27 March 2016
Garuda Indonesia
GA 840
Denpasar Bali (DPS) - Singapore (SIN)
B737-800
PK-GFN "Retrojet"
Economy Class
Flight Time: 2H18M


Boarding via the rear door.




Welcomed by a male crew and proceeded to my seat at 43A. More crew wer along the cabin assisting with boarding as well. The cabin was not the of the Sky Interior though on this older aircraft.




Crew assisting with boarding. There were 6 crew serving on this flight, 2 in Business and 4 in Economy. I must say that the GA girls were all very well-groomed! Not a stand of hair out of place and they looked stunning in their Kebayas. Garuda certainly has a winner with its new uniform design! The flight ended up totally full with not a single empty seat sighted.




Pillows were placed on every seat while blankets were offered upon request. Legroom was surprisingly pretty generous for a B737 aircraft, and definitely better than on the SQ A330.




IFE was touch-screen. Selections on this short-haul flight was lacking though as most of the new-releases movies were not available and only available on flights more than 3hrs. Though I read that on the BSI planes, the full selection was available. However, I still found something to watch.




Headsets were available in the seat pocket.




As well as 2 thick booklets of inflight mag and entertainment guide, plus the usual. Interestingly, the Colours inflight magazine has 2 different covers, as mine was of a different cover design from my seatmate. GA is also widely advertising its 5-Stars Airline, Best Cabin Crew and Best Economy Class awards.




After all passengers had settled into their seats, welcome beverage was served. Think this is a rarity not found on any other airline.




Welcome drink of orange juice. Though I found it too sweet for my liking.




The drink cups were then cleared and safety video was shown. Similarly to SQ, the crew would not be seen using any trash bags to dispose of trash, but only using service trays to collect all the unwanted trash. GA certainly learned a thing or two from its neighbouring powerhouse airline.





Safety demo video



Flight map.




IFE was already available during boarding. Decided to watch a Korean comedy, which was rather entertaining.




As the airport was rather busy at the time, it was a bit of a late pushback, followed by a lengthy taxi before we took off. We finally took off 30min behind schedule. Not sure why GA scheduled this flight with a tight flight time of 2h25min when all other airlines had a padded flight time of 2h30min or more. Bound to have lots of late arrivals with the minimal padding.

Took off from Rwy27.