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Smile High Club: Garuda Indonesia SYD-DPS Economy

Recently I flew from Bali to Sydney with Garuda Indonesia in Economy Class. The fight took just under six hours and was comfortable enough for me to squeeze a few hours of sleep in.

Recently I flew from Bali to Sydney with Garuda Indonesia in Economy Class. The fight took just under six hours and was comfortable enough for me to squeeze a few hours of sleep in.

The details

Flight: GA714
When: Monday 26 September
Aircraft: Airbus Industrie A330-300
Class: Economy
Configuration: 2-4-2
KarryOn star rating: 4.5/5

smile_rating 4.5

 

CHECKING IN


Our flight left on time from Ngurah Rai International Airport at 11:30pm, which was just as well as I was already feeling sleepy. The aircraft used for the flight was an Airbus Industrie A330-300, and the luggage allowance was a generous 30 kilograms.

 

STAFF


As with my flight from Melbourne to Jakarta, the service onboard was fantastic: warm, attentive, and always with a smile.

 

FOOD & DRINK

We were served a snack approximately 45 mins into the flight (chicken pastry) along with drinks, and it was actually the right amount of food this late into the evening.

Two hours before landing an announcement was made on the loud-speaker that breakfast would soon be served. Passengers had a choice between a Western breakfast (the main being an omelette) and an Indonesian breakfast (the main being rice with chicken) along with drinks.

fiid2

Source: www.pointchaser.com

If I had to make a complaint about breakfast it would be that coffee wasn’t automatically offered to us at the end of our meals like you find on other airlines. However, the staff were more than willing to fix me up with a caffeine fix as soon as I requested one.

 

ONBOARD THE PLANE


After the snack was served the cabin lights were then turned down and I actually managed to grab about three hours of sleep – very rare as I hardly ever sleep on planes. The pillow and blanket served to me definitely helped with this, along with the amenity kit that included socks, ear plugs and a sleeping mask.

My window seat was fairly comfortable too, 17 inches wide and 33-34 of seat pitch. The plane had a 2-4-2 configuration (215 standard seats) which was helpful when I needed to go to the toilet: instead of disturbing two passengers on the way out of my seat, I only had to disturb one!

I’m happy to say that I was quite impressed with the onboard entertainment on the Bali to Sydney service too. The touch screens looked pretty new and were very responsive, and there were enough movies and TV shows to keep me entertained during my waking hours. There was also a USB plug that you could use to keep your phone charged or to access shows on your own personal device, and onboard Wi-Fi that you could purchase (pretty expensive though).

Although if I do have one complaint, it was that there weren’t full seasons of the TV shows on offer like you find on other airlines, but just two or three episodes.

 

Did you know?

Garuda Indonesia won the coveted ‘World’s Best Economy Class’ award by SkyTrax back in 2013, and the airline is definitely still pretty proud of its achievement, evident in the fact that plaques dedicated to the award are plastered pretty much throughout the plane!

sky

Source: www.indonesia-ottawa.org

All in all, I was pretty impressed with the flight and would definitely fly Garuda Indonesia again. Service is everything for me, and the staff onboard the Bali to Sydney flight were friendly and attentive. The food was quite good and the seats were comfortable enough to get some sleep.

However I’d like to see full seasons of TV shows onboard the next time I fly, and perhaps cheaper rates to access the onboard Wi-Fi.

Have you flown Garuda Indonesia recently?