And on to the final sector of the trip. We had a slightly more than 3hr layover in SGN awaiting our connecting flight. For this sector, we were upgraded by Optiontown again, which was surprising as Business Class ended up totally full! Not bad, 3 out of 4 sectors upgraded. And the refund for the un-upgraded sector was refunded within a week.
Checked in at the VN desks.
Boarding pass for the sector.
Cleared immigration and security after a slight wait and caught an interesting aircraft. EVA Air Sanrio Family B773ER!
The A321 which flew us in from Da Nang is now pushing back for Yangon.
Courtesy of our Priority Pass and ANZ credit card, we spent most of our time in the Apricot Lounge. The lounge is rather small, but offers most of the basic amenities. Beats hanging at the duty-free area. There is a small but sufficient selection of food and drinks.
Instant noodles and pho.
Cooked dishes.
Sandwiches, snacks and fruits.
Lunch time!
The banh mi and rice noodles were rather tasty!
Some tea to end.
The lounge had an unobstructed view of the tarmac. Here, a Qatar A332 has just arrived from Doha, and would be continuing to Phnom Penh.
The plane scheduled to fly us back home had just arrived from Fukuoka. Lucky me would be flying again on one of VN's older A321s again, with the old old Business Class seats. Well, at least I am not doing a 5hr flight in these seats unlike the incoming pax from Fukuoka.
The Lion, also bound for Singapore and continuing to Jakarta.
FIDS. Didn't knew that Emirates also codeshared on Jetstar!
04 May 2014 Vietnam Airlines VN 655 Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) - Singapore (SIN) A321 VN-A353 Business Class
About half hour before departure, we proceeded to the gate for our flight.
Our plane today had a weird looking nose….
Only about 15min before STD did boarding started. We boarded through the priority queue and settled into our seats at 2A/C. Business cabin ended up totally full and I guessed economy was full as well.
View from my seat. Tiger beside, also bound for Singapore shortly after us.
Due to the constant streaming of passengers boarding, the crew could not perform any service till most pax had boarded. A female chief purser and a male purser would be attending to us in Business on this short flight. When the boarding pax slowed to a trickle, cold towels were handed out, which was perfect for the warm weather. Newspapers were also offered, even though they were also available at the door during boarding.
Followed by a choice of welcome drinks, where I chose a champagne. Not sure of the brand, but it was of decent quality.
Doors were closed 5min late and we started our pushback. Flying time was announced as 1h35m. A PR A321 with sharklets had arrived beside us.
Safety video played with the crew preparing the cabin for departure.
We only had a very short taxi to the runway and even held on the runway as the safety video was still playing.
Started our takeoff shortly after the safety video ended. Our crew even rushed to collect some drink glasses from the couple seated across just before the engines roared.
Climbing out of Ho Chi Minh City.
Seatbelt signs switched off and service announcement was made.
Inflight entertainment was restricted to only the flight map. At least it was working properly on this flight.
The very friendly and nice chief purser came down the aisle to take orders for our meals. On this sector, no menus were distributed and we were verbally given our meal choices. Today, the choices were Chicken with noodles, Pork with rice and Fish with potatoes. We chose the chicken and pork mains and the chief purser would paste the respective colour stickers corresponding to each meal choice on our seats.
After meal orders were taken, she began to lay our tray tables with napkins. Instead of just handing out the table napkins, she insisted to lay the table napkins for us.
The male purser then rolled out the meal cart to distribute our meal trays and offered beverages as well.
Meal tray, which consisted of a starter salad with dressing, main course, bread and fruits. For the breads, I chose a sesame roll and garlic bread among the 4 to 5 choices. Also had orange juice and white wine to go with the meal.
Just a simple salad to start and a selection of fresh fruits as dessert.
My choice of Chicken with noodles. The taste of spices used for the chicken was a bit overpowering of me, but it was a decent dishl.
My partner's choice was Braised pork with rice. This dish was absolutely delicious!
White wine and orange juice.
Ended with a Vietnamese green tea. I loved the green tea! It was very fragrant!
We were more than halfway there after the meal service ended. The chief purser then went down to assist in Economy cabin, where the 3 crew in economy seemed to be overwhelmed with the full load.
Visited the lavatory, which was decorated with stalks of flowers.
My seat at 2A.
Hot towels were given out after all meal trays were cleared. Call me slow but I just realised that the towels had the VN insignia!
Cruising.
We started our descent slightly less than half hour away from Singapore.
An arrival video of Singapore was played, which came dubbed in Mandarin and Vietnamese, with both languages broadcasted concurrently and overlapping each other throughout the cabin. Weird and kind of annoying….
Descending over Malaysia.
Overflying Bintan and Batam Islands.
Islands off Batam while turning back towards Singapore.
The famous Singapore city skyline seen during the Rwys 02 approaches.
And landing on Rwy02L, 5 minutes behind schedule.
Short taxi to Terminal 3 and parked at gate B7.
Last view of our seats during disembarkation.
Your comments are most welcomed!
See more
Verdict
Vietnam Airlines
7.8/10
Cabin8.0
Cabin crew8.5
Entertainment/wifi6.0
Meal/catering8.5
Southern Airports Services Company (SASCO) Apricot CIP Lounge
7.5/10
Comfort7.0
Meal/catering8.0
Entertainment/wifi7.5
Services7.5
Ho Chi Minh City - SGN
7.4/10
Efficiency7.5
Access7.5
Services6.5
Cleanliness8.0
Singapore - SIN
9.2/10
Efficiency9.5
Access9.0
Services9.0
Cleanliness9.5
Conclusion
It was another pleasant flight on Vietnam Airlines Business Class. Service was not too personal due to the full flight but still good and efficient, especially the female chief purser who delivered great service with smiles despite the heavy workload. Thanks to Optiontown, it was great to be able to fly VN Business Class at very affordable fares.
0 LIKESLIKE TO THANK THE AUTHORTHANKS ! FLIGHT-REPORT LIKED
This Sanrio Eva Air livery must be recent - I had never seen it before. OK, these are old J seats, but I found them comfortable. How much was the Optiontown upgrade ? Thanks for this FR !
Reducing the size of an image is a standard function of any image processing freeware (if your problem is that any digital camera's resolution is much more than 1024 pixels wide nowadays).
Thanks for the four reports. It seems this Vietnam Airlines's product is pretty outdated, and resembles more a current premium eco class. The food looks pretty good and the seat seems confortable.
Flight-Report is a free website hosting more than 500 000 pictures and 17 000 reviews, without ads, this website can't exist. We understand that ads can be annoying, this is why we only display a maximum of 2 non-invasive ads per page.
To continue using Flight-Report, we invite you to add Flight-Report to your blocker's "white list".
#36 out of 94 Airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings.
229 reviews
6 Comments
It seems this Vietnam Airlines's product is pretty outdated, and resembles more a current premium eco class.
The food looks pretty good and the seat seems confortable.
Login to post a comment.