Singapore Travelogue: The Departure

(Posted on behalf of Kumar)

The flight was scheduled to depart at 11PM, and I was at the airport at 8PM, the requisite 3 hours in advance. I believe it was overkill. There were 2 people in line ahead of me (travelling by business class has its advantages), and security had a separate line for business class (I did not know till now – not having travelled in business class since 9/11). I whiled away the 2 hours in the waiting lounge, with last minute conf-calls to the teams, goodnights to the kids and wife, and chatting with a co-passenger. All in all, the waiting lounge was very good, with the expected supply of requisite amounts of C2H5OH imported from different regions of the world, and vegetarian food.

The flight! The flight was a vey different experience. I have traveled business class a few times cross-continent and once across the Pacific. But these seats and this plane are somewhat new. First, I was warned in the lounge that this is some kind of “first of its kind”. I paid no attention. Once inside, I instantly realized, and was incessantly reminded, that this is the only flight in the US that flies to Singapore – all business class! There are no other types of seats!! It has about 200 business class passengers, and no one else!!

The seats are all equipped with flatbeds. In other words, these are like Indian Railways’ Two-Tier AC berths next to the windows (topologically speaking only; the analogy stops there). Singapore Airlines brings ergonomics and hedonism mixed into conveniently sized goblets of ambrosia, served delicately by the dainty Singaporeans, right at your flatbed side.
There are only 4 seats (1-2-1) in the entire width of the plane (2-seaters are intended for couples, I guess) and I got my own window-and-aisle seat; the most common format is 2-3-2 (in most other classes). The nap on the flatbed reminded me of travelling in the Indian Railway berths, adding a cradle like or hammock-like cadence to the experience. All in all, I must say it was a very desirable and different experience! There was a US-Electric supply available for my laptop, and a small compartment to put away accouterments. A three course meal was served as soon as we were 30K feet up (almost as tall as the Mount Everest, or, 1/3 the height of Mt. Olympus as Sidharta’s quick repartee would remind me). [Well, actually, Sidharta would be referring to Olympus Mons, Mars' mega-volcano, but who's counting? -- Dawn] There were three choices of vegetarian – reminded me of old days when they used to ask – do you want HVML or AVML (Hindu versus Asian). The meal, Indian Vegetarian meal (I guess should be IVML) was reasonable. Not at the same level as I would have expected – it was still packed, not prepared on board, although served in plates instead of packages. Now, you may say preparing on board for 200 people is unreasonable at best. That is correct, and they knew it. I was just trying to see how far I can imagine! If we can accomplish that, these planes would be like flying cruise ships. After the meal, I went to bed listening to Mahler’s first Symphony 3rd movement.

The trip is a non-stop night of 20 hours. There is no Sun seen in the trip, and hence, you break it up as “nights”, “mornings” and “daytimes” as you wish. After a few hours of sleep, I woke up, pretended that it is morning, and asked for breakfast – served again in style. I tried to sleep a little more and then got myself ready for the upcoming meetings by studying all the presentations, papers and such.