I've been a U2 fan for at least 10 years now and having hair-raising moments when I watched their live concerts on DVD made me long to catch them live. I’ve never been to a concert and badly wanted my first one to be U2. So when AirAsia Facebook contest offered a pair of tickets to watch their 360 concert in London, with air tickets thrown in PLUS three nights stay, you bet I threw myself right into it!

Needless to say, when I received the notification from AirAsia that I won, I simply couldn’t believe it! This would be the first time that my husband and I would travel to Europe and we were really looking forward to it.

The new AirAsia Airbus 340 decked with the Raiders livery took us on our 14 hour journey. Bracing myself for the long flight hours, I was pleasantly surprised that the seats were comfortable with adjustable “flaps” on the headrest so that your head doesn’t loll too much as you slept. The food which we pre-ordered also took us by surprise as it more than just edible, it was good.

We took a train from Stansted to the hotel, also courtesy of AirAsia. St Giles Hotel is smack in the middle of the city, a great advantage to pound the pavement to sight-see London. The hotel also offered a great English buffet breakfast to fuel our energy for the day.

London is filled with beautiful buildings. I love the architecture and appreciate that they were built so long ago yet continue to look so good now. While we were there, the weather remained bright and sunny, unlike the dull grey British weather it is famous for.


The U2 concert was ... Magnificent! I kept blinking in disbelief that I was seeing Bono, The Edge, Larry and Adam with my bare eyes. The 88,000 crowd at Wembley surged and thrived with energy as soon as Bono took the stage. We screamed, sang, waved throughout the 2-hour performance and were sad when they waved goodbye. More of the concert has already been covered comprehensively by Han Sen , another winner, earlier.

So what did we cover in London? The changing of guards at Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, London Eye, British Museum, Natural History Museum, V&A Museum, Sherlock Holmes Museum, Tate Modern, The Royal Albert Hall, Hyde Park, Leicester Square, Picadilly Circus, Trafalgur Square, Covent Garden, Camden Market, Portabello Market... perhaps the list of what we DIDN’T cover is shorter!

We managed to squeeze in a baroque performance at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, without realising how famous they were! We also caught We Will Rock You at the Dominion Theatre, just a few steps from the hotel. The show was amazingly entertaining and ended with a thunderous applause from the packed theatre. Everyone walked out smiling and laughing, having had a great time.

Since we were there, we extended our stay and took the opportunity to hop onto the EuroStar to Paris and spent 4 nights there, also covering museums, palaces and other famous structures. Besides the usual suspects like Lourve, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Eiffle Tower, Arc de Triomphe, don't miss the Chateau de Versailles! We fell in love with the incredibly humongous gardens! If you're planning to visit museums, do consider the Museum Pass as we cut long queues at some places.

If we had more time and money, we would have gone more places as Europe is well connected.

More of photos and stories on London, Paris and U2 on my personal blog.

All in all, we had a blast and really are very grateful that we had this chance to visit London and Paris, thanks to AirAsia!

At a little after 3pm on Friday, Captain Michael and First Officer Zulishmadi flew the newly painted 9M-XAC aircraft (AirAsia X's latest Airbus A340) back from Singapore, after it completed its livery painting. I was fortunate to be back in Kuala Lumpur during this historic event! I personally knew Captain Michael and was pleasantly surprised to find him being the test pilot assigned to bring back the new big bird!

The first thing I did when I arrived on the aircraft was obviously make my way to the flight deck. Captain Michael was so helpful to even snap a few pics and tease me with "soon.. soon..". Boy was I high sitting on the deck. This time around, looking at the instruments and reading the flight data computers etc, I kinda had a rough idea of what everything meant! Imagine, less than 6 months ago, I had no idea what most of anything meant.... but yeah, I kinda knew that if you move the joystick down, the plane goes up. Hahahah

Now down to business. My first impression of the seats in the new Airbus A340 was, oh my god, was it big!!! I mean for a guy like me, who could actually sit in the regular seats.... and still feel comfortable, okay I was VERY impressed!!! Check them out!!!! They are 8 abreast.... and they are spacious!!!

Of course when it comes to the XL Seats, now they are to die for! Here I am seated with Captain Michael who is also the Chief Flying Officer for Technical Development at AirAsia together with Azran Osman Rani, the CEO of AirAsia X and Kathleen Tan the Commercial Director for the AirAsia Group.


Here is a pic of the plane from the outside.....






