Singapore Airlines new first and business class

Just a quick report on the new first and business class which I have now experienced. As I posted when the new Singapore Airlines product was launched, the key feature is width. The seats are very wide, as are the screens.

The first seat is like a supersized skysuite (747 first class seat on Singapore Airlines). I found the seat very comfortable if not a bit too slippery - I ended up using 3 pillows to wedge myself into the seat, somewhat unsuccessfully. The huge screen is a bit disappointing as the movies and programs are not in wide-screen format thus look a bit odd.

The business seat (no longer called Raffles) is also comfortable. I had good fortune to get a bulkhead seat - it looked like the others could be claustraphobic despite the width thanks the the design.

The IFE had a few bugs, as any new system does. It was a little slow to respond, but not as slow as Air New Zealand's avod for example. I thought the 2x and 3x fast forward was a nice improvement, but the Cathay Pacific and Air New Zealand 2x, 4x and 8x work better. The menu was simple and intuitive. I missed the time remaining that the older Wisemen systems showed when pausing, fast forwarding or reversing. I hope they can add this.

The bathrooms are nice and stylish. The first one is huge (for an airline bathroom) with throne facing forward. A minor design flaw is to have the cloth towels above the tissues, meaning the open tissue can get dripped on.

The food is much the same, but the cutlery, crockery and glassware have changed. I liked the new plating for satay.

Gotta dash.

Seasons greetings

Wishing all my readers a happy festive season and all the best for the new year. Travel far, travel wide and travel well.


PS. While I am taking some time off I will be continuing to post over the holidays.

PA announcements early hours of the morning

Despite not being able to get any work done I decided against sleeping the few hours until my next flight - that way there is no chance I'll oversleep and miss the flight. The last of the flights for the night has long departed and most of the handful of lounge users are trying to sleep. So it came as a surprise to hear a few calls over the PA.

In flight phones

Filling in time in between flights (the work I intended to do kept crashing :-( ), I was reminded by a post by Muse of Fire that Qantas and Emirates are rolling out onboard phone service early next year. Perhaps there could be a phone section in the hold? I'm still not looking forward to it.

Christmas travel woes

On my original travel plans I would now be caught up in the mess of London's fog flight disruptions - already 3 days of massive cancellations and delays, and looking like it will be another 3 or more days before flights return to normal. Fortunately for me my plans changed.

I can but imagine the chaos in the busy travel period that is the lead up to Christmas. Hopefully most get to where they need to be in time.

The best thing for those caught up in it is to keep yourself informed and be aware of options available to you. Do you really need to take that trip? Can you take the train a day early instead? Can you rebook on another airline? If transitting through a London airport can you connect at a mainland europe airport instead?

Best wishes