Well I had to get to Australia somehow! (Singapore Airlines)

Member Name: jammaker49

Product:	Singapore Airlines
Date:	03/01/04 (2494 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It gets you there......eventually!

Disadvantages: Boredom, not enough fluid

Well, we are booked! Myself, hubby, daughter (Leolover) and her fiancé fly out to Australia on November 8th to attend my son's wedding the following Saturday. We chose Singapore Airlines for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, my son used Singapore Airlines when he first flew out to Australia two years ago. He used a different airline when he returned, and yet another when he went back there for good. In his opinion, Singapore Airlines had the edge on the others.

Secondly, we are travelling during Rugby World Cup time. Everyone is well aware that flights suddenly go up in price around these times. We first started looking for flights back in May, when son and future wife finally decided on the date of the wedding, and Singapore Airlines were most competitive. As we wanted to ensure that we could travel on our preferred date, we booked up in plenty of time.

Now anyone who has read my numerous travel ops will already be aware that I am not the world's best traveller. Indeed, for many years I would not fly at all. I'm not scared of flying in the least, but I do have a tendency towards travel sickness. Anyone who has never been travelsick is totally unable to understand how fearful that can make you feel. Indeed, more than one person has told me to my face that the fear of being travelsick is totally irrational. Maybe. But it is still a very real fear, and as the time for us flying looms ever nearer, I am afraid my apprehension increases. Nevertheless, I'm going. At present, I am trying to ignore the thought of the number of hours we will be airborne, and I'm sure that once on the plane, having taken my trusty travel tablets, I will be fine.

As you can see, I am writing this part of the op prior to the journey. Somehow I find it works for me to do that. So in this part, I will concentrate on what we have done and found so far, and then when we return, I will concentrate on how we found the Airline, and compare expect
ations with reality.


BOOKING

My daughter did the bulk of the booking, via the Internet and telephone. She assures me that it was done speedily, courteously and efficiently. Apparently they also take care of any visas that are required, and these are included on the e-mail type tickets that we have received. It seems that gone are the days when tickets are sent by snail mail, and that everything is done electronically. All we needed to supply were our passport numbers and expiry date, and computers did the rest.

Subsequently, my daughter has phoned the airline on a number of occasions, just to verify some details, and has always been dealt with efficiently. She has a long standing back problem, and has requested seats with extra leg room: her request has been noted. She aims to take medical documents to verify her problem, and we should, if all goes well, secure 4 seats near the rear of the plane, where there will be a bit extra room to move around. We are sort of hoping that we may even get a free upgrade to Business Class if there is sufficient room there, but are not banking on it. We can but hope!

We were hoping to deposit our luggage with the Airline at Heathrow the night before we travel, as we are staying in a nearby hotel that night. However, we were told that Singapore Airlines do not operate this facility, but that we can book our luggage in up to 6 hours before the flight. Another alternative is to book our baggage in over the Internet between 48 and 2 hours prior to flying, by joining their "KRIS" frequent traveller scheme. I have no idea how this works, but I've joined anyway, so we may give it a try. Our flight is at 11 am, and I have no intention of being there at 5 am, so we aim to get there around 7-8 ish. At least, that is the plan!

SINGAPORE AIRLINES ONLINE INFORMATION

I have done quite a bit of surfing, and much of this section is taken from Singapore Airline's own webs
ite https://www.singaporeair.com. I have also added comments regarding my own interpretations of some of their info!

"Over the last two decades, Singapore Airlines has grown from a regional airline into one of the world's leading passenger and cargo carriers. Today, they have a modern and young fleet of aircraft. Their home base, Changi Airport, is regularly voted the world's best, and serves as the gateway to Asia and beyond.
As at 1 August 2003, SIA has 98 passenger aircraft with 26 more on order and another 51 on option. The average age of our passenger fleet is 5 years 6 months."

I take this to mean that the aircraft used are all newish, modern planes rather than clapped out recycled ones!

In this section on the aircraft themselves, there are detailed descriptions of the various types of craft used, with diagrams of the various cabin layouts. Unfortunately, these were not sufficiently large or detailed enough to be of very much use.

Also on the website were sections where you could pre-book your in-flight meals etc. This, however, was for Business (Raffles) class, and first class passengers. Ah well, onwards and upwards!

Much of the site is given over to a very detailed description of Changi Airport in Singapore. All well and good if you have a long change-over period, but not particularly useful if you are 'just passing through'.

SINGAPORE AIRLINES AS WE FOUND THEM

It has taken me from when we returned (22nd November) until now (2nd January) to actually get round to finishing this op! Well, better late than never, so they say! To be honest, I've been trying to forget the flight home, but that really wasn't down to Singapore Airlines. It was more to do with the sheer fatigue brought on by flying from Melbourne at 1.a.m., landing in Singapore at 5 a.m. (local time) after seven hours flying, kicking our heels at the airport for more than 3 hours, and then a fur
ther 13 hours flight back to Heathrow.

