Singapore Airlines 286, Auckland (AKL) to Singapore Changi (SIN)
February 22nd, 2018
1:30 pm–7:05 pm
Airbus A380 9V-SKK
Seats 3C/D (center pair, suites class)
We made the long walk from the lounge to the distant A380 gates, where the plane was waiting.
Huge plane means huge gate and huge crowd of people.
But seriously, this gate is so far out there that there are farms out the window.
Anyway, boarding commenced just a couple of minutes after we arrived and was super quick thanks to having all of the jetways and all of the gate agents.
The same refreshed Suites cabin we saw a couple of years ago. No new suites for us just yet.
Nice upgrade on the champagne, there. Too bad it’s only a limited time promotion.
Amenity kit and slippers were waiting for us. A flight attendant offered us pajamas in short order.
Lots of power ports. Lots of other various jacks nobody has ever used.
The latest in Bose headphones.
The plane finally pushed back about ten minutes behind schedule.
I took a look through the menu.
After the plane passed through 10,000 feet, the seatbelt sign went out and I stopped by the lavatory. Since it’s on the lower deck, not a whole lot to write home about. Maybe just a little more space than normal.
Another fifteen minutes later, the amuse bouche while we waited for lunch to be ready. What else but satays?
Another half hour later and it was showtime.
Ain’t nothing like some caviar to start off a great meal.
Spiced split pea soup with duck confit and yogurt.
Clear chicken soup with oyster mushrooms.
Baby romaine, tatsoi, and cherry tomatoes. Too much cheese, not enough dressing.
Garlic bread to ward off the vampires.
Wok fried chicken in sesame oil with ginger; Chinese vegetables and egg noodle. Delicious but kind of reminiscent of something I’d find sitting under heat lamps at a low-rent cafeteria.
Nasi Padang with dry fish curry, fried chicken, and lamb rending in thick coconut gravy and sautéed spinach. This seemed to be missing a few things.
Warm rum baba with calvados syrup, vanilla ice cream, and muscatel chutney. I don’t know what happened here, because this was more of a dry mini bagel than anything else.
Matt Moran of Aria Restaurant, Sydney should probably be a bit embarrassed that his name is attached to this.
Passionfruit mousse cake with white chocolate ice cream and passionfruit coulis. This was generally fine, other than the thing that Singapore seems to do where they plate desserts with a scoop of ice cream that goes sliding all over the place.
Pralines and hot towels to finish off the meal service.
It was now about two and a half hours into the flight, so there was plenty of time to get a nice nap in, at least assuming the food coma would take care of it in the middle of the afternoon.
We asked for turn-down service and changed into pajamas. The seat is relatively thoughtfully designed that it turns into a double bed and has redundant headphone and power ports and a place for a bottle of water.
I managed about three hours of sleep and awoke with two hours to go to Singapore. I asked for one of the featured craft beers from the drink list from a brewery we had visited a week earlier. I’m all for the trend of beers on planes generally improving as time goes on.
I started up a movie set around the fall of the Berlin Wall, “Atomic Blonde”, and entertained myself until the next meal service.
Marinated Mediterranean prawns with village Greek salad.
Chicken noodle soup.
Mango-passionfruit wanna cotta with mixed berry compote and dried raspberries.
Overall, the second meal service was much better than the first, which had really gone down a hill after the caviar service. All three of these dishes were delicious.
With an hour left, there was only one thing to do: watch the only TV show that exists on planes.
Before we knew it, we were arriving at the world’s greatest airport, where there was a very short wait for passport control before our bags arrived on the belt mere seconds after we arrived to meet them.
The review
Singapore Airlines has been reliably great in all of my flights with them with one exception: every meal has something that just leaves you wondering what they were thinking. If you can get past that, though, I have nothing but praise for them. The drink list is comprehensive. The seat is as spacious as they get.
And, of course, the crews are always fantastic. The service concept is everything you could want: attentive, effusive, friendly, accommodating. Was this flight alone worth tripling the length of our trip home from New Zealand? Probably not, but we had other reasons in mind that may become apparent in the next couple of installments.