dbaker
12-13-2002, 03:19 PM
Continental: December 12, 2002 (AUS-IAH-NRT-IAH)
December 12, 2002 AUS-IAH (Continental 340, 2E, 737-900, Beverage)
I was in the check-in line at AUS moments before 6am. I was expecting it to be pretty quiet, but there was a significant line of people with connections to Mexico that were carrying huge amounts of luggage. After less than 10 minutes of waiting, I was checked in without incident. I checked two bags and noticed that the luggage tag (and claim tag) both had a “VIP” designator on them. I have no idea what that means or what the result is, but it probably isn’t a bad thing.
My flight was scheduled to depart at 7:23am, so I headed to the Presidents Club for some breakfast before departure. I chatted with the usual, very friendly “early morning” staff at the P Club and then got something to eat while watching CNN give weather reports indicating severe thunderstorms in the Houston area. I was suddenly quite glad that I was on the 7:23am flight to IAH instead of the 9am that doesn’t allow much room for error.
About 25 minutes prior to departure, I headed down to the gate and boarded without incident. We pushed back on schedule, but taxied forever and waited in line for departure. The captain made an announcement explaining that visibility was so impaired that some of the smaller aircraft were not going to be able to take off and we’d have to wait for our chance, but we’d be able to. Visibility seemed about 250 feet at this point.
We took off about 30 minutes late and visibility quickly dropped to 0 once we got 50 feet in the air. The ride got quite rocky pretty quickly. The usual 28 minute shuttle between AUS and IAH became an hour of extremely turbulent flying.
I managed to nap during the flight and I don’t think that there was even a beverage service due to the turbulence.
On final to IAH, visibility was almost 0 until just a few hundred feet above touch-down, which is always an interesting experience. Usually, in the next generation 737s, landing is very graceful and the reverse thrusters are operated just barely above idle, seemingly almost out of practice more than for function. When we slammed down onto the ground, the reverse thrusters were thrown into action harder than ever and we rolled for a significant distance with major reverse thrusting until we took the second exit from the runway and taxied to the C terminal.
The walk from C North to D is not that long, although the Presidents Club is a while beyond D5, the gate for my NRT departure. I had about 45 minutes to catch up on voice mail, email, call (and wake up) my business partner in Australia (Karl), and chat in #ityt before heading to the gate.
December 12, 2002 IAH-NRT (Continental 7, 3E, 777-200ER, Lunch, Dinner(?), Breakfast)
At the gate, I was disappointed because I couldn’t snap a picture of the 777-200ER that would service my IAH-NRT flight. D5 is an awkward corner gate that has practically no visibility of the aircraft from the terminal. You can see the top of the aircraft from the people movers connecting C->D and you can see the tail if you walk towards D6, but that’s it.
As I approached the gate, the red coat announced that rows 1-10 were boarding. I boarded the aircraft third and quickly took my seat. Once I was settled, the flight service coordinator almost immediately came by to introduce himself and provide my amenity kit, menu, and welcome me to the flight. I chatted with my seatmate for 20 minutes or so until the BusinessFirst concierge came by to ask about how the check-in went, to verify that my Onepass number was in my PNR, and to see if I needed any information to help me navigate Narita, which I declined.
As this is my first BF experience in over a year, I noticed for the first time that the shaving kit had been replaced by a little card saying that you can ask your flight attendant for a shaving kit. Interesting.
Prior to closing the door, I forwarded my mobile phone to my one in Japan. For the next 18 hours or so, people calling my mobile number will be greeted in Japanese – whee. I chatted with Karl a bit on my RIM before turning it off until I touch back down in the US since there will be no Mobitex coverage in JP.
We sat at D5 killing time while I heard baggage being shuffled around below. I think that lots of late connections were causing the delay. At about 11:20am (40min after scheduled departure), we pushed back from D5 and taxied to the runway. There was practically no wait and we promptly screamed down takeoff roll and pulled up into the turbulent weather that I had arrived in. Once we approached the cruising altitude, things smoothed out, though.
I ordered the steak and the vinaigrette sauce on the salad. The FA came by offering an appetizer of either sushi or smoke salmon. I hesitated when asked for my selection, so she asked if I would just like, “a little of both.” I agreed, and was served a full dish of each.
There was a bit too much of the vinaigrette sauce on the salad for my taste and the steak was a bit fatty. However, my ice cream sundae with “the works” was everything that I have come to expect. (“The only thing vanilla about BusinessFirst is your made-to-order sundae”)
While the FA made my sundae, I asked her if many people tell her that she looks eerily similar to Gwyneth Paltrow. She kind of sighed and responded, “yes, all the time.” I asked why she sighed and insisted that it should be taken as a compliment. She explained that it only happens when she’s not wearing a lot of makeup, which I guess should be good too – who knows. . .
