Quote:My first flight was in a tube, and I didn't want it to end,
but then again, I wasn't in it for 16hrs!
I found out its not to bad when the long haul is your first flight instead of the last...Going over took some 32+ hours from FWA-DFW-LAX-TPE...all but around 8 hours of that was spent on aircraft...What I didn't realize when booking the tickets is that for some reason Malaysia Airlines takes a southern more strait line track from LAX-TPE-LAX...Pretty much all the other airlines take a northern circle close to Alaska/Korea etc...But Malaysia passes not to far north of Hawaii instead...that adds an extra hour-hour and a half to the flight time. Looking at the current schedule all flights listed for July 4th have listed aprox. 13h 15m...but Malaysia is the lonely flight coming in at 14h 40m...which is about right, think we timed in at about 14h 30m from wheels up to touchdown, let alone taxi times at LAX. Though the return from TPE to LAX now has the same flight time as everyone else, not sure if they changed routes for that leg or not, when I was on it we still took the southern track both ways.
Going over that long haul nearly killed me, didn't help the entertainment system was down either.
But returning long haul first made a world of difference in how I felt, 14 hours in a cramped tube still sucks no matter how much you like to fly though...but it wasn't as miserable...Just touching down at LAX after that flight, knowing I had a long layover, and there was still another 2 flights before getting back on home soil was a bit much.
Now they use a 777-200ER on that route, which kinda surprised me though air travel is slowing down a bit, both those flights with 747-400s were fully loaded, not one seat open anywhere, probably close to MTOW, still remember sitting there both times during takeoff wondering if we were ever going to get airborne or just skim water for the next 7,000 miles
To used to shorter flights that rocket skyward...not slowly lumber up there.
Always love sitting just behind the wings, actually the wing view in FS isn't to far off from where I actually sat both ways, I was just a couple rows farther forward then that
Though I think my next trip over there hopefully late next year I'm going to try taking American through Tokyo and see if I can use some saved miles to bump myself into business class for the long hauls, I really don't look forward to cattle class on such long flights again
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