Given the bad reputation of air travel these days, the flying experience of this Star Alliance Round-the-World trip merits a blog post of its own. I am spending 4 of the 50 days on airplanes (83.5 hours flying time, to be exact, plus some waiting on runways), using 13 different airlines. The longest flight takes 23 hours (from Buenos Aires through Santiago and Toronto to San Francisco) and also includes the longest segment without time change (11 hours from Santiago to Toronto). Though the trip is not monotonic in longitude, it is in terms of time zones. Only after five weeks of traveling are we delayed for the first time (3 hours out of Singapore) - my first 14 flights have all been on time! By the way, newspeak for "delayed" is now "re-timed"... With only one Lufthansa flight so far, service has also been much friendlier than I am used to. The only consistent hassle has been air conditioning, with unpleasantly cold temperatures for most of the time on almost all the flights. The worst chill was on United from San Francisco to Hawaii, though this September 11 flight also topped all others in comfort and fun: we were upgraded to row 17 (our lucky number) in spacious Economy Plus, ate Sushi de luxe that we took on board, and I won the random draw in the mid-way game (guessing when we reached mid-point between San Francisco and Honolulu) without even playing it. The distinction of offering power outlets in economy, on the other hand, goes to Air Canada (Toronto to San Francisco). Lufthansa and Swiss both manage to sell us their round-the-world tickets with an invalid segment (United takes no passengers just from Sydney to Melbourne), but we will get refunded for the Qantas ersatz flight, which gets me into Melbourne only 20 minutes later than originally booked on United. Finally, airports in Australia and Asia win our award for ease of use and spacious design. Hongkong's airport even has free Wi-Fi, which comes in handy, as we need to skype to Switzerland to find out Martin's phone numbers on arrival (and tell him that we are about to visit...).
Sunday, September 30, 2007
"Nur Fliegen ist schöner"
Given the bad reputation of air travel these days, the flying experience of this Star Alliance Round-the-World trip merits a blog post of its own. I am spending 4 of the 50 days on airplanes (83.5 hours flying time, to be exact, plus some waiting on runways), using 13 different airlines. The longest flight takes 23 hours (from Buenos Aires through Santiago and Toronto to San Francisco) and also includes the longest segment without time change (11 hours from Santiago to Toronto). Though the trip is not monotonic in longitude, it is in terms of time zones. Only after five weeks of traveling are we delayed for the first time (3 hours out of Singapore) - my first 14 flights have all been on time! By the way, newspeak for "delayed" is now "re-timed"... With only one Lufthansa flight so far, service has also been much friendlier than I am used to. The only consistent hassle has been air conditioning, with unpleasantly cold temperatures for most of the time on almost all the flights. The worst chill was on United from San Francisco to Hawaii, though this September 11 flight also topped all others in comfort and fun: we were upgraded to row 17 (our lucky number) in spacious Economy Plus, ate Sushi de luxe that we took on board, and I won the random draw in the mid-way game (guessing when we reached mid-point between San Francisco and Honolulu) without even playing it. The distinction of offering power outlets in economy, on the other hand, goes to Air Canada (Toronto to San Francisco). Lufthansa and Swiss both manage to sell us their round-the-world tickets with an invalid segment (United takes no passengers just from Sydney to Melbourne), but we will get refunded for the Qantas ersatz flight, which gets me into Melbourne only 20 minutes later than originally booked on United. Finally, airports in Australia and Asia win our award for ease of use and spacious design. Hongkong's airport even has free Wi-Fi, which comes in handy, as we need to skype to Switzerland to find out Martin's phone numbers on arrival (and tell him that we are about to visit...).
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