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MH4 did indeed depart KUL at 1600+ today from Gate C17. B744 was filled to capacity. Pax drawn almost entirely from British citizens placed on waiting lists since last Thursday. MH have also confirmed that MH2 tonight will fly out as scheduled. I would love to write more on the MH4 flight/MH2 flight/European citizens stranded in KLIA/extra European flights/the odd photo or two, as I was to some measure involved in MH4's departure and had been airside all day today (I work at a European embassy in Kuala Lumpur), but for the moment I can just confirm that as we speak, Malaysia Airlines (amongst other Asian operators) is joyously back in European skies! There was also a KLM heavy docked at the C Terminal when I was there, and a special KLM check-in counter for the AMS flight had been set up in the departures hall. Lufthansa's scheduled 744 also landed at around 1800. I also wanted to take a snapshot of the active baggage carrousel for the special MH0001S flight that had just touched in from Frankfurt, but unfortunately I had been passing by in a hurry... I haven't seen such a busy/congested baggage carrousel in a very long time! On a personal note, great work by the KLIA staff today. They've really helped to get many stranded Europeans a big step closer to home.

And a few more in the pipes.

Got it. Z-WPF, one of Rob Mugabe's two 762ERs on a tropical time-out. Took this from atop the hill leading to the F1 Circuit entrance. Couldn't make the trip to the Ob Hill for a closer peek, so I had to milk that 300mm lens for its worth. Hence the quality. My apologies.

Cheers Greg. The body's pretty basic, I switch between a D50 and a D40x, but I use them with a Nikkor AF-S 70-300mm G IF-ED lens. Great for shooting in broad daylight and at very high speeds, otherwise I have to switch to a smaller 18-80 in poorer light. When the weather's good I like to combine high shutter speeds with small apertures and raise the ISO to 400, sometimes on raw+jpeg mode too. That's the combo I'm comfortable with, after all the tinkering. Can't wait to 'upgrade' to a D90 or 5000 though! Hope that helped!

A few Classics caught not too long ago: The new LCCT's going to be built opposite the AK hangar. A relative's firm was one of the firms that submitted a tender to design the new LCCT, but from what I understand, they and the other 3 or 4 other candidates lost thanks to some internal politicking within MAB. From what I hear, at $2 billion the present design is way over the initial tender budget (around 800 mil) and construction was supposed to have begun ages ago, so perhaps the construction itself will be dragged-out too, which in a way is good for us 'users' of the Weather hill. And politics aside, if they stick to their original design, the new LCCT's going to sport some cool surprises that'll make the KLIA terminals look pretty retro. Looks like KL's going to get the fanciest LCCT around.

At 4:57 in the clip, we see the parents' son, who's just arrived from London, walking on the tarmac into the airport. In the still, his bag has the old 1970s-early 80s oblong-shaped MAS tag on it (circled). I remember visiting my grandparents' house in KL years ago and rummaging through their store room, which housed all their old, hard-shell luggage from since time immemorial. One of them still had an old MAS tag attached to it, which I nicked and kept for posterity. But I was never able to determine the exact period in which that particular tag design was used, till I saw the clip above. The tags are a perfect match, so now I know that it was used around 1979, when that movie was filmed! Though in the clip, the son is returning from London on MH893 via Kuwait. My grandparents flew the same route (unsure about the Kuwait stopover though), though their flight number was MH3/4 - the same as today's LHR sector nos. Perhaps MH893, like the airport announcement in the clip, is just a filmographical prop that was made up for filming purposes? Even if so, did MH's LHR flights transit in Kuwait back in the day?

thanks ignatius!

Thanks Simon

cheers Li Ren!

Thanks guys!

A few more:

Thanks Ian. Hope to see some of you seasoned veterans in future visits!

Took these during my recent run from Tokyo to New York. Amazing how quickly the weather deteriorated between pre-boarding and take-off. My bird - B777-300ER JL6 to New York JFK Cleaning the visors before the flight deck crew turn up ANA 744 about to rotate on 16R After this ANA 77W, it was our turn to rotate. Digressing, but just to convey an idea of Narita's Wi-Fi prices - Narita's a LOT cheaper than Heathrow.

Hi everyone, Met two or three of you around KUL before; here's my haul from a recent trip. Weather and light weren't spectacular though. Enjoy. SV832 from JED KL809 from AMS EK346 from DXB Late IY862 from Sana'a [/font]