Ha!Ha! Celebrating birthday in comfort by staying at the 5 Star hotel next to the mountain top! And what a better way to start the climbing day by a sumptuous buffet breakfast at Burswood buffet price! And the most memorable moment of the mountain climbing? To receive the certificate for achieving 50,000 credits.. err... what we meant was feet of climbing!
And what else could have gone wrong? When the inclement weather struck with a heavy fog and the return plane was diverted to Guangjouz! And when it comes to service recovery, the budget airline that flies from terminal 1 gets zero marks. After check in at 2 am, there was still no plane in sight. This was common as their planes are always slightly late. But not this one. Then one hour of silent before there was an announcement that all flights will be delayed due to diversion by the fog. There was no Rep over there and we could get no development until three hours later. All we were told was the airline in Sngapore has been contacted and the person cannot so anything as she awaits orders from the Aussie HQ. In between, it was free bed at the airport.
Then at 6 am, there was the annoucement that a plane will be sent at 5.15 pm in the afternoon but the airline was finding for aircraft, pilot and staff. Many have been asked to booked the other budget airline back at their own expenses. We had to wait until 8 am when we were told the rescue plane was confirmed. We were led into the immigration and had to fill in the documents again. Wow go to one place, enter immigration twice. How to fill in the time. Of course to climb more mountain as baozhou. So we did and returned in the afternoon and checked in. The plane did arrived and while the anxious people were queuing up yo board, they were keep waiting for an hour! There was another delay as the rescue plan had suffered a loss of power. And they continued with the boarding. This is another most memorable post birthday occasion. When we were seated the silly Captain announced," The auxilliary power unit is not working but we can fly without it!" This send chills down the spline and scuttling for prayers. When the plane was pushed out of the tarmac, it could not move and had to signal the group crew to help. Finally it moved to the runway to take off. Will it have enough power to take off? And luckily it did. What was scary was the plane has problem gaining height. Just when it went up, it suddenly surge down again the the landmarks below got bigger! W thought the plane will return to base and another extra mountain climbing trip the follow day! But No, the kamakaze pilot pushed on. Now the GPU is off, is like the car battery is not working. They use the group GPU to jump start the plane. When the plane is on the air, the engine drives the battery, not the GPU. Then the loss of power. The scariest thing is what happen when the engine stops. You cannot restart it as there is not internal GPU. In fact when the plane finally landed, Praise the Lord. they could not let us out until the group GPU was connected as if they switched off the engine all the internal lights will go out! So much praise for the Aussie owned budget airline. No service recovery - just a sorry from the Captain for double delay!
Anyway, praise the Lord we are back safely!Today is the day to fight with the cobblers of Chinatown! Ha! Ha! Why can't everyone go to KK instead and climb the mountain like Lta Ennoying???
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