Connection at SIN. Is 2 hours enough?
 

HI all, I am on an Aeroplan RTW trip for our honeymoon, arriving from DAR into SIN on ET.

My DAR-SIN flight lands at 14:50 on September 17, 2017. My ultimate destination is DPS, but my award RTW trip maxed out on miles with SIN as my turnaround, so I need to book a separate SIN-DPS-SIN flight.

I have never been to SIN. If I land at 14:50, I am looking at purchasing one of the following flights.

GA: 17:00
KL: 16:50
SQ: 18:20

Is it reasonable to catch any of these flights? I will be arriving J, and booking a paid J for this leg. I am not sure how long things will take at SIN, where I have to clear immigration, etc. The KLM business class flight is 3x cheaper than SQ, so I wouldn't mind hitting that one, but I am not sure if 2 hours (exactly) is enough time.

Thanks so much.

Of course the big factor would be if your arriving flight is on time.

Immigration usually averages ten minutes I'd say, except when I ended up behind a flight from China it was more like twenty. Bags are pretty quick. So those two aren't a big factor IMO. But it's a pretty spread out airport, so if you have to change terminals after immigration, you might be pushing it a bit. If the KL flight leaves near where the ET flight arrives, I think 2 would be doable. But I'd book SQ or spend a night in the city and get the KL flight the next day, etc., just to avoid worrying about the connection the whole way to SIN.

Traveling on separate tickets always bear a certain level of risk. The key question in your case is whether ET will accept to check your bags in DAR until DPS. I have no idea about ET policies in that respect. In the western world, it is becoming more and more hazardous and unpredictable, so better to plan without. But if ET normally makes it without reluctancy, them you can book the KL flight without too much incertitudes. In that case, no immigration to clear, no bag to claim and re-check. If you cannot be sure about the check-through policy of ET or if ET flights are often delayed, then you have to play it safe and book the SQ flight at 18:20 or overnight in SIN if you want to take the KL flight but the following day to be on the safe side.

Changi offers a bag-tag service for connecting pax via airline transfer counters (airside). Should be no need to pass through immigration and recheck.

My main concern would be the arrival time of the incoming flight. Maybe check flightaware?

IME they only tag if there is interline agreement between the airlines.

ET codeshares with SQ so chances are high that you could interline bags onto SQ at DAR even with separate tickets ... but I've never flown ET so have no experience. Good luck. Also ET is in terminal T3, as is GA while SQ is in both T3 and T2 and KL is in T1. Staying in the same terminal could be a consideration. GA has a very nice regional J, fwiw (quite a change from being an awful airline a decade ago).

For more discussion, please follow the thread as it moves to the Singapore forum. Ocn Vw 1K, Senior Moderator.

Remember that SQ uses regional aircraft on these routes, with regional service (F&B) in J.

Assuming you arrive on time, there shouldn't be no problems....