SQ A380 - C Class Trip Report, SQ 220 - SKA

[UMD]

Set out from home in the suburb of Sydney at around 5:30 am to avoid the Friday morning rush on the M2 motorway, I could not resist my excitement as within the next 3 hours or so I would be flying on a A380 for the first time. It was a rainy morning and the temperature in Sydney was around 15C.

I arrived at the airport to find that SQ had moved its check-in counters from row H to row J.





For the A380, SQ is utilizing the entire row J with Suites and Business Class on the left hand side and Economy on the right hand side. One of the SQ agent was in the area to direct passengers to their related class queue.

Having been on a waiting list for seat 17A or K or any windows seat in the front cabin for 3 weeks, I decided to ask again if any of those seats were available. And as expected, the C class was full and there was no chance for me to get any of my requested seats but to stick with my original seat on 22K. Due to the euphoria of flying A380 for the first time, I actually felt fine despite not being able to get those "preferred" seats.

The time was around 06:50am when I cleared the immigration and proceeded to Gate 57 to take a peep at this super jumbo. But the aircraft was not there yet and the arrival was not due for another 10 minutes. I then decided to cut through the food court area and headed for the Silver Kris lounge upstairs.

I was greeted by the lounge dragon whom I have got to know from the past several flights. She asked why she had not seen me for quite sometimes and I told her that I had been flying with Traitor Air for the last month and a half. She showed her disbelief and jokingly told me that she was disappointed in me before she directed me to the F section of the lounge.

Just right after I settled down in the lounge which was still very empty at that time, I noticed SKA touching down and in the background I saw SQ B744 parked at the remote tarmac - usually this B744 which had arrived the previous evening that would do the SQ 220 route in the morning. Now, its place had been graciously transferred to AB380.

[UMD]

The time was a little over 07:00 when the aircraft finally stop on gate 57. I noticed that the 2 main deck jetways were quite quick to attach to the aircraft while the upper deck jetway did not attach until around 07:05. I could sense that the operators on the ground were very cautious in working around this aircraft.



The boarding pass actually listed the boarding time to be at 07:35 but I knew that SQ was infamous for its extremely early scheduled boarding time. So, I did not pay too much attention and only proceeded to the gate at around 08:15. When I arrived at the gate, the boarding was not yet commenced but the queue had been there. Looked like a lot of people were excited to be on A380 that morning. There were 4 queues each for Economy main deck, Suite (main deck), Business Class (upper deck) and Economy (upper deck).

[StarG]

Nice pics of the A380, UMD. I didn't manage to get any good picture of the aircraft on my trip.
Thanks for sharing.

[SQflyergirl]

Thanks for sharing! can't wait for more. (More like Leroy and Bubba getting excited actually )

[nickbot]

Many thanks UMD Looking forward to more!

[milehighj]

Thanks, UMD!

[KeithMEL]

Great report, UMD. More please.

[SuperJonJon]

Great TR, UMD.
More please.

[UMD]

Thanks everyone. I would continue again sometimes tonight.

Nice pics of the A380, UMD. I didn't manage to get any good picture of the aircraft on my trip.
Thanks for sharing.

I took 110+ pictures on this particular trip but about 60 pictures (which I selected for posting here because of their quality) became corrupted and damaged when I saved them back into my SD card after the re-sizing.

I will take some more pictures again this coming Thursday on my way back to Sydney on SQ221.

[jjpb3]

Looking forward to more, UMD.

[andySYD]

Hi UMD - we were on the same flight today

I took 27K (last seat in C) 2 days ago SIN - SYD since that was the last seat available. Today I took 48D (the only seat in Y with no one sitting in front of you). Obviously the experience is not the same hehehe

[UMD]

Trip Report - Continues

Then, through the announcement system on the gate, we were told that boarding would be late due to some glitches on the IFE and that the engineers were on board to fix it. The ground agent came to the C-class queue and the R-class queue and informed us that we could go back to the lounge if we wanted to.

I decided to go back up and I noticed that several passengers especially the R-suite passenger were not too happy about this.

Boarding was then called again 20 minutes later at 08:35. I boarded at around 08:45 through the upper deck jetway. I found it strange that the upper deck jetway did not have too much of an inclination at all at SYD.

I was excited when I entered the aircraft for the first time. As I entered via the upper deck main door, I noticed the passenger bar area as well as the galley (picture to post later). The feeling was of a very spacious aircraft despite I was on the upper deck. Like the 77W, the C section on the A380 does not have any overhead storage in the middle either.



