lifestobelived

I thought I would put up this review of a recent flight I took in business class on one of Singapore Airlines A380s in business class... The full review with pictures can be found here, hope you find it useful... flight-review-singapore-to-frankfurt-singapore-airlines-business-class


What’s to like – Good quality food, good service, nice smooth ride on the A380 and a nice hard product.


Could improve – More just a note that the seat/bed, while roomy, was a bit unusual to turn from seat into bed mode, you had to actually get up and fold down the back which made it maybe a little awkward to move easily between bed and seat mode rather than just pressing a button to convert it from one to the other, not sure if I am quite a fan of that.


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Flight – SQ 26

Seat – 14A

Aircraft – Airbus A380-800

Check-in – Check-in was quick and painless using the Singapore Airlines business class check-in counters in Terminal 3. Once those formalities were completed it was through the immigration process relatively quickly before getting into the terminal proper and heading to Singapore Airlines SilverKris business class lounge for a shower and some pre-flight grazing and relaxing. The full review of the lounge can be found here. But a few pictures should suffice:

Seat – Singapore Airlines has configured their A380s to offer the whole upper deck of the aircraft as business class seating. They have arranged this in a 1-2-1 layout which allows every seat direct access to the aisle, always a nice feature negating the need for any late night gymnastics trying to vault over persons sleeping in the aisle seats to get in and out of the window seats. The business class cabin has 60 seats with a pitch of 55 inches and a width of 30 inches.

The business class seat on Singapore Airlines A380 is unlike any other business class seat that I’ve come across. In normal seat mode it is wider than practically any other business class seat that I have used, but has a slightly more limited set of reclining functions in seat mode. This is because you don’t actually extend the seat into the bed using the controls from fully upright to fully-flat. Instead, to convert to a fully flat-bed requires you to actually stand up, lift up the head rest and then pull a lever after which the whole upright part of the seat folds forward to become the flat-bed with like a semi mattress/padding to sleep on.

This can work well as a bed, although once you have blankets and pillows and all set up, it’s a bit cumbersome, especially in a dark cabin to try to change configuration back into a seat mode to hop up etc. I also found that in the bed mode there were some bits of velcro on the seat back down near the footrest area that kept rubbing on my leg, but that was probably just due to something specific with this seat rather than the seat design itself.

So how to rate this seat/bed. As a bed it works reasonably well, accommodating someone of my height (about 5’11”) quite well. What it sacrifices to achieve this is a bit of the functionality and convenience of a seat that can be changed through all its modes just using a control pad with finer adjustments to get just the right position you want. I’d rate it as a very good product, but not sure if I would prefer Cathay Pacific’s reverse herringbone arrangement slightly more.

Amenity kit – Hmmm, I have to say that I was a bit underwhelmed by Singapore’s amenity kit which basically consisted of a pair of slipper type footwear and a pair of eyeshades. While they do have toothbrushes, shavers, mouth wash and other items in the lavatories, it would still be nice to be handed a nice complete amenity pack, something I have come to consider as fairly standard on even decent business class offerings.

So it was a bit of a surprise that Singapore don’t offer it. I didn’t even get any ear plugs, although I’m not sure if the flight attendant who came through handing out the meagre kits had some ear plugs in her trolley and you had to ask for them? Anyway, while not a make or break item of the flight, it seemed a little poor.

Entertainment – Singapore Airlines provides a 15.4 inch LCD screen in the business class cabin with a good selection of movies and other entertainment options. I counted something like 100+ movies available, as well as games and television episodes. I settled in and watched American Sniper while having dinner before converting my seat into a bed for the overnight flight, in the morning I watched Exodus. A set of noise cancelling headphones was provided which also seemed to work well.

Food and beverages – The meals were one of the things I was looking forward to most on this flight as I had used Singapore’s Book the Chef service and ordered the Lobster Thermidore for my midnight meal and then the Angus Hamburger for my breakfast.

Here are the menus for the flight:

The welcoming drink on board was a Singapore Sling. I had another one of these iconic Singapore cocktails later in the flight, together with some bourbon and cokes

The supper service started with a dish of Marinated prawns with meslun salad, avocado and sundried tomatoes which was tasty and nicely presented.

Next as you can see from the menu there were 3 choices, a steak, a barramundi and kway teow soup options. I had chosen prior to the flight to order the Classic Lobster Thermidore and this was accompanied by asparagus a tomato and rice. It was a nice meal, I rarely if ever eat lobster so it was a nice difference, perhaps not a mind blowing flavour (that probably has more to do with my taste buds than how it was prepared) but still it was a nice dish.

For desert there was a chocolate mocca cake which was nice.

Lastly was a selection of cheeses with a bit of fruit to accompany it.

After about 5-6 hours of sleep, I awoke to a darkened cabin and so decided to try ordering one of the anytime snack offerings, the Focaccia with smoked salmon which was enjoyable.

Later, with a couple of hours to go, the proper breakfast service started.

First up was some orange juice and some fruit.

I didn’t go for the cereals or yoghurts, which was next on the breakfast menu, and then as earlier stated, instead of the 3 options on the breakfast menu (European breakfast, Nasi Lemak or more of an English breakfast) I had pre-ordered the Angus Burger.

This was nice and tasty, although it probably could have been improved with a bit of cheese somewhere, once again more a preference of mine.

Service – All together the service was pretty good. On entering the plane and opening up a few little compartments next to the screen I found that there were wrappers and other items left over from the passenger before in one of them, so that wasn’t the greatest start. Next I also had to ask an FA for a pre-departure drink, although others had obviously been served to people in other seats.

But after that slightly poor start the service was reasonably attentive and friendly throughout the flight as Singapore has a good reputation for providing.

Time – The flight left roughly on time, maybe 10 minutes or so late. It was scheduled to be a 12 hour 45 minute flight, but because of strong head winds it ended up being over 13 hours by the time we landed and deplaned.

Conclusion – All up this Singapore Airlines business class flight was a nice flight. The seat was different to anything I had really tried before in business class, but still delivered a pretty good product for the flight and as always the 1-2-1 arrangement was preferable. The food was of a high standard and the service was also good.

AskOksena

Warm Friday morning greetings from a winding down Seoul business trip to you, lifestobelived, and thank you kindly for your thoughtful review of your recent A380, SQ 26 J-Class flight. Warms my heart. (And many thanks for your other fine flight reviews.)

In keeping with that Singapore Airlines spirit, will be flying SIA back home to Singapore from Incheon later today (SQ 609 J), via a scheduled and familiar A330. Here's to many more SQ rides to you.

Thanks again for your lovely review. Warm wishes to you and all from Seoul,

robert


... Singapore Airlines, You're a Great Way to Fly ...