When booking a flight, I think about when I’m leaving and arriving. I want to leave at a reasonable hour and arrive in the daytime, all things being equal. Arriving to an unfamiliar place in the dark can be quite daunting. In the daytime, you can use public transport, but a night-time arrival usually means an expensive taxi.
My flight to India had a transfer at Zayed International Airport, sometimes known as Abu Dhabi International Airport. It was my first time in the United Arab Emirates’ capital city. The airport was impressively futuristic. I’ll be returning here two more times and will have a proper look at it.


Today, the London flight arrived close to midnight (local time) at Abu Dhabi. The flight to Kochi was in two hours. When we land there, it will be 8.20am local time.
I realised, belatedly, there’s another consideration when picking flights. Is there enough time to begin to adjust to the new time zone? For long flights, I’ve noticed airlines adjust the lighting to match the destination time zone. So, if you arrive in the morning (local time), you’d sleep for a while before landing. This helps your body start to adjust.
In this instance, our sleep time was interrupted by the transfer. Just when we should have been sleeping, the plane landed. And in Abu Dhabi, the two-hour transfer required going through security again, finding the gate, walking, and so on — all of which woke you up. The upshot was that when we get to Kochi, we’d have gone from morning in London to morning in Kochi with hardly any sleep.
It was the first time I’d flown on Etihad airlines. Everything went well. They served the right food for me and was nutritiously balanced. Usually, the meals are carb-heavy with little protein. Dinner was roasted aubergine with rice and a bean salad with roll.
At one point, I was stretching at the back of the plane. A flight attendant came up to me and asked if I wanted lunch. One of the advantages of having a “special diet” is that you’re served first. When I told her I’d already had lunch (a lightly spiced soya mince wrap), she asked if I wanted a drink. Earlier I’d asked for a tomato juice, which they didn’t have on the trolley. I think the only time I’ve had tomato juice is on flights! I asked her for some tomato juice, and she replied, “Would you like some tabasco sauce?”. Although it’s a popular combination, I’d never been offered tabasco before. She came back with both and gave me the tabasco so that I could get the heat right. That was a tasty juice!
When I returned to my seat, I told my neighbour, who had also wanted tomato juice. She excitedly went and got some. On returning, she sipped the juice and made a sound. She’d overdone the tabasco.
She and her two companions were going to Sri Lanka. I was in the window seat. Two were next to me and the third was in the adjacent central seats. Despite being separated by the aisle, the three could still talk to each other. At one point, I was going to ask if the person in the central seats wanted to swap places. Before I could ask, the three young women started talking about seating positions. It turned out none of them liked the window seat. They all liked to be by the aisle so that they could get up without disturbing their neighbour.
I like the window seat because sometimes you see something interesting. For example, when flying in Japan I saw Mount Fuji. However, I also like the aisle seat for the same reason the three women liked it. This was especially true if you wanted to go to the toilet when everyone was asleep.
After we took off, the three women were trying to watch a film at the same time. One would be slightly ahead and had to pause so that the others could catch up. This dance continued until, eventually, they were all in sync. I was thinking there must be a way to automate this. Later, I accidentally hit a button on the screen. It offered me the option of watching what my two neighbours were watching! This feature allowed three people sitting together to sync their film. I wasn’t sure if three seats separated by an aisle could also be synchronised.