Announcement

**yflyer** · 1 May 2016, 01:54 AM

April marks the start of a new SIA Krisflyer mileage accrual year for me. This is the start of the 12 month period where the mileage counter, for purposes of frequent flyer tier calculations, resets to zero, and begins ticking over towards Silver / Gold status on SIA and Star Alliance, with the starting month beginning when you first join Krisflyer. (So everyone has a different starting month.)

My travel calendar has two seasons: I spend half the year travelling mainly SQ/Star Alliance, and the other half of the year mainly on Oneworld and Emirates.

Regulars on SQTalk will know the reason why: I fly mainly in Economy Class. Since SIA’s PPS is only attainable travelling in Business or First, I hit a ceiling when my mileage reaches 50K. 50K miles from travelling in Economy gets me to Krisflyer/ Star Gold.

Travelling in Y, I will never qualify for PPS. Even though I clock 150-200K miles a year, every economy class mile accrued above 50K is useless from the perspective of benefits or qualifying for PPS. The only positive to all this is that I don’t have to bother trying to unravel the mystery of calculating PPS Value. My PPS Value remains zero, or nearly zero for most of the year.

So each year, I fly SQ only until I hit 50K miles to qualify for KF / Star Gold. The rest of the year I fly mainly Oneworld or Emirates, which, with my Qantas FF membership, enables me to hit Qantas Gold (Which has equivalent benefits on Emirates through the QF-EK partnership) and Oneworld Sapphire within that qualifying year.

The benefit of doing all that? A whole lot flexibility in choosing which airline to fly, I guess. I get priority check-in, priority boarding, extra baggage allowance and Business Class Lounge access, whether I am flying on Star or Oneworld.

Star? Check. Oneworld? Ditto. Got them both covered. Emirates too. Now I need to find a way to savour the delights of Etihad and the SkyTeam carriers. (Aeroflot, anyone?)

So the new SIA accrual year had just started for me, and what better way to kick off a binge of flying SQ than heading to London on SQ318/319.

**yflyer** · 1 May 2016, 01:55 AM

SQ’s flights to London depart from Changi T3.

I was booked in Y, and waitlisted for a Business Saver J upgrade. I was still waitlisted when I walked up to the KF Gold Check-in Counter in T3, two hours before the scheduled departure time of SQ318 at 12.35pm.

But it never hurts to ask (nicely). I got lucky that day: the check-in agent was a real star, and so were the SQ ops and KF membership services team. There were a tiny number J seats still empty. A round of phone calls, orchestrated by the agent, and my Business Saver mileage redemption came through. It’s little things like that which make the SQ and Changi experience special.

He handed me a J boarding pass. A proper one with dark blue strip along the top. A good start to the trip!

I headed airside…

**yflyer** · 1 May 2016, 01:55 AM

I passed the entrance to the KF Gold Lounge…

I glanced inside, but didn’t go in, and headed instead to the flagship Silver Kris Lounge...

At that hour of the day (It was just before lunch time, on a weekend) it was not very crowded. I thought the ambience in the lounge was very good that day.

Self service champagne and wine selections…

There would be a full lunch service on SQ318, so I didn’t sample any of the food in the dining area…

I headed to the gate.

**yflyer** · 1 May 2016, 01:56 AM

It was 9V-SWU at the gate, a 2+ year old aircraft first delivered in September 2013.

Boarding began on time.

The F cabin had two rows of 4 seats, laid out 1-2-1.

Seat 1A, possibly the best seat in the house.

Another view of the F cabin.

**yflyer** · 1 May 2016, 01:56 AM

I passed through the J mini-cabin, with just two rows of business class seats, into the larger main J cabin.

The cabin product today was SQ’s latest 2013 J product, which is an updated version of the long haul 2006 J product found on SQ’s A380s and 77Ws. The new A350 has a slightly newer iteration of this 2013 J seat, but they are broadly similar.

