That Was An Impressively Good Flight on Etihad

Man, people weren't kidding when they said how good of an airline Etihad was. Seriously, this was better than both SQ and my recent favorite ANA. A lot of the things that have been lacking on other international airlines was here, including that functional Wi-Fi above (complete with iPass roaming - yay!), as well as in-flight cellular. They provided real headphones in economy class (i.e., properly padded rather than those cheap foam covers that you struggle to attach in SQ), and the seats reclined so far back that one really could get some decent rest if one wanted to.

Granted, I didn't quite get the meal that I wanted, as they were out of it by the time they got to me. And the internet was spotty, while the cellular connection was subjected to roaming fees (the person near me doing mad text messaging really should have put his phone on silent). I probably wouldn't have enjoyed this flight as much if I hadn't been fortunate enough to score a seat with two empty ones next to me. But I really wish that these guys were part of Star Alliance - I'd sure be flying them a lot more if they were.

Actually, the most amusing part of the flight was probably my check-in experience at Singapore Changi Airport. The agent asked me where my destination was, and when I said that I was going to Abu Dhabi, she replied with a tone of disbelief. "Really??," she said, asking me again to make sure that I was not connecting to anywhere else, as well as asking me what I would actually be doing in Abu Dhabi to be sure. I can only assume that they do so many connecting long-hauls through their hub that they didn't see very many people actually going to their hub itself.