58. London, England Dec '00

I had to go to London for business on short notice, and Somchai dropped everything to come along to make it a combination work/play trip. It was Somchai's first trip to England and my first time back since moving out of London seven years ago, where I had lived for three years. So I was looking forward to showing him around my old hometown. We took Qantas first class from Bangkok. Two comments, first, I will never understand why BA and Qantas, who are really identical airlines in the same alliance (and Qantas used to be partly owned by BA), have almost the same flight schedule between Sydney and London, leaving about 30 minutes apart and stopping in Bangkok. Since they also codeshare with each other, you end up with four BA and Qantas flights being called for boarding around the same time, and first time fliers on the route are inevitably confused about which flight they should be boarding. And of course it would be nice if we had more choice in departure times with a wider gap between the two. Second, a very confusing comment. Qantas clearly mimics BA in everything they do, but their version feels cleaner/newer, with BA inevitably feeling tired and behind the times. And yet there's an undercurrent of cheapness that runs through Qantas, for example their wine will always be one notch worse than BA, and their food is likewise a level below. And where this is really confusing is in cabin configuration, since when you first walk into a Qantas cabin it seems bright and new, but then it feels like everything's shrunk a bit vs. BA, like I think they've snuck a couple extra seats into first class compared to the BA layout. (In real time I just came back from a long boozy lunch, so this may not make sense when I read it later, but I'm happy with it for now). Anyway, it has flat beds which is all that matters, so I was able to sleep a bit on the flight.