After a relaxing evening at Peninsula Hot Springs, I drove the approximately 120km to Melbourne airport to catch our midnight flight. This route usually takes 1.5 hours, but as it was a long weekend and we met with the evening traffic rush, it became a 2 hour journey. We quickly returned the rental car and went to Terminal 2, which was surprisingly quite empty. There was no queue at the checkin counter, as most of the passengers had already checked in, and we were still within the one hour closing time.

After having our boarding passes printed and baggages tagged, we went to the security lines. There was a slightly long queue but the lines were moving. We passed the security clearance within 30 minutes and cleared immigration.

Fiji Airways is the first and only airline in Australia, New Zealand & the Pacific to be awarded the highest ratings in health safety from both SKYTRAX and APEX. Fiji Airways is the flag carrier airline of Fiji and operates international services from its hubs in Fiji to 13 countries and 23 cities

Boarding time was at 23:00. We waited for our zone to be called before boarding the plane. I had also stocked up two bottles of wine, knowing that the wines in Fiji are imported from countries like Australia.

The plane was a Boeing 737 MAX 8, with economy class in a 2-4-2 seating arrangement. There was personal entertainment screen on each seat, but it was not the most updated.

The journey from Melbourne to Nadi will take about 4.5 hours, flying over the Pacific and South Fiji basin. However, there were three passengers who had to be deplaned as they were not allowed to fly to Fiji (denied at the departure gate). Along with them, their luggage had to be offloaded so this took some time for the ground handling crew to remove their luggage. So our pushback timing was delayed by about an hour and the passengers were waiting on the plane. There was a crying baby behind my row and it gave me a headache with all the wailing. The parents were not even doing anything to soothe the baby and they did not bring milk powder. So annoying!

While waiting for departure, I spotted an Air New Zealand plane outside. Hope to fly with them someday. The last time I flew to New Zealand was with SQ.

The Fiji arrival card and health declaration forms were distributed to all passengers who were not locals.

Fiji is 2 hours ahead of Australia. Around 6.30am local time, we began our descent into Nadi airport. Due to the late departure, we arrived one hour behind schedule.

We were greeted with a spectacular sunrise over the eastern coast as we landed at Nadi International airport.

Vinaka means Thank you in Fijian. I give the plane comfort a rating of 7/ 10. Service is a 8/ 10 although I skipped the meal service and only kept the dry biscuits and cheese in my bag in case I would get hungry subsequently. Due to the incessant crying from the baby behind me, it was one of my worst flights and I did not get much sleep. On the other hand, my nephew slept through the entire flight as if nothing happened.

We will be taking FJ again for our return segment to Singapore. Stay tuned to the next review.