A slightly delayed part 2. I bumped into a colleague in the Wing, which prevented me from finishing this earlier. Now I am back at work, I have the time!
SQ71 23/01/03
MNL d 0805 – SIN a 11:40
777-200
Seat 11A
Check In. Well, MNL is not HKIA, however it does have the benefit of being much, much smaller! All baggage is x-rayed and stickered before you get to check in. SQ has a dedicated check in area, which was pretty busy. Thankfully there was no queue at the First class desk. Formalities were quick and efficient, though it felt like a processing rather than anything warmer. Grade – B, efficient but no sense of being special. I suspect this is largely due to MNL being an outstation against CX’s home.
Lounge. Small! There are separate J and F lounges, though some of the facilities are shared i.e business centre and washrooms. It’s not a bad facility, with 3 different coffee machines (all foul), plus a few hot and cold snacks and some booze. The lounge started empty and filled up rapidly with PPS members, plus 2 fully fare F pax. The flight was way oversold in J, and I saw at least 2 PPS Solitaire receive the Holy Grail, an op-upgrade to F on SQ! A pity it’s only the 777…..
Grade B – again it wasn’t going to compete with the Wing, as it’s not SQ ‘s home. However, even the F class SilverKris lounge can’t hold a torch to the Wing, save for serving Krug!
Boarding. Boarding was called very late from the lounge, thus avoiding the economy hordes. Before boarding all hand baggage was searched (rather badly), and poked about with a bit of bamboo. A very cheery agent was ripping up the boarding passes, and wished me a good flight. Once on the plane, I picked my way to the bulkhead seat. The flight was full, and it was obvious that the crew had their hands full. However, the rather abrupt way that menus and headsets were handed at you hinted that this wasn’t going to be a great experience.
In flight. The food was distinctly horrible – boiled potatoes not being high on my light of breakfast dishes. The shrunken croissant was also notable! The food service was slow, as you would expect with a full load. What was missing was any sense of graciousness about service. It was all terribly robotic, with the exception of one male F/A who couldn’t stop smiling. A pretty poor comparison to CX.
The SQ and CX seats are not dissimilar in general comfort. However, the SQ seat has more recline, and is less bulky giving the cabin a lighter feel. However it has the most pathetic footrest I have ever seen – barely more than an inch wide!
The IFE was activated on this sector, but I did not indulge after realising I hadn’t done any preparation for the afternoon’s meetings. Naughty me! Sadly there was no ego-massaging hello from the crew on this flight, which left me rather crushed.
Grade – C+. I was thoroughly disappointed by the experience; it certainly looked poor in comparison to CX, but also did not measure up well to previous SQ flights. I am starting to realise just how restrictive SQ can be with their staff. They seem to try and train them to manage every situation – which is great until you catch them unprepared. CX seem to allow a little more spontaneity.
Post flight. A straight in approach to SIN, and we were on the ground a little ahead of time. SIN is very quiet in Terminal 2 at this time of day, so we were allocated a convenient gate. Immigration was a breeze, and baggage reclaim speedy. My case was first on the carousel – nice to see the F tags work properly at Singapore.
Grade – A – no complaints there at all. Always nice when priority bags are just that!
All in all, CX win, pretty much across the board. I think that even if you were to fly ex SIN, CX would still hit the mark higher. It’s certainly been my impression over the last few months that CX are just pulling away from SQ…..see Spacebed v New Business Class as an example!
Hope that was of interest, next up is Emirates J from DXB – DEL!