FLYING OUT

We arrived at Heathrow at around 8 a.m. and joined the queues of people checking in. Bearing in mind these planes carry over 300 passengers, you can imagine the amount of baggage and numbers of people milling around! However, this part was surprisingly quickly dealt with, our seats were allocated (at the rear, where promised) and we parted from our luggage, praying that we would once more be reunited with it in Melbourne. (We were!)

Once in the departure lounge, we did a little Duty Free shopping, grabbed a quick pot of tea, and were called to the departure gate on time.

I'm going to digress a little here, and tell you the story of Barnaby Bear. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

I teach in a local primary school, and as part of their geography lessons, the 6 year olds watch a television programme called Barnaby Bear. He travels all over the world. The Year 1 teacher at my school has recently purchased a "Barnaby Bear" who also travels all over the world. Can you guess what is coming next? Correct. Barnaby Bear went to Australia. On the outside of my backpack, there are elasticated strings, and Barnaby travelled all the way secured by these strings.

Now Barnaby has his own passport (honestly!) and already has stamps in it from Dublin, and Ghana in Africa. My family thought I was absolutely crackers for taking him anyway, but when I produced his passport at immigration control and asked for it to be stamped, they disowned me! However, the nice lady immigration officer just laughed, and duly stamped his passport for me! Barnaby also acquired a kangaroo skin bush hat (to keep the sun off him) and a Bear sized boomerang to remind him of his visit!

OK. Enough of Barnaby, and back to Singapore Airlines. We boarded the plane, and found our seats after a mile trek through the entire length of the plane! We found that they did have
a little extra leg room, and some room at the window side of the seats, but in all hone
sty, there wasn't that much extra room to warrant the safari we had to make to reach them! However, we all had a blanket and small pillow, which could be used during the flight.

In front of each seat was an individual screen, which could be utilised in a number of ways. You could play games, using the handset, which was attached to your seat. There were a number of films that you could select from, again using the handset. I think the list of films could have been somewhat better, as unless you were a fan of blood and guts (Terminator 3 and such like) there wasn't a great deal to choose from. Maybe it was just me, but I didn't watch a complete film on the entire journey!

You could also programme the screen to plot your position en route, and watch the little airplane wend its way across continents. Boring as it may seem to some people, this is what I chose to do for most of the trip! Several music stations could also be accessed, and each person was furnished with a pair of earphones for this purpose. My first pair was broken (as were my daughter's) but they were quickly replaced by the cabin crew.

Being Heathrow on a Saturday, needless to say, we were slightly late in taking off. We were due to fly at 11 a.m. and finally took to the skies at around 12.15.

At first, everything was fine. The cabin crew came round regularly with drinks (mainly non-alcoholic), the lunch time meal was very acceptable (chicken with vegetables and many accompaniments, although daughter would have preferred the noodle option they had run out of that). However, we had only been airborn for about 4 hours when we sort of caught up with the night-time, and all the lights were dimmed! It was as though we were all expected to close our eyes and sleep!

During this time, the drinks became fewer and farther between. They tell you to drink plenty on
long-haul flights and yet the airline was not providing even water. A couple of times we rang the stewardess bell and asked for some water, but could really have done with much more than was provided. We did try to sleep, but found it impossible. In this first plane, the footrests were not adjustable, and with my short legs, were worse than useless. I was very aware of my legs pressing into the seat, and even though I was wearing my sexy DVT stockings, I must admit this was constantly on my mind.

About 3 hours before we landed, we were served breakfast, and information came onto the screen regarding the formalities at Singapore. As we had taken off late, we would be landing late, and instead of being able to stretch our legs for a while, we were to go straight round to Gate whatever, and immediately board the flight for Melbourne.

Actually, the transfer went very smoothly, and we watched the luggage being driven across the concourse and reloaded onto the new plane. Once again we were late in taking off, so they could have let us have a little stretch!!

This second plane, whilst having no more leg room than the last, did have adjustable foot rests, which made them (for me anyway) much more comfortable. Breakfast was served (again!) and I got down to watching the little plane on the screen and comparing it to what I could see out of the window! We had more snacky things on this leg of the flight: fresh fruit, biscuits, pretzels and chocolate bars: but I still think they could have been a little more generous with the water. Still no sleep, but by now we were getting excited about reaching Australia.

