Airport experience: Auckland International Airport was reasonably busy on the Sunday afternoon I was flying out. Passport control's smart gates had no queues, but there was a long queue to get bags scanned in the new security control area. They moved pretty quickly, however, and I was through to duty-free in less than 10 minutes. For the second time in less than a month, I found the toilets on level one were pretty disgusting - perhaps cleaning intervals need to be reduced to every half an hour, rather than every hour?
Flight time: 11h 35m. We left about 20 minutes late due to the plane's late arrival.
Seat: 24G, an aisle seat in the centre block in this 2-4-2 configuration. Seat width is 17.5 inches, pitch is 32 inches - it felt pretty comfortable to be honest, helped by the fact there was a spare seat beside me, one of very few in the Economy cabin.
Service: The cabin crew were courteous and, for what it's worth, I think the Malaysia Airlines uniforms are my favourite of all the airlines. But service was sporadic. Water wasn't offered regularly enough - it was more than three hours after lunch before a drinks tray came around again and because of intermittent turbulence, passengers weren't often able to get up and go to the galley to ask for water. Halfway through the flight they handed out snack packs, but passengers on the starboard side of the cabin got more to eat in their packs than those on the port side. Crew also collected head sets more than half an hour before landing. Hot tip: bring your own water, snacks and headphones with a travel adaptor.
Food and drink: Lunch was served promptly after take-off, a choice of chicken curry with rice, or lamb pasta. The curry was average but edible. The dessert was some kind of generic airline citrus cheesecake - overly sweet and unappealing. The French syrah was a bit rough.
Entertainment: Lordy, this needs some work. The screens are 8.9-inches but seem tiny. I found it hard to concentrate on any movie for longer than 10 minutes. The selection of TV shows was terrible - the kind of thing you'd find on TV2 on a Wednesday evening. The functionality is also a bit outdated - you can't search for or save shows/movies into a favourites playlist, so you have to scroll through each menu every time you want to find something to watch. I'd advise bringing a book, a Kindle, an iPad or a laptop full of your own entertainment.
Toilets: Disconcertingly, the floor was incredibly sticky underfoot just two hours into the flight. I'm glad I kept my shoes on.
Fellow passengers: The majority of the Economy Class passengers seemed to be Malaysians returning home. There were a lot of families travelling with young children.
The couple in the seats across the aisle from me, travelling without children, very kindly helped entertain the grizzly baby behind them, whose frazzled mother seemed grateful.
Note to self, be more gracious to babies on planes.
Would I fly again: If I had a choice, probably not. The plane felt tired and the service was below par compared to other airlines I've flown with recently.
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