These J seats, arranged 1-2-1, similar in layout to the A380 / 77W Business Class seats, but are improved in several ways, making an already excellent J seat even better.

First impressions of the seat are that the blocky, plastic cubicle-style finishes of 2006 J have been replaced with a more elegant, curved style with copper and bronze accents.

**yflyer** · 1 May 2016, 01:57 AM

While overall width remains the same as A380/77W J, part of available width is now used as a side table and storage, rather than a super-wide seat. The remaining seat width remains very wide.

There is now additional side storage, and a horizontal ledge next to your seat, to place your things, which I found very convenient.

The universal A/C power socket and USB ports are now behind the cover beside the seat, under the reading lamp. (They were on the front, next to the screen, on the previous iteration of the seat.)

Cubby holes in the front of the seat, next to the large widescreen IFE.

Pre-take off glass of pineapple juice�placed on the small fixed drink ledge on the front of the seat.

Large and stable fold-out tray table, which is height-adjustable.

The armest on the aisle side is now slimmer than before, with a range of very intuitive seat controls arranged in a line.

Interestingly, unlike Economy Class on the same plane, the IFE widescreen is not a touchscreen. You need to control the IFE using this touchscreen controller mounted on one side of the seat.

Cubby hole for headphones.

High quality Phitek noise cancelling headphones.

**yflyer** · 1 May 2016, 01:58 AM

This is still a fold-down bed design: You still need to get up to fold the seat down into a wide, flat bed. However, the seat-mode recline is noticeably greater than the previous version of this seat.

The footrest also goes up completely horizontal, something which was not possible on the earlier seat.

The new safety card:

13 hour and 7 minute flight time to London today.

Eyeshades, socks (Not sockettes), and slippers handed out�

Hot towels�

We took off towards the south on runway 20C.

**yflyer** · 1 May 2016, 01:59 AM

My post-take off drink was an iced coffee.

Not champagne? On today’s flight I had a ton of work to complete, so I would have to save the champagne for later. On the bright side, this gave me a great opportunity to test the new seat for both work and play.

Not long after, satay was served…

Immediately after the satay service, the cabin crew began preparing to serve lunch.

Today’s menu…

On this flight, we would have lunch and a light dinner prior to landing.

For completeness, here is the menu on the return leg, SQ319 LHR-SIN…

**yflyer** · 1 May 2016, 01:59 AM

This month’s wine and beverage list…

I’ve always been very impressed by the selection of coffees and teas available on SQ…

**yflyer** · 1 May 2016, 02:01 AM

The table was set�

The starter was prawns with Thai-style salad and pomelo�

I thought this could have used a little more dressing, but the prawns had good texture and the pomelo salad was quite refreshing.

A selection of bread offered from a bread basket, including warm garlic bread�

When the cabin crew came round a second time with the bread basket, I asked to take a photo��there�s almost none left!��the petit and cheerful cabin crew member remarked, and couldn�t resist a small laugh, as she held the basket still as I snapped my photo�

For my main, I chose the Seared Sirloin in Red Wine Sauce, a culinary panel selection from Carlo Cracco, chef of the eponymous Ristorante Cracco in Milan.

This came beautifully presented�

The steak was done medium to medium-well, but it was still fairly tender and had good flavour.

I enjoyed my steak.

To accompany my meal, I had a glass of this month�s featured wine, Le Cumbre, a Syrah from Chilean winery Vina Errazuriz�this is a wonderful wine that I would highly recommend.

This was a rich, fruity and full bodied shiraz that I found absolutely delicious�one of the most memorable glasses of red wine I have had on a plane.

**yflyer** · 1 May 2016, 02:01 AM

A choice of dessert�

I picked the Pumpkin and Coconut Charlotte with berries�

Followed by a decent cheese platter�

Pralines�

And coffee�

**yflyer** · 1 May 2016, 02:02 AM

I signed up for inflight wifi / internet. On this aircraft, internet is provided by T-Mobile and is charged by time, not by data usage. This is great, as it means you don�t have to worry about how much data you are downloading. You can also switch between your cell phone, tablet or notebook computer on the same login, although only one can be active at a time.

