I consider myself a pretty seasoned flyer but have never flown SQ all these years. So, I was really excited when I finally had the opportunity to fly on SQ, even in Y - AKL-SIN 777-300ER redeye flight.

I was really disappointed on 2 fronts:

1 - ground service in AKL. The inbound was late so our flight was delayed by 1/2 hour. They never updated the display in the airport and the NZ Lounge person said the flight was on-time. I could have sat in the NZ Lounge for 30 more minutes! Then the boarding process was chaotic (I guess partially because of the delay) - they went from F to J and then they opened the Y line and everyone started boarding. They skipped status passengers

2 - seat pitch. While it was great the 77W was still 3-3-3, I found the seat pitch horrible (I am 178 CM and I saw how painful it was for the taller and larger people). I think it was made worse by the thickness of the seat and the great recline. The small woman behind me told me to not recline my seat (during non-meal time)! I told her to look at how much space I had left when the person in front of me reclined. Then she relented

The crew is good - I kind of whined to an FA about the poor ground service when I boarded. Then they followed up multiple times. I didn't find them to be better or worse compared to carriers like ANA and EVA - other than they gave me 3 sets of playing cards when BR gave me 2 [Hello Kitty] sets and NH gave me 1 set

The food was not bad - maybe a little better than NH and BR overall (decent snack offering). The crazy thing was that there were so many special meal orders, it was really painful to see the FAs delivering the trays one-by-one and trying to find the passengers. I guess given the demographics of SQ flyers, this probably happens a lot? Could there be a better process?

I don't like the cabin decor - it just felt very dark. I guess most people like it and that is why it is the way it is?

So, the seat pitch is really a deal breaker for me. Because of that, it really did not turn out to be a great first time and it was not a flight whose memory I will treasure (on the same trip, I also did NZ for the first time, NH 789 first time and they were nice and memorable) Is the seating better on other SQ aircraft types? Is AKL ground service worse than other stations?

Thanks.