The flight to Kuching on Tiger was priced at a ridiculous $70 return all-in (excluding credit-card surcharges of $16), with departure on a Saturday morning and returning trip on a Sunday evening. It would be foolish of me not to grab the offer to fly up to Kuching and have some delicious Sarawakian dishes! It was surprising that Tiger priced the fares so low as both flights were full/almost full to the brim.
11 February 2012
Tiger Airways
TR 2492
Singapore (SIN) - Kuching (KCH)
A320
9V-TAV
Budget Class
Boarding passes issued on receipt paper. Note that I was already sequence number 146 when I checked in about 1hr before departure.
Our plane arrived from KL at about 0845hrs and after a quick turnaround (basically pax off, pax on), boarding started. Pilots and crew would be working the SIN-KUL-SIN-KCH-SIN sectors. That's pretty tiring!
Boarding started at around 0855. Walking across the tarmac to the plane with even more Tigers parked at the gates.
Pushback truck being attached to 9V-TAV.
Sparkling clean Tiger.
Welcomed aboard by the crew-in-charge. Just an observation, Tiger crew are not as helpful as Jetstar's in assisting pax with hand luggage and settling down. Surprise! Assigned emex row for free again! Second time on last 2 flights! Hmmm, a Tiger frequent-flyer benefit? Hehe. However it was row 12, which could not be reclined, but I was definitely not complaining!
Huge responsibility to be seated here, haha. Boarding was still underway and the flight was probably 95% full.
Doors were closed at 0910hrs and manual safety demonstration was shown. However pushback was delayed for another 10min due to congestion at Changi which, according to the captain, is normal at this time of the day. Guess the pilots are also resigned to the congestion. Flying time would be a short 1hr 10min.
At gate 10 at the extreme end of the terminal. Some construction underway. Expansion of Budget Terminal?
Finally we were good to go. Spot QF's ill-fated A380 VH-OQA? Repairs almost done now.
Some of the planes spotted during the short (by distance but not time) taxi to Rwy02C. First up, Qantas A330-300 to Perth.
Batavia A320 arriving from Jakarta.
Silkair A320 on another regional hop.
Colourful Air India Express B737-800 to Trichy.
AirAsia behind. Surprisingly no other planes in the queue.
And off we go! Apparently Changi is now using both runways concurrently for takeoffs during peak periods to reduce congestion.
Climbing.
Seat pocket stuff. No used tissues and snack crumbs in the seat pocket this time round, but not too sure by the end of the day.
Crew started the buy-on-board service. This set of crew was relatively friendly. However not many takers for snacks, drinks and duty free on this short flight.
The onboard food and drinks menu selection is amazingly similar to Jetstar's, down to main courses and beverages.
Inflight entertainment = Staring out at the window.
Nothing but clouds and sea.
Very soon, we were starting our descent into Kuching.
Landing at Kuching Rwy25. Sorry regarding the fogged-up window.
We parked at a gate with aerobridge, or so I thought till a flight of stairs moved to the door. Deplaning by stairs today.
The rather empty Kuching airport.
Budget to the max. Parked at gate with aerobridge but used stairs instead!
Final look at 9V-TAV.
A MASwings ATR72 arriving.