With a wifi connection, a large tray table, and very private workspace, in a quiet cabin, I was amazingly productive working in my seat. As good as being in the office, I would say. Maybe better than the office, as there were no interruptions or overheard conversations from co-workers.

The cabin layout also gives pax a lot of privacy, compared to the open plan J cabins of some of the competition.

Whichever seat you were in, you almost never noticed other passengers.

There is also a retractable privacy partition between the two middle seats.

I took a brief stroll through the Y cabin to stretch my legs. The Y cabin on this aircraft is laid out 3-3-3. This is, I think, as good as a Y cabin gets (Except maybe for JAL�s 2-4-2 Dreamliner).

First Y cabin�

Second Y cabin�

Y cabin ambience on the 77WN was superb. Spacious and open. More coverage on SQ�s Y product on my return trip.

Almost mid-way through my flight, I got hungry�

Funny how good a bowl of instant noodles tastes when hurtling through the air in a metal tube�

Eventually my work was done and I put my computer away.

**yflyer** · 1 May 2016, 02:02 AM

I checked out the IFE�

This version of Krisworld was, of course, full audio/video on demand, presented on a large and clear widescreen.

Many great movies onboard this month, both Hollywood and International selections, including The Revenant, and Deadpool.

You also had the opportunity to watch the full Season 5 of HBO�s Game of Thrones, which would be a great prelude to the long awaited Season 6, which has just begun airing on HBO on the ground.

Note that Star Wars is not on the programme list this month. It may have been in previous months � not any longer!

Some other SQTalkers have commented that the user interface on the latest Krisworld isn�t that easy to use. I agree. It is a hodge podge of swiping, selecting, hitting the X box to close the window�not a UI that I managed to master. It usually took a lot of random pressing before I could get the system to do what I wanted to do. The fact that in J there was no touch screen made it even less friendly. At least in Y you could touch and swipe the screen. In J, everything was controlled from the handset, and it was just clumsy to do so.

So while the picture and audio quality were very good, and the system worked fine throughout the flight, I think the user interface needs some rework. I�m just surprised that SQ has not improved it in two years, given that it is a piece of easily updateable software, not hardware.

On the positive side, the range of programmes is huge, and I am sure that almost everyone would be able to find something of interest to watch.

Apart from audio-on demand CD selections, there are also radio channels for different genres of music.

**yflyer** · 1 May 2016, 02:03 AM

It was now time to check out one of the most important features of the seat: the fold-down bed mode.

Turning the seat into a bed is quite a simple process. Most folks onboard seemed to do it with ease. You simple pull on a catch on the top edge of the seat and fold it flat. On the reverse side of the seat back, there is a soft mattress layer and cover. The pillow and blanket are also already on the sleeping surface.

On the head end, you have a fairly large and unobstructed area for your head and pillow.

The footwell stretches quite far forward, and occupies a slot to the right of the screen. It is not the roomiest footwell, but should provide adequate space for your feet.

Note that the full length of the bed for sleeping is only achievable if you sleep at an angle, or better still, if you sleep on your side with your legs curled.

I am not very tall, so I found the overall space to sleep on very generous. I particularly appreciated the width of the seat, which was a lot wider than J seats on other airlines, and I slept very comfortably.

On the other hand, if you are very tall, you might need to sleep at an angle to find a comfortable position.

And to complete the ambience, there are downlights along the seat which provide some low-level soft lighting (The 3rd button from the front of the side panel)�

Overall, a very comfortable bed to rest or sleep in.

Announcement

SQ318/319 New Business & Economy Class to London and LHR T2 SilverKris Lounge

SQ318/319 New Business & Economy Class to London and LHR T2 SilverKris Lounge

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