We watched an absolutely amazing sunset from the window as we flew along the south coast, and finally landed in Melbourne at about 9 .00 pm local time...........just about as England kicked off the rugby quarter final with Wales! Luckily (and this was the same with all 4 legs of the flight, both there and back) we disembarked quickly a
nd efficiently so were able (after getting Barnaby?s passport stamped) to watch the match..........in Costa Coffee at Melbourne airport! I jest not! Our son met us."Hello Mum and Dad, look they're showing the match over there. I know you're dying for a cup of tea (I was actually) so shall we have a quick one before I run you to your apartment?"

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we had a wonderful time at his wedding (Australia v New Zealand semi final day) and all too soon it was time to come home.

THE FLIGHT HOME

Now here was the big mistake we made. The first leg of the return flight began at 1 a.m. We had been up all day, doing last minute shopping, saying goodbye to son's new in-laws, so were already tired. Never, ever begin a long haul flight at that time of day if at all possible. I wanted so desperately to sleep, but just could not drop off. I had earplugs, eye mask, the lot, but found it completely impossible to sleep.

To cap that, I don't eat eggs in any shape or form, but when the stewardess got to us, guess what the only thing she had left was? Yep. Egg mayonnaise rolls. She was very apologetic, but that wasn?t much good to me! She did finally come back with some cheese and biscuits, but then, cheese is not the best thing to eat when you just want to sleep.

Once again, I felt that we were all expected to sleep, and the drinks were not forthcoming as frequently as we would have liked. The seats were comfortable though, with the adjustable foot rests.

This time we had a 3 hour wait in Singapore, and took the opportunity of stocking up on our own bottled water for the next (13 hour) leg of the journey. We must have had 10 bottles between the 4 of us, and still managed to drink the lot, as well as that provided by the airline.

This final leg was, for me, an absolute nightmare. I was so tired yet just could not sleep. This in turn made me feel sick, so although I felt hu
ngry, I didn?t want to eat. Then to top it all, it happened again. This time they ran out of chicken, and were only left with the fish. I HATE fish! By this time we were somewhere over India, and I would have gladly paid the pilot to stop and let me off! Especially as England were just about kicking off against Australia in the Rugby cup final! Talk about bad timing!

Once again, even though it was daylight outside, the lights were dimmed, and for ages nobody came round with anything. I'm just thankful we took plenty of fluid with us. At least being at the rear of the plane meant we had a little bit of space behind us where we could get up and do a few stretches and knee bends. I'm afraid that the foot rests were once again non-adjustable, and totally useless. This is one thing Singapore Airlines needs to improve. There is no point in having them at all if shorter people can't adjust them.

About an hour before we landed, the crew came round with fruit, biscuits, rolls, and all sorts of snack type stuff, but by now, hardly anyone wanted them. The pilot had given us the half time score (5-14 to England) about 5 hours previously, but had maintained an ominous silence ever since! Half the plane was dressed in England shirts, but we did notice a couple of Aussis further forward.

We touched down at Heathrow in what must have been the best landing ever. It was perfect, especially as the English weather was awful! Then we realised the pilot was Australian, as he reluctantly gave us the final score to delighted cheering and clapping!

Once again the disembarkment went smoothly, we retrieved our luggage and finally made it home around 6 p.m. By 7 we were in bed and asleep!

RECOMMENDATIONS?

I suppose any long haul flight, like London to Melbourne, is not going to be the most comfortable in the world. 13 hours, and then 7 hours, is a very long time to be cooped up in a small area. Maybe if we had gone with anothe
r airline, it would have been just the same. Singapore Airlines has a good reputation, but if this was the best, I would hate to fly with the worst.


I felt we were "led" to when we should be asleep. I know you can put your individual light on when the cabin lights go down, but I don't feel it is fair to expect you to be going to sleep when it is essentially 3 p.m. where you have just left from.

I most certainly feel they could improve comfort, simply by installing adjustable footrests on ALL long haul flights. I can't comment on what other airlines provide, but I do know that the shorter leg of both flights was so much more comfortable, simply because I could raise the footrest.

Also, more fluid needs to be provided on all flights. Yes, you could call the stewardess if you wanted a drink, but if I'd called her every time I felt thirsty, my bell would never have been silent. I'm only glad we took plenty of our own on that final leg.

WOULD I USE THEM AGAIN?

Again, I have nothing to compare them with, although my daughter went with Cathay Pacific last time she went to Australia. She was in business class then though, but says that Cathay was vastly superior to Singapore. I suppose if the cost is the main consideration, then I might be tempted to use them again. I would, however, NOT do the whole journey in one fell swoop. I would have to have a stopover en route, whichever airline I used.

I guess I've recovered somewhat from the dreadful jet-lag I experienced on return, but I also think it will be quite some time before I even consider such a long flight, let alone make one!

Next holiday? North Wales! Terra Firma.

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