, I would suggest fewer capitalized text, even though I can understand you were less than happy during these events.
Thanks for sharing, and welcome among the contributors !
I second marathon's comments. Also try to get more pictures of he entire flight itself including the hard and soft product. FRs generally don't do selfies as most of us AVgeeks are not interested in it anyway. Hope to see better reports coming.