This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
We were in economy with our 1 year old baby, parents up ahead in Premium.
Arrived at airport at around 6.30am. Checked in Upper due to Au statuses. Check in took slightly longer than normal due to slower member of staff whom keep disappearing to seek approval (for sky cot etc). Given the flight was nearly full we asked for the closest sky cots seat to front of economy as we were in the last row, but this would require another approval request so we kept what we had.
Straight to clubhouse. As usual great food and service and staff were particularly good with the baby as always. Kept our baby busy with toys from the play area which she enjoyed playing with.
Made our way to gate about 10.15 then boarded at around 10.35. Priority boarded. Flight busy, around 420 passengers - certainly full in Upper and Premium with not much room left in Economy, just odd seats here and there.
Took off slightly late but made time up due to quicker flight time so still arrived almost on time.
Lunch was served. It's always tricky eating lunch with trays with a baby so ate what I could and then packed everything away quickly before baby could knock things off and cause mischief. For second flight running the baby pre-ordered meal was lost/forgotten to be loaded - however after a short delay crew managed to pull together a selection of suitable food, yoghurts, fruit etc so no problem.
Baby was a good as could be, small sessions of sleep but very little crying and managed to keep her entertained with toys and various bit (magazines etc). No trouble at all, also assisted by her grandparents being on board to help. Was her 5th trip so fairly used to it, but it's still a relief as a parent to have a quiet flight. Was able to have on on floor in front of us in blanket playing quietly. Overall didn't cause any inconvenience to other passengers. In fact, some sat nearby enjoyed playing with her through the gaps in seats etc. More noise came through a rowdy gang sat about 4 rows back who continued to play tricks on crew by sending up various different people to the galley to request more alcohol as each of them was refused to be served. Whilst I've seen this before on this route, normally it stops once people start falling to sleep but the bad language and rowdiness just really continued for the whole journey, much the annoyance of nearby passengers - and including crew having to turn down their full blast headphones. Aside from this pretty uneventful but smooth and efficient flight.
Pizza and ice cream served, which were very nice and then the afternoon tea - I'm not keen on the sandwich, but rest was nice.
Landed smoothly. Captain advised German plane has arrived ahead of us but we were closer to the immigration so to move swiftly.
We waited in jetty for our buggy then made our way to the immigration queue where we were sent to fast track queue with our baby. Queue built up as there seemed to be too few officers on duty. Went through quickly and then straight out of customers to waiting taxi rank then on to hotel.
