It is the first time I travel on domestic planes and thus I have absolutely no clue what to expect. Thus I even brought my passport out on that first trip to... Sydney. Had chosen Tiger Airways because it is the cheapest airline. Till my colleagues warn me that Tiger Air is notorious to cancel flight.
And so begins my 3 heart attacks from Tiger Air...
1) I had opt to use the web check in to save money. But I ended up paying more because I had checked in for my return flight instead. I do agree that is my fault but I never expected that one can check in 7 days before the actual flight. And that you can check in a return flight even before you had board your arrival flight. So my penalty? Is an extra charge of 25 AUD.. sighz
I was panicking in the queue because they are super slow and the Q was long. I remember I wanted to ask the lady before me to let me first only to find out we were both on the same flight and she was complaining to me that she could not web check in because the site was slow. Makes me wonder is it Tiger Airways gimmick to tell us all to web check in, and then penalised us should we fail. Whatever. I am just glad that one, I saw the boarding pass while playing with xL's boarding pass too... and that I did not checked in wrongly for her. Else I will feel super guilty.
2)Then come the second heart attack.
After check in, they tell me flight closed. Huh. Back to the staff and she explained it means check-in close. Eh for a predominantly English speaking country, you couldn't be more explicit in your status updates?
3)And the last heart attack.. when the captain was telling us that we are still waiting to be taxi out because the weather is bad and due to some restrictions in Sydney airport, there is always a slight possibility that the flight may be cancelled. Well it was raining but I did not see any rainstorm. However you know any slight bad weather means a lot in aviation so trust that he knows his stuff...
And with these 3 heart attacks, I wondered if it is really fated that I should go Sydney? I don't know. I did tell myself I might not fly Tiger Air next time except my HK trip is via Tiger Airways too. (The return trip was rather smooth though so it negates the bad experience).
Anyway did not expect my next domestic trip to come up so fast.. And is again to Sydney. This time I brought only my driving license. And I was flying Qantas. But before I did a baggage drop, my agent told me that my flight has been cancelled and I must check in again. ZZZ. So once again I find myself suffering 2 heart attacks.
The first one is a change of flight and I had already checked in. So I had to checked in again. And I got a window seat but being a short flight, it was ok. Plus I saw the clouds and was happy again. I did notice that if I did an online check-in, I was offered an earlier flight. I wonder what extra charges I will incur should I have chosen it.
The second heart attack came when halfway while waiting at the gate it had first indicated, I started getting bored and went to take some pics. And thus I noticed it had changed gate without me knowing even. And it was at the other end of the airport.
So I had no choice but to conclude that Sydney doesn't really welcome me. But the 2 domestic trips taught me something,
1) Water bottle is allowed
2) Don't need passport. In fact on my return trip back via Qantas, I don't even need my driving license because we are all forced to self-check in. And I had to do a baggage drop on my own. Was staring at the baggage tag sticker and the Qantas staff was kind enough to demostrate to me.
3) Anybody actually can enter the domestic airport. This is something I will never experience back home. I cannot remember my london-frankfurt flight require passport or not though (cL can u remember?). And this point was reinforced when I was waiting for my Qantas return flight and I found a Qantas heritage collection exhibition room. I was wondering why would anybody have a mini museum in the airport which people can only visit if they are catching a flight. Then I recall anybody could enter in the first place. Haha.
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