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Last updated on August 5th, 2017 at 03:30 pm
I can exclusively reveal that business class passengers travelling on Austrian Airlines today from Bangkok to Vienna were permitted to use actual metal knives. The tyranny of plastic is at an end!
- Even O.J. Simpson?Posted by TallDave on 2007 05 20 at 01:57 AM • permalink
- I went business class once. That was after an abdominal op that made it impossible for me to perform the contortions required to get into an economy seat on a Qantas plane.
I really can’t stand the fawning over you that business class stewards do. It reminds me of a dinner we had once at a flashy hotel in Canberra – the Oak Room? There were two blokes who kept hovering around, fiddling with the silverware, bowing and scraping and asking if this was all right and that was all right, la de dah.
Good service is one thing. Being treated like a demi-god is something else entirely. Altogether too English upper class for my liking. I wished they’d just piss off and leave us to eat.
- Yay! About time!Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 05 20 at 02:27 AM • permalink
- I used metal cutlery on an international Continental flight recently.Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2007 05 20 at 02:29 AM • permalink
- Non-terrorist cutlery is shelved as David Hicks lands back in Australia. Coincidence? I think notPosted by Whale Spinor on 2007 05 20 at 02:49 AM • permalink
- apols, shelved = reintroducedPosted by Whale Spinor on 2007 05 20 at 02:51 AM • permalink
- OT, but Rudd has gone mad. Rudd defends ‘reckless’ anti-whaling plan:
FEDERAL Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has defended Labor’s plan to intercept Japanese whaling vessels after the Government said the idea was doomed to fail.
Under Labor’s plan, unveiled yesterday, Australian navy ships would be sent to intercept and board whaling vessels in the Southern Ocean.
Can’t find a link ATM, but I’m fairly sure that Australia has no recognised claim on the Southern Ocean, so Rudd is advocating attacking Japanese vessels in international waters.
Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2007 05 20 at 03:21 AM • permalink
- They use metal eatin’ irons throughout the Middle East on 1st and bidness class. Go figure.Posted by Abu Chowdah on 2007 05 20 at 03:47 AM • permalink
- Dunno. I’ve never travelled cattle class.Posted by Abu Chowdah on 2007 05 20 at 04:26 AM • permalink
- Turnbull did a good job of demolishing Rudd’s position on boarding Japanese whalers.
While the media continually refers to ‘Australian waters’, in international law, territorial waters only extend 12 miles from continously inhabited land.
In addition there is an exclusive economic zone extending up 200 miles, but Australia’s case is weak cos of the habitation issue of those southern islands and anyway Japanese whale under the ‘scientific’ exemption in the whaling treaty. Hence it falls outside any exclusive economic rights Australia might have.
Rudd’s an idiot, but the media will give him a pass on this.
- Welcome Home, Mo Dawood. Have fun with the brudders in Yatala prison.
At least Tim B is doing his bit for the environment, and in Europe. too. (thereby keeping Australia’s carbon footprint *snork* down to acceptable levels), so I forgive him his indulgence in travelling business class, gurgling down expensive wine and eating with metal cutlery.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2007 05 20 at 06:03 AM • permalink
- #4 Janice
…the fawning over you that business class stewards do
They were obviously not Qantas
stewardscabin attendants doing the annoying fawning. They are world famous for not fawning under any circumstances.
They are however, quite likely to tell you to shut up and eat your dinner so they can start the movie.
- I thought all airlines were cattle class these days. Well, at least it seems they pack all planes like cattle cars, and there is about as much class to flying as there is to taking the bus. On the whole, I’d rather use ground transport—at least if I have to jump out the window there isn’t a 10,000 foot fall (or whatever it is).Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 05 20 at 06:36 AM • permalink
- I can exclusively reveal that if your 11 am Melbourne to Sydney Qantas flight is delayed for 3 hours because the dolt driving the stairs accidentally pokes a hole in the nose cone, that they don’t bother serving you lunch.
PS Blair is a blatherskite.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 05 20 at 06:58 AM • permalink
- #21. What I meant was I never travelled cattle class in the Middle East.
I’ve certainly travelled that way elsewhere, on my own dime.
Posted by Abu Chowdah on 2007 05 20 at 07:31 AM • permalink
- And yes, the Australian tax payer picked up the tab.Posted by Abu Chowdah on 2007 05 20 at 07:33 AM • permalink
- Heh. Only time I ever flew business class was years back flying home from Townsville.
I was still spastic from the night before, and when we stopped in Brissie I had a nap in the loo and nearly missed the connecting flight. I woke up to my name being shouted over the PA, so I bolted to the gate.
The only seat left was in business. Poor bugger next to me had to put up with me passed out and sleeping.
And probably reeking of alcohol, too. I’d had a huge night the night before. Had got home in time to shower, change and get to the airport lol.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 05 20 at 10:08 AM • permalink
- Flying is just about the most uncomfortable form of travel there is, redeemed only by the speed with which it gets you to a destination. Metal cutlery in business class is just one of those little perks that are meant to make you overlook the fact that you were just marched shoeless through a security checkpoint and herded into a flying delivery truck.
- #33 I’ve heard crossing the River Styx can be quite unpleasant.Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2007 05 20 at 12:00 PM • permalink
- If metal dining implements are not restored everywhere, the terrorists will have won!!!
Oh, forget that, I lived the first 30 years of my life without having to take my shoes off or being “scanned” rather . . . intimately when I flew. The last 5 years have been somewhat different. And airplane food still doesn’t taste good (in North America, anyway).
- For some reason, I can’t get served, regardless…planes, restaurants, trains…anywhere. I can’t understand why.
