Review of Cathay Pacific flight Singapore → Bangkok in Economy

Journey December '18 & January '19

While I just returned from Thailand in October '18, it was now time for me to head back to Thailand once again to start one of my bigger journeys of 2018 (a period of four weeks originally, but decided to add another week to it and travel to Singapore). I decided to book plenty of flights to different cities to explore in both Thailand and Myanmar together with my girlfriend.

A small tip regarding to airlines in Myanmar for domestic flights. In case you want to book a flight with them long in advance, expect your itinerary to be changed from what you originally booked it for. Two or three weeks in advance is sufficient as prices will be the exact same as you would have paid for like six months ago and be sure to verify your flight on their site 24 hours for any change.

So the routing below will give you an idea what my upcoming reports are going to be. Enjoy your read! 

The Journey of CX 712 

While I stayed at Park Regis near Clarke Quay for a very very good rate, it was now time to grab the underground back to Singapore's airport, which requires you to transfer at four different stations to four different lines. Not the most convenient way of travelling.

About 30 to 40 minutes later, we finally arrived at Changi's terminal two. Cathay was departing from T4, so we had to take the bus to transfer from T2 to T4, which is about a ten minute ride or so. To our luck, the bus just arrived and would depart within two minutes again.

Upon entering the terminal, we did check the monitors as to what check-in counters they were using.

Terminal 4 is fully automatized and I'm not really fan of it either to be honest as those so-called improvements are basically degrading the social chats you could have with staff. It definitely reduces the waiting times though. 

I proceeded to one of those check-in computers to print my boarding card and baggage tag, however the machine did not print out any tag as it ran out paper (notified one of the personnel later though), so I moved myself to another one which had paper available. 

We then proceeded to the drop off machines which barely had any person using them. The machines were very clear and easy to handle and luggage was dropped within minutes.

Border control was fully automated too and was cleared in less than a minute as there was literally no one waiting. I personally am more a fan of having border control prior to security for several reasons. Security therefore took less than a few minutes too and we were now dropped off in a secure zone where you had to walk through some shops to reach the main hall.

We went up again to T4's food court. My girlfriend opted for a Vietnamese meal, while I chose to have an Indian meal.

Both our tummies were full and we went down to escalator once again to move to our Gate G18, which we used for our arriving flight too.

I definitely loved this set up with Koi Carps swimming around and underneath you.

Before we turned right to our gate section, we saw this lovely decor with some shops. I did not check those shops, so no clue as to what they offer.

The terminal was very quiet (except near the Texas Chicken in this pic below) and did especially love the atmosphere of the entire airport. It had strong wifi, plenty of seats available and nature was very important to them.

An idle Boeing 737-800 of Silk Air

An Airbus A321 of Vietnam Airlines that was boarding for it's flight to Ho Chi Minh City as VN650.

A Boeing 737 MAX 9 (HS-LSI) of Thai Lion departing to Bangkok Don Mueang International Airport as SL101.

And a Boeing 777-300ER (B-KPG) of Cathay Pacific that was flying to Hong Kong as CX690

The odd thing about our flight is that it was already delayed by fifteen minutes in the early morning and my girlfriend received a notification of them about the delay, while me, the main booker, was not informed at all. No big deal though as it was only fifteen minutes.

About 45 minutes before the new departure time, our aircraft finally arrived. 

Our flight today would be performed by B-LAR, an Airbus A330-300 of Cathay Pacific that was only about 6.2 years old and has solely been in service with them. A nice thing of the A333 is that this aircraft is in a 2-4-2 configuration, which makes a window seat a more pleasant choice if you are traveling alone or with your partner like I was.

An announcement was made that boarding would start in ten minutes. Fifteen minutes later, the second call was made that boarding would start and if every business class passenger, One World Elites and disabled persons/families could come forward to board. A minute later, the third call was made to announce that everyone was now able to come forward to board. 43K was my seat today.

The legroom was decent, however the IFE I found rather small.

Boarding was quickly done and push back was initiated on time at 14:15.

A Boeing 787-10 (9V-SCB) was passing us for a departure to Osaka as SQ622 and soon we would turn to follow it for a departure of 02C.

Holding short at 02C, it took about 15 minutes to be rolling for departure as we were 6th in line with two Airbus A380s in front of to clear. Departure was 14:33.

Quickly climbing to a safe altitude, the flight attendants jumped out of their stairs as usual to start their task. About 45 minutes in flight, the flight attendants appeared on scene to start their meal service. Today's option with Chicken with Pasta or Beef with Mashed potatoes. I opted for the Chicken Pasta (which was again quite tasty, but rather small) with a San Miguel beer. This time drinking water was included in the meal with a small bun and the usual ice cream of Haagen-dazs (Strawberry for today).

Cruising for a good 75 minutes.

The beer did his job again and called for a toilet visit. It was clean once again and did offer some amenities like soap and some kind of lotion.

While I was impressed with the speed of boarding, I quickly realized as to why as the flight's load for today's flight was barely over 50% like you can see in the photos below.

Approach was initiated as the captain checked in to thank us for flying with Cathay Pacific and gave us some of the usual updates in regards to our arrival time and weather update.

Even though we eventually departed about 33 minutes later than our original time, we touched down with only a five minutes delay. The landing was good and a Bangkok Airways A319 was waiting to depart after us from 01L.

A few minutes to our gate and we were parked next to an Boeing 787-8 (JA823J) of Japan Airlines, who was immediately pushed back the moment we docked for a flight to Osaka (KIX) as JL728.

After deboarding, it was the usual walk to border control. The one closest to us was very very crowded, so I walked a few minutes longer to another border control, which barely had any lines to them and I did manage to clear them in about five minutes. 

By the time we reached our belt (No. 22), the luggage was already on belt and we were out in a matter of minutes and were now on our way to the airport train to Phaya Thai Station to check in to our apartment for the next week.