The night before, I completed the Philippines e travel online. It’s not too complicated but takes quite a long time because they asked for a lot of information. Let me know if you're interested I can write about it in another post.

Journey to the airport
There are many basically 2 ways to get to the airport in Singapore and that's using the MRT or take a car. I have taken the MRT in the past (see Mini Trip Report: Bangkok May 2017) especially if I don't have a lot of luggage and if I have a lot of time. That time the total cost of Uber (before it was taken over by Grab) and the MRT was under S$4. For those of you taking the MRT you can refer to my (Idiot's) Guide to the Singapore Mass Rapid Transit (MRT). But please remember that when you are coming or going from Changi Airport on the East West Line, the trains do not go all the way. You will need to get off at Tanah Merah station (2 stops from Changi), cross over the platform to get on the other train (depending which direction you are going).
This time because there was a lot of luggage and 7 passengers we ordered ourselves a private hire vehicle - which turned out to be a minibus! For those of you who are interest it was a Toyota Hiace 13 seater. He arrived at 10am but unfortunately it took us ages to load all the luggage and passengers so we didn't get away until almost 10.30am. We always take infant car seats to countries where we expect to be using cars - which is pretty much every where but Singapore. It's not that we don't take cars in Singapore, it's just that the public transport is so good that we rarely need to use cars. In any case we made good time and got to Terminal 1 Changi Airport about 20 minutes later.
Check in
We arrived at the airport and stopped just outside Door 5, which is the closest door to row 14 where you check in for Philippine Airlines.
While it was busy, Changi still didn't seem too crowded.
When we got to the check in row, we saw that there wasn't a huge queue and we didn't think it would take a long time. But boy oh boy were we wrong. It turned out there was only one person checking economy class passengers. Thus it took a long time to get to the check in desk and then with the amount of luggage we had, we took ages to be checked-in. The guy at check in was really nice and didn't seem harassed by his situation but I bet inside he was burning up! By the time we had finished the check-in there a long queue all around the corner. The poor person at the check-in counter told me that they were expecting fewer staff that day but then another person had called in sick so he was the only one manning the economy class check in.
It's not clear from the Philippines Airlines website whether or not the infant car seat is part of the luggage allowance or not. On Singapore Airlines, a fully collapsible stroller and car seat can be checked in, over and above the free checked baggage allowance. But we did find out that car seat are included in the luggage allowance so be aware that you need to account for this when packing.
Departure clearance
Since September 30, 2024, Changi Airport has fully implemented passport-less clearance across all terminals. Singapore residents can use facial and iris biometrics for immigration clearance without presenting a passport. Because I travel with young children there is a different process. You have to go through a family gate which allows you to clear multiple (up to 4 people) in one go.


Lounges/restaurants
This being by first flight with PAL, I was not a member of their frequent flyer program so was not able to access the lounge based on that. They don't have their own lounge, instead they use the SATS Premier Lounge which you can find by turning left after Immigration Control and take the escalator up to the lounge entrance on Level 2.
Fortunately I have Citibank Prestige card which also gets me a Priority Pass card for myself plus a guest. In this case we used the Marhaba lounge which you can find by turning right after Immigration Control walk about 25 metres. You will find there was signs leading to the lounge. Then take the escalator up to the lounge entrance on Level 2.It's not as good as other lounges I’ve been to at Changi but the advantage here is that you can take children under the age of 6. Many other lounges restrict it to under 3s.
There was no wait at the entrance and I was allowed in after they scanned my card and boarding pass.
The lounge looks and feels very similar to my previous visit from before covid and the furniture looks like it's not been changed at all. The really great thing about this lounge is that is very spacious and plenty of seats available. On top of that, it is nice and quiet. The food is located behind the entrance with the lounge area to the right hand side and the seated dining area to the left. I was here for lunch and there is a small salad bar and some soup. There were some hot items like pasta, rice and curry. I pasta was nice but the curry was very poor. In terms of drinks there were wide range available - there is alcoholic and non-alcoholic options as well as hot drinks. But before long it was time to head to the plane.



On the way to the gate, we saw the PAL plane due to fly us to Manila in the far distance - squint and you will see it.
Boarding
After buying up most of bee Chen Hiang we made our way to Gate C17 to find we were basically the last group of passengers to board - whoops. Fortunately we were still ahead of time but I guess PAL board early.
Singapore - Manila
Airline: Philippine Airlines
Plane Type: A321
Flight Number: PR508
Class: Economy
Scheduled Departure: 14:10
Departure gate:c17
Actual Departure: 14:07
Scheduled Arrival: 18:10
Actual Arrival: 17:53
Estimated duration: 4hr 00mins
Actual duration: 3hrs 46mins
Plane registration: XX (sorry I didn't get this)


A quick tour of the seat
Philippine Airlines the national carrier of the Philippines and for this flight uses an Airbus A321 which consists of 3 cabins - business, economy plus and economy. Sorry, because we were late boarding I didn't a chance to take photos of the business or economy plus seats. The economy seats look very basic and don't look particularly fashionable but they were comfortable enough.
The first thing is that it’s the first single aisle plane I’ve flown over a few hours in a long time.
The seat is pretty basic. Having recently flown on SQ to London I realise how superior the seat is compared with PAL. Of course I shouldn't complain too much, the purpose of the airline is to get you from one place to another safely and Philippine Airlines does have a good safety record.
The second slightly surprising thing was there was no in seat entertainment. Not an issue given the flight time but I imagine if I had to fly more than 4/5 hours I’d want some kind of entertainment. PAL have entertainment on your own device but given I have a phone and rarely bring headphones it’s quite difficult to watch. Also missing from the seat back is the cup holder so if you have a drink you need to open up the whole table.
The food
On a recent flight, something unexpected stood out—not the average food or the bland pork that barely tasted of tomato sauce, but the details around the experience itself. The potato salad? Completely forgettable. Yet, what really caught my attention was the surprising number of Coke cans on the trolley and the almost eerie lack of reclined seats during the meal service. On most flights, passengers recline the moment the seatbelt sign is switched off, but here, they stayed upright and made meal time so much more pleasant.
After a lengthy holding pattern over Manila Bay there was a very hard braking on landing. Disembarking at Terminal 1 of NAIA was efficient, a promising start. But then came the luggage. Compared to Singapore Changi’s seamless flow, this was a lesson in patience. It cant have helped that we had 15 pieces of luggage to collect and the process was stop-start, unpredictable, and painfully slow. And we also witness the spectacle of luggage personnel, bringing luggage up on the conveyor itself, instead of being put in an oversized area, like in most other countries. We had so much luggage we ended up hiring porters to help.



After collecting your luggage then are required to exit via immigration. Here is where you use your QR code from the ER travel authorisation before leaving your departure airport.
You then need to navigate past the arrivals hall outside, and then down a bizarrely steep slope to get to the pickup area. This is where the real zoo begins. You have to find your car in the mass of all the other vehicle are arriving picking up all the flights at the same time. One of the reasons why there is so much traffic at the drop-off area at the pickup area is because in the last few months, they recently raised the price of parking at the airport quite considerably
While waiting for our car at the pickup area, we witnessed a dramatic moment. A man crossing at a pedestrian crossing with his family hit the hood of a car that drove through at the same time—clearly the driver’s fault. The tension was palpable, but it made me wonder: would I react so boldly as a visitor in another country? Probably not.

Please click here for the original post