Kuala Lumpur to Singapore on SilkAir Economy Class
I left the lounge and proceeded to the boarding gate approximately 30 minutes before the published boarding time, and found the gate not to be open yet ("open" in this case means that the security check, which takes place at each individual gate, wasn't staffed yet, so I couldn't enter the gate waiting area yet). After a few minutes wait, the staff appeared and the considerable number of people who were already waiting in the concourse were screened and could then take a seat in the relatively spacious gate waiting area (at least spacious when compared to the waiting areas at SIN). Our plane was already waiting at the finger, and priority boarding was called only about 10 minutes later.
As there were obviously only a few people entitled to priority boarding (and I'm not even sure whether that was actually enforced), they called the rest of the bunch only seconds later, and I proceeded onto the jet bridge as one of the first passengers to board the flight.
The Flight
Flight: MI341
From: KUL/WMKK
To: SIN/WSSS
Aircraft Type: Airbus A320-200
Registration: 9V-SLR
STD: 21:45
STA: 22:50
As the business class cabin had obviously (or allegedly) been sold out when I were rebooked the evening before, they "downgraded" me to Economy, and I had assigned myself seat 14A. The orange-brownish colors in the cabin actually contrasted quite a bit to the corporate colors of SilkAir, and I'm not sure whether I like the cabin design itself. While it may be nice to have some spots of color in the cabin, the color scheme made everything look a bit outdated, even though the seats themselves looked relatively new.
Fortunately enough, the seats had much more padding than the seats that are now usually used on european airlines in their short-haul fleet (and were more comparable to the "classic" economy seat of the 1990s), however, I really don't like those adjustable headrests - even if pushed completely up, they are constantly too low to make me sit comfortably (and I'm "only" 6'2" tall), which has been a real nuisance on British Airways' old economy seats (and even the headrests of the new ones aren't exactly what I like).
The legroom was ok (actually a bit better than I expected) and about on par with what you would also find in Europe. Furthermore, I was lucky enough to have an empty middle seat next to me.
The plane was actually not completely full, and boarding was completed quickly. After everyone had taken their seats, the flight attendants passed through the cabin three times, each with a different newspaper (there was the "Straits Times", another english newspaper and one in chinese language), which I found quite impressive.
We were soon ready to go and pushed back 5 minutes early. The flight time was announced to be only 40 minutes, but we had a really long taxi out to the runway, where we departed around 10pm.
MI was offering some kind of in-flight entertainment based on the Bring-Your-Own-Device principle, meaning that you could connect to a WiFi network within the plane and stream all kinds of content (music, journalistic articles, and even entire movies) onto your own device. I only tried to use it for a very short time, and I am not even sure whether they provided an airshow of sorts - however, the content itself was much better than what I had previously encountered on similar services, be it on Edelweiss or Lufthansa.
After the seatbelt signs went off, the crew came through the cabin to distribute packaged refreshing towels and drinks. They were offering tea and coffee (from a kettle) as well as packaged orange juice and packaged water. I selected the water and received a tiny yoghurt-tub style cup of water.
While I understand the concept of giving out packaged drinks on such a short flight (for example, on Lufthansa, you don't get anything on the STR-MUC or FRA-DUS flights which are of a similar length), I really don't like these particular vessels, as they look extremely cheap and are also difficult to drink from. Compare this, for example, to SWISS where you receive a proper water bottle on their ultra short hauls.
Later, I saw the flight attendants going back and forth from and to the galley, bringing out soda cans - I guess, you could actually order any other kind of (common) drink, they were just not offering it in order to save time (which is understandable, as soon as the service was done, we already commenced our descent into SIN).
As we had already descended to a low altitude, the pilots announced that ATC had actually been able to squeeze us somewhere into the line of planes beaded for landing, and that we would land 5 minutes earlier than announced. However, after landing, we had a fairly long taxi, and arrived about 5 minutes early at the terminal gate. Coincidentally, we pulled into stand right next to D-AIMB "München", the second Airbus A380 Lufthansa has received about 8 years ago and which would take me onwards from Singapore to Frankfurt.
Verdict
There is actually not much to say about this flight, particularly as this was an extremely short hop on which not much is actually happening. I was impressed by the choice of newspapers they had (on both LH and LX you'd have to download your paper onto a personal device before boarding), and it was nice that they were offering a drink service on this flight, whereas this is definitely not the norm on intra-european ultra short-hauls.