Beyond the Sea
In case you haven’t noticed…I like planes. Beyond question, my favorite airliner and civilian aircraft in general is the 747. As such, I am rather excited to be taking a 747-400 tonight on my flight across the Atlantic. In fact, in order to fly Singapore and to hop on a 747, I am routing JFK-FRA-CDG instead of just taking a direct flight to DeGaulle.
It would have been more convenient to fly direct, but Singapore, which at one point operated 30+ Megatops (their internal nickname for the 747-400) has retired all but 7 of these birds. They are exclusively on the JFK-FRA-SIN flight (SQ 25/26) and on the SIN-MEL run (SQ 217/218 and 227/228).
The 747’s will be completely retired by the end of the year, so this may be my only chance to fly a Singapore 747…my decision may also have been swayed by Singapore’s legendary service and the fact that I was able to score a Saver Award ticket in First Class for 47,500 miles.
The last leg of the trip will be FRA-CDG crammed into a Lufthansa 737, but at least flight time should be under an hour. With any luck, SQ will check my bags through to CDG and, the interline baggage system will carry them from the belly of the SQ 747 to the LH 737 and I will avoid paying the huge overage fees I would otherwise have to contend with when trying to check three bags on an intra-euro flight.
I’m going to wrap it up here and deal with final packing details…hyperlinks aren’t working (and or I don’t know how to use them properly), so I will leave you with links to three songs that make me think of Paris from different eras. Expect a review of the flight from Paris.
Charles Trenet- Boum (1938)
Joe Dassin- Les Champs-Elysees (1969)
Friendly Fires- Paris (Aeroplane Remix) (2007)
The Wandering Sybarite 