I watched “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City” while eating lunch. It was first season material that I hadn’t seen in quite a while, so it was actually pretty entertaining. Unfortunately, none of the other in-flight entertainment selections looked too exciting.
About an hour after the lunch service (maybe 2.5 hours into flight), I was trying to fall asleep and we suddenly hit some pretty heavy turbulence that kept getting worse and worse. The FAs came down the aisles repeating in an almost shouting tone, “Seatbelts! Now! Tight!” As it got even worse, the captain came on the intercom and said, “Ladies and gentlemen …. this is the captain speaking … the aircraft is under control…. please . . . uh, standby.” I found that kind of funny since it had never occurred to me that the aircraft [i]wasn’t under control. The turbulence became so violent that I was pretty worried that I was going to be sick. Part of me also wished that I was in a window seat so that I could look back and see how much the wings were swaying up and down. After about 10 minutes or so and a lot of descending, things finally calmed down. Fun stuff.
I fell asleep for three or four hours, which was my first real rest in about 24 hours. The new BusinessFirst seat is nice, but not designed for people as tall as I am. I had to readjust myself quite a bit to make sure that my head was as high as I could go on the seat so that my feat would be as close as possible to fitting on the footrest. I had to press my feet down on the footrest, which makes you feel like you’re standing since the “lie-flat seat” is at a slight incline. The alternative is to let my feet hang off, which is less pleasant. Complaining aside, it was very nice to be able to lie on my side (or even on my front) and be able to sleep pretty comfortably. I woke up refreshed.
When I woke up, I saw that my drinks had been cleared and replaced with a water bottle. I was wondering about the water bottles; my BF experience has been that they’re left for you on your seat before you arrive on the plane. I drank the entire bottle in about 10 minutes.
As I write this, it’s 10am JST/7pm CST. I’m getting hungry again and tempted to wander back and grab some “SkySnacks’ (Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies, etc). However, I think that I’ll wait until the mid-flight meal that I don’t think I slept through. We’re about 5 hours from Narita, flying over the Bering Sea, and approaching the International Date Line.
I fired up my computer and watched “The Talented Mr Ripley,” which coincidentally is a Gwyneth Paltrow movie.
Perhaps I slept longer than I realized because it seems that I missed the mid-flight meal and was being served the pre-landing breakfast before I knew it. I should have asked the FA to wake me up for it because I was pretty hungry and getting tired of munching on Milanos. I selected the quiche for breakfast, which was very excellent, and also had a delicious fruit plate and several cinnamon rolls with coffee and orange juice.
I know that I’m lame for ordering from the western menu.
Overall, the service was excellent. Finishing a water bottle meant that another one would show up before you knew it. Taking a sip of a drink meant that it would be refilled in a few minutes. Everyone was very friendly and helpful. It was a pleasure.
Apparently my Gwyneth Paltrow comment didn’t bother the FA as much as she let on because prior to landing, she dropped by and chatted with me about what I was doing in Japan. She has a ~24h layover before doing the return flight (CO7 NRT-IAH). It turns out that she primarily does IAH to AMS/LGW/HNL and only gets stuck doing the NRT run once a year. I believe that it’s the longest flight out of IAH, which would explain why it isn’t preferable. She seemed to be good friends with the other girl that was servicing the front BF cabin, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re in the same boat.
All in all, the flight felt quite quick – nothing like 15 hours on a plane. It felt more like a US transcon or something. No biggie, really, but it was probably a combination of the good service, sleep, and comfort of the 777 that made the time fly.
Two jetways were used to deplane the aircraft. I exited out of door 1 and rode the people movers through beautiful Narita “New Tokyo” airport. I said goodbye to my seatmate as we got off the people movers; I was going to immigration and he was connecting to SIN-KUL. Within about 10 minutes of deplaning, I was approaching immigration. I managed to enter Japan faster than I’ve ever entered the US. Much of this was luck, but there was no line when I showed up, so I immediately was able to approach an officer and with one look at me, no words were exchanged, *stamp* *stamp* *stamp* *staple*, and I walked on.
The bags were a bit slow to arrive in general. My duffel bag was one of the first few off, but my roll-aboard bag was much later. Interestingly enough, when it arrived, it was freezing cold and soaking wet. I’m lucky that the airline bag check tag managed to stay on, it was barely holding on.
The customs officer that I had didn’t really speak English, but handing over my documents and shaking my head a few times had me waved on in less than 15 seconds.
The shuttle places were just around the corner and, as luck would have it, the next TCAT shuttle was taking off in 4 minutes. A quick swipe of my AmEx (just ¥2900) and I was on my way.
I’m writing this now about an hour into my ride into Tokyo. We’re stuck in Friday evening traffic and it’s a less than exciting experience. My mobile phone is at the hotel. My RIM and tri-band GSM phone don’t work here. I feel extremely disconnected from the world. I haven’t had any calls, emails, or news updates in 18 hours or so.
