London to Sydney in business class on Etihad for the first time, in two legs. EY0012 out of Heathrow at 09:15 on 28 February, then EY0454 from Abu Dhabi at 22:25, landing in Sydney the following evening. Which, this being 2012, meant arriving on 29 February. I had not planned a leap day arrival and it took me a while to work out why the date looked wrong.
Travelling on my own, which is probably the only reason there are notes at all. I took them as I went, largely because I kept being handed things.
They walk you to your seat
This is a small thing that turns out not to be a small thing. On Virgin Atlantic you are pointed at a section of the aircraft and left to find your own way down it. On Etihad somebody greets you at the door and then walks you to your seat, which sounds like theatre until you have done a long-haul boarding and realised how much of the low-grade stress is just not knowing where you are meant to be.
Everything after that followed the same pattern. Small differences, all of them in the direction of you not having to ask.
Champagne, and then a cocktail you ordered on the ground
Champagne before takeoff is standard enough. What was not standard was being asked, while still at the gate, what I wanted to drink once we were up. The order was taken on the ground and arrived immediately after takeoff, at the point where you are normally still waiting for the seatbelt sign and wondering whether anyone is coming.
It was possibly the strongest vodka and coke I have ever been served, by anybody, anywhere. It came with a chicken kebab that I have thought about since, which is why there is now a tag on this blog called Lovely Chicken.
The mezze later on was very good. Not good-for-a-plane good. Good.
The massage seat
Genius. That was the note, word for word, and I stand by it.
The ceiling
This was the thing that actually stayed with me. When the cabin goes down for the night section of the flight, the ceiling lights up deep blue with tiny LEDs scattered across it, so you are lying under a very convincing set of stars at thirty something thousand feet.
It costs them almost nothing. It is not a service, it is not a product feature, nobody is going to choose an airline because of it. And it is the single detail I have described most often to other people since, which presumably tells you something about how this stuff actually works.
What I watched
- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
- 50/50
- Tower Heist, on the way home
- Unforgettable, episode 3
- New Girl
- The Good Wife
Tower Heist was on the return leg. My note about it reads, in full, “Josh or Tony? Charlie?”, which was me sitting at thirty something thousand feet failing to remember that Casey Affleck plays Charlie. He is, for the record, both better looking and a better actor than his considerably more famous brother, and I am not taking questions on this.
Somewhere in among all that was an advert for Pocari Sweat, which is a real drink, sold in enormous quantities, and named as though nobody in the room spoke English. I have no notes on the advert itself. I have extensive notes on the name.
Would I again
Yes. Obviously yes. The individual things are all quite small and most of them are cheap, which is rather the point. Somebody has clearly sat down and gone through the whole journey asking where a passenger is likely to feel slightly lost or slightly ignored, and then removed those moments one at a time.
The hotdog stand
There was a hotdog stand in the lounge. An actual stand, in an airport lounge, doing hotdogs. My note on this says “the hotdog stand at anz” and I have no idea why I wrote anz, because it was certainly not at a stadium. Whatever I meant, the hotdog stand happened.
Written up in Sydney on 7 March, waiting for EY0451 home.
