It’s always a pleasure to fly an A350 on a medium-haul flight, but the comfort of this aircraft doesn’t overshadow the fact that it falls short of what you would expect from Singapore Airlines.
Due to the high volume of traffic between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, Singapore Airlines operates some flights on twin-aisle aircrafts and in this case this A350s. Moreover, for optimisation purposes and although not part of the same alliance, Singapore and Malaysia operate code share flights. Incidentally, this flight will also be operated in codeshare with Air France.
For the record here is the routing of this trip.
You will find all the articles about this trip to Malaysia at the bottom of the page.
Check-In and ground experience
To save time and avoid traffic jams I will reach the airport with the excellent Klia Ekspres.
The day before the Singapore Airlines auto-checkin feature will do its job but I will not be able to retrieve my boarding pass on my phone. Never mind, I have to go to the counter to check a suitcase anyway.
During the journey I will be notified that the flight will be delayed by 15 minutes. No worries, my connection in Singapore is quite long.
When I arrive the counter is not open yet and some passengers are waiting.
It will open a few minutes later and within two minutes my suitcase will be checked in and I will get my boarding passes.
I’m a bit surprised to see a lot of French people in the queue but I’ll realise later that this flight is code-shared with Air France. They are certainly leaving on the Singapore-Paris evening flight.
I then turn to immigration controls. There is absolutely nobody there.
The officer looks at my passport, taps on his computer, hands it back to me and as I am about to leave he calls me back and asks for my passport again. There is something wrong.
“Ah I wanted to check…ah you are French”.
“Er…yes”
“I watched the final last night…ah what a shame…I can’t stand those *&$! Argentines and that *&$! Messi”.
Anyway, we talked football for 5 minutes and I’m off to the Plaza Premium lounge to wait for my flight.
I leave the lounge shortly before boarding time and when I arrive at the gate the security check is not yet open and we will wait for about ten minutes. Then only one position will open out of the two available, which will make checking slow and tedious as there is a full A350 to check.
The plane is already there, that’s something.
We will board 10 minutes before the flight time (taking into account the initial delay).
Priorities will be respected and I finally get into the cabin.
The cabin
I found the same cabin as on my last flight from Copenhagen to Singapore with very nice night lighting.
And this is my seat for this flight. Note the Christmas decorations.
The amenity kit is in place. Not bad but not exceptional either.
The legroom is good but not as good as on most business class seats on the market because the seat is actually a reverse herringbone which hides it well: in the lying down position you are diagonally positioned. But I’ve already told you all about it in my review of the outbound flight.
During boarding, bottled water is distributed.
We are ready to take off.
The flight and the service
We see the lights of Kuala Lumpur disappearing little by little.
The service starts quickly. Vegetarian or pastrami sandwich? I will have the second.
Same disappointment as in the outward journey. The presentation is not great, the quantity is minimal and if it tastes better than what I ate on the outward journey, it remains unremarkable.
Indeed it’s a 40 minutes flight but for the same flight time a few days ago, Malaysia Airlines offered me much better and a hot meal between Langkawi and Kuala Lumpur!
There is no age limit to fly in business class!
Crew
Very professional and pleasant.
Landing and arrival
The flight ends seamlessly and I land in Singapore. I love this airport.
A glance at the map to find the lounge and I’m on my way for a long walk to reach it.
Bottom line
Very nice aircraft, comfortable and good crew but the service on board is disappointing considering the standing of Singapore Airlines.
Articles about this trip to Malaysia
Articles similaires
Singapore Airlines Business, Kuala Lumpur – Singapore Changi, Airbus A350-900 : Super short, average service
Singapore Airlines Business, Singapore Changi – Kuala Lumpur, Airbus A350-900 : Much too short !
Review: Singapore Airlines Business Class between Singapore and Denpasar, B787-10
Review : Singapore Airlines Business Class between Denpasar (Bali) and Singapore