December 12, 2002 AUS-IAH (Continental 340, 2E, 737-900, Beverage)
I was in the check-in line at AUS moments before 6am. I was expecting it to be pretty quiet, but there was a significant line of people with connections to Mexico that were carrying huge amounts of luggage. After less than 10 minutes of waiting, I was checked in without incident. I checked two bags and noticed that the luggage tag (and claim tag) both had a “VIP” designator on them. I have no idea what that means or what the result is, but it probably isn’t a bad thing.
My flight was scheduled to depart at 7:23am, so I headed to the Presidents Club for some breakfast before departure. I chatted with the usual, very friendly “early morning” staff at the P Club and then got something to eat while watching CNN give weather reports indicating severe thunderstorms in the Houston area. I was suddenly quite glad that I was on the 7:23am flight to IAH instead of the 9am that doesn’t allow much room for error.
About 25 minutes prior to departure, I headed down to the gate and boarded without incident. We pushed back on schedule, but taxied forever and waited in line for departure. The captain made an announcement explaining that visibility was so impaired that some of the smaller aircraft were not going to be able to take off and we’d have to wait for our chance, but we’d be able to. Visibility seemed about 250 feet at this point.
We took off about 30 minutes late and visibility quickly dropped to 0 once we got 50 feet in the air. The ride got quite rocky pretty quickly. The usual 28 minute shuttle between AUS and IAH became an hour of extremely turbulent flying.
I managed to nap during the flight and I don’t think that there was even a beverage service due to the turbulence.
On final to IAH, visibility was almost 0 until just a few hundred feet above touch-down, which is always an interesting experience. Usually, in the next generation 737s, landing is very graceful and the reverse thrusters are operated just barely above idle, seemingly almost out of practice more than for function. When we slammed down onto the ground, the reverse thrusters were thrown into action harder than ever and we rolled for a significant distance with major reverse thrusting until we took the second exit from the runway and taxied to the C terminal.
The walk from C North to D is not that long, although the Presidents Club is a while beyond D5, the gate for my NRT departure. I had about 45 minutes to catch up on voice mail, email, call (and wake up) my business partner in Australia (Karl), and chat in #ityt before heading to the gate.
December 12, 2002 IAH-NRT (Continental 7, 3E, 777-200ER, Lunch, Dinner(?), Breakfast)
At the gate, I was disappointed because I couldn’t snap a picture of the 777-200ER that would service my IAH-NRT flight. D5 is an awkward corner gate that has practically no visibility of the aircraft from the terminal. You can see the top of the aircraft from the people movers connecting C->D and you can see the tail if you walk towards D6, but that’s it.
As I approached the gate, the red coat announced that rows 1-10 were boarding. I boarded the aircraft third and quickly took my seat. Once I was settled, the flight service coordinator almost immediately came by to introduce himself and provide my amenity kit, menu, and welcome me to the flight. I chatted with my seatmate for 20 minutes or so until the BusinessFirst concierge came by to ask about how the check-in went, to verify that my Onepass number was in my PNR, and to see if I needed any information to help me navigate Narita, which I declined.
As this is my first BF experience in over a year, I noticed for the first time that the shaving kit had been replaced by a little card saying that you can ask your flight attendant for a shaving kit. Interesting.
Prior to closing the door, I forwarded my mobile phone to my one in Japan. For the next 18 hours or so, people calling my mobile number will be greeted in Japanese – whee. I chatted with Karl a bit on my RIM before turning it off until I touch back down in the US since there will be no Mobitex coverage in JP.
We sat at D5 killing time while I heard baggage being shuffled around below. I think that lots of late connections were causing the delay. At about 11:20am (40min after scheduled departure), we pushed back from D5 and taxied to the runway. There was practically no wait and we promptly screamed down takeoff roll and pulled up into the turbulent weather that I had arrived in. Once we approached the cruising altitude, things smoothed out, though.
I ordered the steak and the vinaigrette sauce on the salad. The FA came by offering an appetizer of either sushi or smoke salmon. I hesitated when asked for my selection, so she asked if I would just like, “a little of both.” I agreed, and was served a full dish of each.
There was a bit too much of the vinaigrette sauce on the salad for my taste and the steak was a bit fatty. However, my ice cream sundae with “the works” was everything that I have come to expect. (“The only thing vanilla about BusinessFirst is your made-to-order sundae”)
While the FA made my sundae, I asked her if many people tell her that she looks eerily similar to Gwyneth Paltrow. She kind of sighed and responded, “yes, all the time.” I asked why she sighed and insisted that it should be taken as a compliment. She explained that it only happens when she’s not wearing a lot of makeup, which I guess should be good too – who knows. . .
