BA15 To Sydney
 

In the past when I have flown this route we have always had to leave the plane for refueling. Today I considered changing our flight to SYD so that we had more time in Changi by catching the earlier BA11 and then the BA15 on to SYD. The agent advised me that the BA15 no longer allows passengers to disembark while they refuel to allow a speedier connection to SYD. In the past the reason to disembark was for safety reasons during refueling. Was not sure that the agent knew what she was talking about as when we spoke she did not know that the BA15 had to stop in SIN to refuel. Would welcome the comments from those who travel this route regularly. Have not been this route in the past 10 years.

Well I flew on BA15 to Singapore (and no further) in May and I will be again early next year so I think that agent wasn't fully clued up about what she was saying.

All passengers are required to disembark during the SIN stop. Passengers will both leave and join the service at SIN.

Refueling with passengers onboard at SIN is permitted providing the fire service is in attendance. This attendance must be paid for by the airline requesting the service.

The whole crew get off and go, the next crew arrive at some point. I have not heard of that changing, although that’s what we used to do years ago but we cannot have passengers on board without cabin crew. I did not know that the reason was because of refuelling. I have never heard that. Most times we are still refuelling whilst boarding. Last month everybody got off as per usual (I was a passenger).

I’m pretty certain you have not been given the correct information, although I’m happy to be corrected.

In addition after a long LHR-SIN the plane needs to cleaned inside, toilets cleaned etc.

This can only happen if everyone is off the plane.

I'm pretty sure this is a SIN airport requirement. When BKK had Australia flights it was a choice as to whether to stay onboard or leave, and the other Caribbean and previous Middle East * locations required you to stay on board. But SIN has a particular security protocol for services to Australia, in agreement with the Australian government, and the easiest way to implement it in SIN is to get everyone off. Refuelling is not an issue, this happens all the time at SIN and pretty much every BA airport.

So I am 99.999999% certain that this is duff advice.

* I am old enough to remember when they allowed people to go down the catering stairs at 1R for a smoke on the tarmac at BAH. As a never-smoker I used to take advantage of this to soak up the night-time humid sea air.

I fly BA15/16 every other week (only the SIN-SYD leg). Passengers definitely disembark and flights are bookable as individual legs so you will disembark, crews get switched etc. I am flying 15 again tomorrow and given that I’ll only be joining the flight in Singapore I don’t doubt that anything has changed here.

You definitely got the wrong information regarding disembarkation but you may want to switch from 16 to 12 on the return anyway - A380 vs old 777 and no mixed fleet crew. On the outbound from London you’d have a pretty long layover if you did 11 to 15 but that is still an option of course.

In particular, IIRC, on the SIN-SYD you are not allowed to carry on board any liquids over 100 ml (limited to the baggie), except for liquids purchased at SIN and delivered by the airport shop directly to the gate. This restriction can't reasonably be done except at the gate at SIN, after everyone has disembarked and re-cleared security at SIN. (This means that if you buy a >100ml bottle of liquids at the duty-free shop at LHR, you will lose it at SIN even if it is in a STEB.)But beware of the misconnection risk if doing either BA11 --> BA15, or BA16 --> BA12. This may or may not be important to the OP.

Leave aside the old argument about WW vs MF, which can really be done to death in other threads.

An agent on the gold line last week told me the BA15 stopped and didn’t allow you to get off also, which I know is not the case. I didn’t bother to discuss further with them, seems strange they would say this - their system must tell them this incorrect info?

Nothing regarding a change has been communicated to us - so I'd assume that everyone is still required to disembark.
There is a crew change in SIN (much like NAS/GCM) which is theoretically possible to do with pax remaining onboard, however can't see this happening in practice. I'd imagine this is just the contact centres having incorrect information.
Many people take the BA11 and connect to the BA15. Gives you more time to change/shower in the lounge etc.

The requirement for flights to Australia at SIN is that everyone bound for Australia passes through security and to do that you have to disembark.

I really wonder where these agents get there information from. I am quite sure they did not get up in the morning saying “let’s spread some misinformation and screw with our customers”.

as CWS said, and it is my understanding as well, it is a SIN requirement for all arriving flights to disembark, and all boarding passengers to go via the gate security check before boarding. The crews change and the plane gets cleaned during the time on the ground, having passengers on board would just cause havoc.

it has nothing to do with refueling, this can be done with passengers on board.

Globalist

Curious. If you fly the route every other week why do you fly BA relying on a flight coming from London with a flying time.of 13 hours or so to connect at SIN for SYD? Especially with QF flights or indeed SQ readily accessible. 🤔

Agree - its a bilateral agreement between Australia and Singapore (amongst others) .

*As an aside C-W-S I remember walking over sleeping (on the floor) security military with their Lee Enfield 303 rifles as teddy bears at DXB whilst transiting the long gone BCal DC10 LGW-HKG :) service .