Walking past by the bar area and turned right, I went directly to my seat no. 22K. Right away, I noticed the differences of the new C seats on A380 from the seats on 77W. On A380, there is no special side console but has been replaced with the side bin. Also, the A380 C seats have open designed compartments on both sides of the armrests. The one on the right hand side is where the headset would be placed while I found the one on the left, because of its smaller size, was perfect for camera.



The headset placement is now located just underneath the reading lights on the right hand side while there are still 2 headset outlets one on each side.





I also noticed that below the seat in front of me, i could actually store my carry-on and my shoes.



The table placement is a bit different as well from 77W as when it is fully out, it is positioned parallel to the seat instead of at an angle. The height of this table in relation to the seat can be adjusted as well.

[UMD]

The doors closed at 08:55 and the long taxi to runway

Having snapped several pictures of the seat, I decided to walk to the back cabin where the upper deck Economy is located. The 2 - 4 - 2 configuration is really nice considering the cabin is wider than the typical A330 / 340.



As soon as the announcement came that all doors were closed at around 08:55, I returned to my seat. Shortly after, I was given the menu by the SQ girl whom, later on towards the end of the flight, I learned was a family friend.

The captain then came on the PA system to announce that we would start our push back in 5 minutes time. While we were waiting for the push back, an Air New Zealand A320 with registration ZK-OJA was pulling close to our super jumbo but was not allowed to start its deplaning process and had to wait until we commenced our push back.



Push back then started at 09:10 and we started our long taxiing to the north end of the runway. Traffic at SYD around this time of the morning was particularly heavy. We were no. 10 in the queue so the super jumbo moved slowly towards the end of the runway.

At 09:40, A DJ 738 landed right after EK B777 landed. After that, coming in for landing were QF B744 and JQ 330 before TG which had been in front of us took us.





Finally at around 09:52, our A380 started its roll down the runway and it took off with such a low decibel engine noise that I could hear my own heart beating in excitement. By the way, the take off was the smoothest I ever experienced from a commercial airplane.

We were airborne.........

[UMD]

After we were airborne, I noticed that the mood lighting was on and through a series of serendipities with the shutter speed, the cabin looked like more of a disco bar.



After we reached the cruising altitude, I decided to tour the plane with my camera. My first stop was actually the 2 toilets in the back of the C section. Entering from row 27 from the right side of the airplane, I found myself in this area which provide entrances to the 2 toilets.



Economy class passengers were not allowed to use these 2 facilities so the curtain was closed off. The toilets here are of the regular airplane size toilets and cannot compare in size to the toilet in the middle of the cabin and the super big one in the front of the cabin next to the grand staircase. In total, there are 4 toilets for the 60 passengers traveling in C.

Note: All my toilet pictures were damaged during the re-sizing process. Thus, I would need to post them later once I retake them on my way back next Thursday.

I then walked to the back of the cabin where I found the galley area for the upper deck economy to be very big for its size. 3 SQ girls (including 1 LS) served the back of the cabin that day - 3 for 88 was very good crew service ratio for Y. I took some of their pictures and they were very happy and one of them was telling me that the Canon camera I used was similar to the one she used to take underwater pictures in her diving trip. (All pictures damaged)

I then proceeded to go down the spiral staircase. The bottom of the staircase opened up to the light of the main cabin and a very spacious area which provided access to the 2 toilets at the back of the main cabin for the Y passengers.

[UMD]

Having taken a few pictures in the main cabin, I walked back up to the upper deck via the back spiral staircase. I then walked all the way to the front of the cabin to see what SQ had installed in there. I found the lighting panel / divider that SQ installed at the top of the grand staircase to be beautiful and the colors soothing. However, I was a bit disappointed that SQ did not make this area into a passenger area. Walking up the grand staircase, on the left hand side was more galley area while on the right hand side was the biggest airline toilet I hadever seen. This toilet could fit 2 - 3 people easily and one could change comfortably in there. I couldn't help but smile when the thought of a perfect toilet for mile-high club crossed my mind.

Walking back to my seat via the left hand side of the aircraft, I couldn't help but thinking that SQ mis-designed the galley for the business class as there was a side galley with espresso machine right next to seat 16D.



Talking to the crews, they also disliked the design. Because it was hard to work there without causing a lot of noise to passenger sitting on seat 16D. The best place for this galley is where the passenger bar area is located now. I would hope SQ redesign this galley in its other aircraft.

To be Continued.