25 November 2023
5 hours between flights
Tokyo to Cairns on a Virgin 737 max
I had an entire row to myself on the plane which was less than half full. They cannot continue with this service forever like this. Not that I am complaining yet, but if I book it again soon for the same time next year, I predict they will cancel it before next November and I will be in trouble.
The reason it is not popular is the wait in Cairns for a connecting flight on the return leg, which I am now experiencing, with no lounge access in either Tokyo or Cairns, which eliminates 100% of business travellers, and now that Virgin is partnered with ANA, this eliminates most of the people using frequent flyer points too. But that is all a bit boring.
I thought by having the entire row to myself with lift up arm rests I could lay down. Hmmm, not as easy as I thought. The Seats are really hard, it is not quite long enough, and the seat belts stick up between each seat. I pretty much gave up on that after a while and sat in the middle seat of the block of 3, fully man spreading.
Now I am sitting in Cairns typing this, after having collected my bag from international, and dragged it a decent distance to domestic where I had to re check it in, another reason people do not like the via Cairns to Japan option. The advantage of Cairns though is that the international arrivals was just my tiny 737, no other flights, so customs etc was very fast.
And now... that is all, there will be no more updates unless the bus breaks down again or my flight from Cairns to Melbourne gets diverted or something like that.
With 5 hours to spare I went for a wander around the Cairns airport area. Quite cool at 6:30am too. The airport is surrounded by small tropical mountains and mud flats.
And for the final pic of this entire thing, a food court of sorts, in the Cairns domestic airport which has a lot more shops and cafes than I was expecting.