I watched “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City” while eating lunch. It was first season material that I hadn’t seen in quite a while, so it was actually pretty entertaining. Unfortunately, none of the other in-flight entertainment selections looked too exciting.
About an hour after the lunch service (maybe 2.5 hours into flight), I was trying to fall asleep and we suddenly hit some pretty heavy turbulence that kept getting worse and worse. The FAs came down the aisles repeating in an almost shouting tone, “Seatbelts! Now! Tight!” As it got even worse, the captain came on the intercom and said, “Ladies and gentlemen …. this is the captain speaking … the aircraft is under control…. please . . . uh, standby.” I found that kind of funny since it had never occurred to me that the aircraft [i]wasn’t under control. The turbulence became so violent that I was pretty worried that I was going to be sick. Part of me also wished that I was in a window seat so that I could look back and see how much the wings were swaying up and down. After about 10 minutes or so and a lot of descending, things finally calmed down. Fun stuff.
I fell asleep for three or four hours, which was my first real rest in about 24 hours. The new BusinessFirst seat is nice, but not designed for people as tall as I am. I had to readjust myself quite a bit to make sure that my head was as high as I could go on the seat so that my feat would be as close as possible to fitting on the footrest. I had to press my feet down on the footrest, which makes you feel like you’re standing since the “lie-flat seat” is at a slight incline. The alternative is to let my feet hang off, which is less pleasant. Complaining aside, it was very nice to be able to lie on my side (or even on my front) and be able to sleep pretty comfortably. I woke up refreshed.
When I woke up, I saw that my drinks had been cleared and replaced with a water bottle. I was wondering about the water bottles; my BF experience has been that they’re left for you on your seat before you arrive on the plane. I drank the entire bottle in about 10 minutes.
As I write this, it’s 10am JST/7pm CST. I’m getting hungry again and tempted to wander back and grab some “SkySnacks’ (Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies, etc). However, I think that I’ll wait until the mid-flight meal that I don’t think I slept through. We’re about 5 hours from Narita, flying over the Bering Sea, and approaching the International Date Line.
I fired up my computer and watched “The Talented Mr Ripley,” which coincidentally is a Gwyneth Paltrow movie.
Perhaps I slept longer than I realized because it seems that I missed the mid-flight meal and was being served the pre-landing breakfast before I knew it. I should have asked the FA to wake me up for it because I was pretty hungry and getting tired of munching on Milanos. I selected the quiche for breakfast, which was very excellent, and also had a delicious fruit plate and several cinnamon rolls with coffee and orange juice.
I know that I’m lame for ordering from the western menu.
Overall, the service was excellent. Finishing a water bottle meant that another one would show up before you knew it. Taking a sip of a drink meant that it would be refilled in a few minutes. Everyone was very friendly and helpful. It was a pleasure.
Apparently my Gwyneth Paltrow comment didn’t bother the FA as much as she let on because prior to landing, she dropped by and chatted with me about what I was doing in Japan. She has a ~24h layover before doing the return flight (CO7 NRT-IAH). It turns out that she primarily does IAH to AMS/LGW/HNL and only gets stuck doing the NRT run once a year. I believe that it’s the longest flight out of IAH, which would explain why it isn’t preferable. She seemed to be good friends with the other girl that was servicing the front BF cabin, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re in the same boat.
All in all, the flight felt quite quick – nothing like 15 hours on a plane. It felt more like a US transcon or something. No biggie, really, but it was probably a combination of the good service, sleep, and comfort of the 777 that made the time fly.
Two jetways were used to deplane the aircraft. I exited out of door 1 and rode the people movers through beautiful Narita “New Tokyo” airport. I said goodbye to my seatmate as we got off the people movers; I was going to immigration and he was connecting to SIN-KUL. Within about 10 minutes of deplaning, I was approaching immigration. I managed to enter Japan faster than I’ve ever entered the US. Much of this was luck, but there was no line when I showed up, so I immediately was able to approach an officer and with one look at me, no words were exchanged, *stamp* *stamp* *stamp* *staple*, and I walked on.
The bags were a bit slow to arrive in general. My duffel bag was one of the first few off, but my roll-aboard bag was much later. Interestingly enough, when it arrived, it was freezing cold and soaking wet. I’m lucky that the airline bag check tag managed to stay on, it was barely holding on.
The customs officer that I had didn’t really speak English, but handing over my documents and shaking my head a few times had me waved on in less than 15 seconds.
The shuttle places were just around the corner and, as luck would have it, the next TCAT shuttle was taking off in 4 minutes. A quick swipe of my AmEx (just ¥2900) and I was on my way.
I’m writing this now about an hour into my ride into Tokyo. We’re stuck in Friday evening traffic and it’s a less than exciting experience. My mobile phone is at the hotel. My RIM and tri-band GSM phone don’t work here. I feel extremely disconnected from the world. I haven’t had any calls, emails, or news updates in 18 hours or so.