Oakland Raiders Baby!!!!! Yeps.. thats us again together with the Co-Pilot for the day, First Officer Zulismadi Sham from the A340 Fleet.


So now, if you wanna go to London.... You could be flying on this beauty!!!! BTW, I strongly recommend the XL seats. Like FOR REAL. Of course if you don't have such a big bum like me, the regular seats are good enough........ but hey, Xtra Comfort goes a long way when doing long haul on the worlds best low cost airline... AirAsia!


More updates soon.... Stay tuned!


Regards,
JFK.

Yesterday was one cool day. Managed to be among the first few to sneak in to Xcalibur after the "London weather simulation". Weather was looking down and people started leaving after waiting in the pouring rain for so long. Definitely not a great way to kick start us ushering in the A340 Xcalibur.

Guess what? A van was deployed and my friends and me snuck up and into Xcalibur. The van continued to make its round while we had a blast just checking out the new airbus.

The XL seats are simply XXXXL. Truly shocking and its been amazing. Compared to the A320s, this is simply fantastic and a beast. There were various stuff to see and it took a while to run the entire length of the plane. Look how much space there is in between the XL seats!

This is captain Nickee preparing for takeoff. All seatbelts on and remember to smile!

Check out the cool entertainment system. Riki was whispering "Use the force!" hahahaha...

We even packed everyone into the front area for a group photo. Thats me right behind Tony.

What was more amazing was when Tony said after the group pic, lets not let the weather beat us and lets huddle outside for photoshots. That was really crazy as we all had a blast taking pics and playing with water on the tarmac. Nothing is gonna beat us not even the "London weather"!

Xcalibur is simply the next step for us. Go AirAsia X!

Friday 6 February marks another proud milestone for us, as the A340-300 aircraft touches down in sunny KL for the first time, after a flight that started from the depths of winter in North America. Our A340-300, or Xcalibur, is a pioneering symbol in many ways.

It is the first A340 to be registered in Malaysia, and my two Chief Pilots, Capt Azhanudin (Operations) and Capt Thevamanohar (Safety), have the honour of being the first two pilots registered for A340 operations for a Malaysian Airline – although they have had extensive experience with this aircraft model with a foreign airline in their previous employment.

Captain 'Han' from Xcalibur's cockpit

Xcalibur will also be deployed for our much awaited London sector – which is also a trailblazing route in the world of low-cost aviation. Its 13-hour flight time will be the longest low-cost service in the world today. Traditionalist aviation sceptics say that the A340 is a costly aircraft with its four engines compared to the A320 or A330 models. However, what’s more important is that it is still more efficient compared to the Boeing 747 aircraft that is usually used for these long distance routes – in terms of fuel efficiency, maintenance cost, as well as the cockpit commonality with the A320 and A330 models, allowing us to have a common pool of pilots that give us scale advantage.

While most of us were taking our warm tropical weather here in Southeast Asia for granted, my team of pilots and engineers had to brave extreme winter temperatures of minus 20 degrees Celsius over a couple of weeks to inspect this A340 aircraft that had just completed a major maintenance check, ensure that all the regulatory requirements are met (and registering the aircraft as a ‘9M’ Malaysian aircraft), and taking physical delivery of the aircraft with a flight of over 20 hours back to KL (with a stopover in London’s Stansted Airport). For some members of the team, it was the first time that had encountered such harsh cold temperatures. Some had to borrow thick winter coats and sweaters. Taking technical delivery of aircraft is not an easy feat. It involves intense round-the-clock work to ensure that all the details are attended to, and that we take an aircraft only if it meets a stringent list of safety and technical specifications. Being so far away from their families for several weeks can also add to the challenge for our team. For this, I’m truly proud of and grateful to Capt Han, Theva and Sahari, as well as Anaz and his team of dedicated engineers.

My X-team! Xcalibur will also see us pioneering a new standard of seat comfort. As you can see, the XL seats are full business class seats that will provide executive-level comfort for prices comparable to economy fares on other legacy carriers, and a fraction of typical business-class fares. Next year, we’re even looking at replacing these seats with full lie-flat bed seats. Even the economy class seats are the most comfortable in AirAsia’s fleet – with legroom, width and recline comparable to any premium airline. Initially, these seats will not be equipped with in-seat entertainment screens. These will be introduced when we refit the aircraft next year. However, we will be providing portable media players for rent during the long London flights. Wish us well as we keep pushing the envelope and take low-cost travel to new heights! Look out for Xcalibur on its debut flight on London on 11 March.