Review of SilkAir flight from Singapore to Phuket in Economy

The past weekend, I did a short weekend trip to Phuket for a laze and relax birthday getaway via SilkAir. Tickets booked quite some time back were of a very reasonable price, almost similar to the budget carriers. This would also be my first time flying on SilkAir's new B737-800 aircraft as my previous trips were all on MI's Airbus family.
Checked in at Terminal 2 at the self check-in kiosk but the kiosk could not print the boarding passes and was directed to the desks. No worries as the boarding passes were printed on the normal stock instead of flimsy paper. SilkAir still has colours on its economy boarding passes!

Terminal 2 FIDS

Some of the aircraft on the tarmac, majority of which are from the SQ family.

The B737 which would be flying me to Phuket.

Departure Gate F40.

04 August 2016
SilkAir
MI 756
Singapore (SIN) - Phuket (HKT)
B737-800
9V-MGJ
Economy Class
Flight Time: 1H24M
9V-MGJ for the short-haul to Phuket.

Boarding commenced soon after security at the gate was cleared.

Welcomed at the door and passed the Business Class cabin. Business Class seats are basic recliners, similar model to those used by a number of airlines as well on their narrowbodies, such as Malindo, Garuda, Vietnam Airlines etc.

Economy class cabin.

Economy Class seat is of the same model as those on Jetstar, but with a tad more padding and legroom. However, I find the seat pitch has shrunk slightly from the Airbus fleet. The Airbus fleet has up to a couple inches more legroom.

On the seat armrest is a radio channel controller. Ii seems that SilkAir also offers in-seat music channels on its B738s, but using your own earpieces, in addition to the SilkAir Studio wireless streaming IFE and dropdown TVs with silent TV shows. However on such a short flight, I am not too bothered with the IFE. Seat wise, other than the limited legroom compared to the Airbus fleet, recline was also not too generous, However, seat cushioning was comfortable enough and there is an adjustable headrest.

Inflight magazines. Newspapers were also offered by the crew after boarding was almost completed. Some pillows were available in the overhead bins if required.

View from the window.

Boarding almost completed. It was almost a full flight in Economy, but rather empty in Business. 4 crew would be serving in Economy with a further 2 upfront in Business. There were 2 male SilkAir cabin crew on this flight, my first experience with them since SilkAir started hiring male cabin crew.

A think refreshing wet towel was distributed after boarding was completed.

Doors closed and safety video played via dropdown screens. Flight time would be a short 1.5hrs.

Taxi to the runway.

Departure from Rwy20C.

Video of the takeoff from Changi.

With no time to waste, meal service was started. Due to the full flight, 3 carts were rolled out (front, mid and rear of economy) and meals were distributed. TV shows were also shown on the dropdown screens.

Meal tray consisting of a main, fruits and water. On offer were Chicken with fried rice or Fish with pasta.

The chicken with fried rice option was very tasty! This was quite unexpected as I did not had too memorable meals on my previous few SilkAir flights. Had an orange juice to go along.

The fish with pasta option was equally good as well! Quite impressed with the meal offerings on this flight.

It was getting really cloudy down below.

As it was a day to my big day, my travel partner had also placed a request for birthday cake. This was presented to me after the meal service, with the economy crew all coming over to wish me a happy birthday. However, as we had just started to descend, it was a quick photo shoot of the small cake before the crew offered to pack it up for me.

The BSI blue mood lightings were switched on for the descent.

Descending into a cloudy Phuket.

Approach and landing on Rwy27.

A hard touchdown, slightly ahead of schedule.

Video of the landing on Rwy27.

It was only a very short taxi to the gate where we parked and disembarked.

Luckily immigration queues at Phuket was not too bad at the time of the day and bags were out pretty fast as well. Phuket's international flights would be moving to a brand new terminal beside the current terminal next month.

For this trip, I booked Ayara Hilltop Boutique Resort, which is near Surin Beach. It is a beautiful all-suites resort, with huge and comfortable rooms and fantastic staff. I could just spend the whole day lazing in the suite!

Surin Beach is just 5min walk away. Nice beach, but waves were pretty strong.