Launching Pad

Etihad Flight EY473 Brisbane to Singapore. For some reason that still eludes us, we were convinced that this flight was scheduled for an 8am takeoff. So we had arranged for our good friends the Flints to drop us off at the airport at a rather fresh time of 5:30am, said our goodbyes, rocked up to the check-in with the confidence of two people who reckoned they were pretty good at this plane travel thing, having sooo done this before.

The flight was actually scheduled for 12.20pm, just like our itinerary said, which we had failed to consult in detail. The board wasn't even showing our flight check-in opening time yet, which was probably fair enough since we were 6 hours early. Humble pie and coffee for breakfast.


No matter, I have a new Macbook Air that needs setup, parents that are happy to chat over Skype, and GST to reclaim. Check-in finally opens. Kathy, our lovely check-in assistant, takes one look at our one-way ticket to Singapore and says no, we need a ticket out of Singapore too. We are astounded for a second, and then remember this is the little rule that we had been advised about that we thought we'd get away with not heeding. Humble pie and a chupa-chup for lunch.

Luckily Air Asia was giving away $0 tickets plus fees. So we bought a flight from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur that we will never fly to pay our way through the departure gate, and the rest of the flight to Singapore was event free. Not the smoothest start to our long journey, but that'll do.