- #33, RebeccaH:
Flying is just about the most uncomfortable form of travel there is, redeemed only by the speed with which it gets you to a destination.
I tend to disagree. I once suffered the misery of transporting from Numazu Japan to Okinawa aboard an LST.
To make it real memorable, we loaded ship during the leading edge of a typhoon and sailed through that beast of nature all the way to destination.
I, and many others, learned what it means to be firmly committed to the mercy of death but too physically drained and weakened to follow through.
- #23- I flew first class on QF59 to Narita not long ago, and the pillowbiters were all over me like a cheap suit- I’m not exactly a hornbag, so I’d say it’s part of the duty statement. Tehre’s something rather civilised about having a jar of Moet as they’re backing the aircraft out of the bay at 6AM, and being bladdered by the time you land in Cairns. BTW- if you’re on a flight that transits an Australian port prior to your destination, don’t buy any duty free booze or perfume- the thieving turds on security will swipe it, as it breaches the maximum volume of fluid for cabin baggage- they must have a pretty good pissup every afternoon, and go home smelling like a French tart.
- #38- Got caught out in a cyclone in an 18 metre ACV a few years back, about halfway between Gladstone and Heron Island- all we could do was face it into the wind and ride it out, with the diesels going flat out just to keep pace with the wind; they used to test potential crew for seasickness by taking a 10 metre launch out into the middle of Sydney heads, sending you down into the engine bilges and stopping the boat beam on to the swell- if you lasted a half-hour without puking, you were OK. In that blow every bastard on board except me launched their lunch, one sod into the wind so it blew back into the bridge, filthy swine. Not keen on repeating that, and we used to be trained by the navy in Bass Strait, one of the most hairy stretches of water on earth.
- #43, Habib:
Sea sickness is the devil!
From my recollections, it was as much about how we were packed into the berthing area as it was the sea sickness itself that made the transport so soul breakingly miserable.
The racks were stacked 7 high, the bottom one just an inch or so from the deck, the top one just a couple feet from the ceiling. There wasn’t enough vertical room between each rack to allow a man to turn over without pushing up against the rack above.
There was also no separation at either end of the racks so feet of one Marine was pressed against the head of the Marine down the line from him.
The gangway between the rack stacks was tight enough that you had to crab down them sideways.
At one point, the storm was bad enough that a good portion of the ship’s crew were down and out from sickness, by that time our compartment deck was basically awash with stomach contents slopping back and forth from bulkhead to bulkhead as the ship rolled.
Sometimes the ship rolled hard enough that a Marine could puke across the gangway directly into the rack of a Marine across from him and a few racks down.
Of course, this was a long long time ago, so no telling what really happened lol. Not sure how much of that is memory and how much embellishment.
- Have to agree with skeeter at #22. I flew Qantas Business Los Angeles to Sydney. Janice must have been on some sweeps week flight or something. Geez!
KLM Business Class may just be worse though.
Both made valiant efforts at mediocrity.The only fawning you will get, expecially international, is First Class.
Yes, but I am willing to bet the knives weren’t very sharp. I also suspect you weren’t allowed to take any form of grinding apparatus on the plane.
How sharp do you need it?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 05 21 at 12:23 AM • permalink
- I flew BC on Alitalia from Rome to Sydney via Melbourne, and they were pretty crap. It was a slow flight as well- the clumps of hair under the wing roots must create a lot of drag. SIA business class is better than virtually every other airline’s first class, and there’s no EEO policy either, so no mastodons, gargoyles or Romanian discus throwers in the cabin crew, unlike Qantas, BA and various US carriers, who can’t not hire someone because they’re a bloater, a boiler or a beast.
While Indian Airlines follow other asian airlines in this regard, they have a very shallow pool to pick from.
- Grimmy—you had racks? Lucky bastard.
I shoulda known I was in trouble when I saw the transport’s name wasn USS Amistad…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 05 21 at 10:46 AM • permalink
- Damn straight – if the terrorists gte weapons, everybody should be armed.Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2007 05 21 at 12:18 PM • permalink
- #52- At least that useless Jap bastard has promised to never darken our doors again with his incompetent presence- good riddance, the Poms deserve him. Howard would have a bit of support from the board, but Nucifora has excellent form at Super 14 level and Michael Foley has Wallaby level experience, no great reccomendation at the moment (and Qld has the option of a forwards coach in the form of Alex Evans). I’m still buggered if I know why they let Perth snaffle John Mitchell (and half the Qld squad as well). Ballymore’s in dire need of a coup methinks. We’re still going to have to endure Eddie’s fumblings for the domestic provincial series later this year as well, and I doubt the Wallabies will make the quater finals of the World Cup. At least there’s every chance the Jaapies will towel up Unzud, so we at least won’t have to listen to their speech-impediment impaired gloating.
- Ships traditionally are referred to as female because they are expensive, temperamental, and high maintenance.
Or so I have heard. Me, I have no opinion on the matter.
For what it’s worth, the Soviets referred to warships as “he.” And look where it got them.
Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2007 05 22 at 12:12 AM • permalink
- In my experience the 3 things in life which will cause you the most trouble are: Women, the garden hose and two-stroke motors.Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 05 22 at 12:28 AM • permalink
- well i agree with the the two-stroke and the garden hose and I believe that mother nature in QLD has done away with both of those.
No rain no water no hose no grass no two-stroke lawn mower necessary. See its not global warming its just that someone has seen the secret and has asked the universe to rid them of their troubles.
- #62 You’ll especially have trouble with women if you perform like a two-stroke motor.Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2007 05 22 at 03:57 AM • permalink
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