Review of Singapore Airlines flight Fukuoka → Singapore in Economy

Good day everybody,

This is a flight report with Singapore Airlines that I recently flew on. As we are nearing the end of holiday season, this flight was fully booked with families, holiday makers and a group of Japanese students (presumably on some kind of exchange).

The inbound flight for the day, SQ656, arrived late (due to weather over the South China Sea), but the as-always efficient Japanese succeeded in turning around the aircraft for an on-time boarding.

FUKUOKA AIRPORT

I arrived at Fukuoka International Terminal about 2 hours ahead of the scheduled departure time. As a final touch of Japanese service excellence, the check-in experience was stress-free.

In Fukuoka Airport, the flow was as such: Security Baggage Check > Passport Control > Airside.



As there were multiple flights departing in the morning, there was a queue. However, with 5 channels of security checks, we soon quickly proceeded to the airside.

As mentioned earlier, I was greeted with an empty gate since the inbound flight was delayed.



The airside was simple and had a few food options



At about 10:00am, boarding commenced.



As I was seated at the back of the plane, I was the first group of Economy passengers to board the plane.



CABIN

The aircraft today was 9V-STC, a 9 year old A330-343 aircraft.

Boarding was smooth as the enthusiastic cabin crew greeted us with a big smile.



The aircraft soon filled up very quickly and it was obvious that it's going to be a packed plane.

We got our push back clearance soon after doors were closed and started to taxi



Runway 16 was active for that morning.

An inbound Fuji Dream Airlines Embrarer aircraft



Soon after that, we got our takeoff clearance and powered off into the skies.



The in-flight entertainment system on this aircraft was a standard non-touch screen panel.



We soon ascended above the clouds and the seatbelts signs were turned off.



The menu for the flight were as follows:



For those interested, this was the food options available for the inbound flight (SQ656):



I opted for the Japanese selection. It surely didn't disappoint!



For those wondering, yes, they served Häagen-Dazs ice cream



Cabin after meal service



Interestingly, our flight path took us over Naha Airport (pictured below)



and Batam's Hang Nadim Airport (pictured below)



LANDING

We descended through the Singapore airspace and was cleared for a straight in approach to Runway 02C.

The landing wasn't the smoothest as the pilots flared the aircraft too soon, causing the wheels to hover above the runway for quite a distance. After the nose wheel touched the runway, the pilots applied pretty heavy braking (assuming not to miss the planned exit taxiway), which caused the passengers some discomfort.



I apologise for the unclear image as the windows weren't the cleanest.

We touched down at about 3:19pm and taxied to Terminal 2's Gate F20.