Review of Singapore Airlines flight Paris → Singapore in Economy

Now for the flight back. I had checked earlier on flightstat.com and it appeared that the flight was fully booked on Business and Economy. As usual, I checked in online a day before and was surprised that I was allocated the emergency seat row! Unlimited legroom without having to pay the extra! However, it was a middle seat but no worries, legroom is more important.

On the day of departure, reached CDG T1 about 2hrs before the flight and gosh, the queue for check-in was long! Luckily I had done online check-in earlier. After getting my tax refund on purchases, I proceeded to check-in my bags and get my boarding passes. According to the check-in agent, it was the start of the school holidays, thus explaining the full flight. In fact it was overbooked and I think a few pax were rebooked on another flight to their destination. Lots of kids on the flight too!

12 February 2011
Singapore Airlines
SQ 333
Paris CDG (CDG) - Singapore (SIN)
A380-800
9V-SKE
Economy Class

Went through immigration (where the EU line was much longer than the foreigners line) and immediately proceeded to the satellite where the plane was departing from. Security screening queue was long too (expected for a full A380 flight). After screening and entering the satellite building, there was not much else to do except for some plane spotting.

Retired Air France Concord


Air France B772


US Airways A333


SQ's boarding area and service desk. 3 gates were used to board our A380.


The best I can get of the A380


Easyjet A319


My boarding pass. Main deck this time round, but emex exit row! Boarding was by sticker colour.


Boarding commenced slightly more than 30min before STD. Even though the flight was full, boarding was orderly. However, no newspapers were available at the door.


Finally caught a glimpse of the reg no. 9V-SKE. My 2nd time onboard this aircraft! My first ever A380 flight was also onboard this plane.


Welcome onboard, Mr Yxxx. Amazingly, on all my last 4 SQ flights, I was welcomed by name at the door!! Proceeded to my seat at the aft cabin. As I was the first few to board, the cabin was still quite empty, but it began to fill up rapidly and was finally completely full.

Boarding.


Economy class seat, First class legroom! But as I was in the middle seat, no videos will be available on this leg.


At the gate.


Surprisingly for the full flight, all pax boarded and settled down in a very orderly manner. In fact, everyone was onboard 10min before STD! And the cargo had not even finish loading yet. Flight time was announced to be 11hr 55 min, but on the flightmap, it showed only 11hrs 15min. Hot towels distributed and doors are closed right on schedule. We pushed back and taxied to the runway (the one nearer to T1) and departed towards the west.

After takeoff, amenity kits. menus and headsets were given out.

Climbing to 35000ft, I think. Not much views after this as it was cloudy most of the way.


Just taken off.


9V-SKE is equipped with the new e-Magazine feature on Krisworld. However Silver Kris magazines were still available in the seat pockets. After trying out the e-Mag feature, I would still say, gimme a real paper magazine anytime! It was too much of a chore to navigate through the system to read the text.


Firstly, a full bar service was offered with peanuts. I had an apple juice.


Followed by a Singapore Sling. It was too strong! Compare the colour with that on my Cape Town flight.


After bar service, lunch was served. Lets look at the menu.

lunch PARIS TO SINGAPORE

appetiser
Potato salad with baby shrimps

main Courses
Braised beef in red wine with seasonal
vegetables and potatoes

or

Stirfried fish fillet with celery in garlic sauce,
chinese vegetables and steamed rice

cheese
Cheese and crackers

dessert
Opera cake

from the bakery
Roll and butter

hot beverages
Coffee - Tea

Nope, there was no typo error. The oriental selection was exactly the same as the outbound from Singapore!! Well, it better not be uplifted from Singapore too!

I had the beef selection as it sounded better. Meal tray.


Courses unveiled. Baby shrimps were not too fresh. Beef and cake was good. Cheese was just a cheese spread. And who can forget the hard-rock bread (this time it was even harder!). I always wonder why SQ just cannot get their bread rolls right. Just use soft bread!


Service was rather fast (well, the inflight supervisor also came to help in economy. Suites must be empty then) but not too friendly, especially with the repeated pinging of call bells. In fact, call bells will ping almost every 5-10mins! If I were the crew member, I would also be annoyed.

Cabin view after lunch.


Cruising


Nightfall, but everyone were still awake. Well, it was still daytime in Paris. And as usual, the pinging of call bells continued every 15min.


Snacks were laid out in the galley for pax to help themselves. 2 rounds of snack service were also conducted during the flight. However, pax prefer to go to the galley to help themselves to the snacks and chat among themselves there. Crew then tried to draw the curtains to keep pax out of the galley but to no avail as more came forward to help themselves to snacks and request for drinks. The crew members in the aft galley seemed stressed by this, and not to mention the continued pinging.

light bites PARIS TO SINGAPORE

Fancy a snack in between your meals?
Simply take your pick from our range of delectable snacks
when our cabin crew comes around during snack service.

Sandwiches
Savoury sandwich
Vegetarian sandwich

Snacks
Roasted peanuts
Potato chips
Chocolate bar
Marble cake
Assorted biscuits
Fruit

Snacks laid out in the galley.


Probably due to the unexpected short flight, lights were only switched on slightly less than 2hrs before landing. Normally, lights would be on 3hrs before landing. Hot towels offered and breakfast was served. Crew were quite in a rush now and the first breakfast trays only appeared 1.5hrs before landing.


breakfast PARIS TO SINGAPORE

fruit
Fruit appetizer

light starter
Fruit yoghurt

wholesome beginnings
Fried noodles with shredded pork, mushroom
and vegetables

or

Scrambled egg with tomato concasse, sauteed mushrooms,
chicken sausages and potatoes

from the bakery
Assorted breakfast rolls
Butter - Fruit preserve

hot beverages
Coffee - Tea

I only received my tray about 1hr before landing. And I was the first row to be served in the aft cabin! See how near we are to Singapore by now.


Chose the noodles which was actually not bad. Fruits, yoghurt and muffin were good too. Only the bread roll had become even tougher after the long flight. I guess one can use the bread rolls to stone somebody to death:biggrin:


After breakfast was distributed, 2 empty carts came out to each aisle with the 2 crew on each aisle busy collecting back the empty trays. By then, we were only 40mins to arrival and the crew seemed flustered by the rush. Well, I went to the lavatory after finishing breakfastand stayed around there to get out of the way of the busy crew.

Tray collection


How to arm a Airbus door


Spotted this small lift beside the toilet used to send meals and other stuff to the upper deck or vv.


Door 5R.


Pilot's announcement came on and we were soon descending into Singapore. As the crew were all still busy clearing the galley, they only came around to collect headsets and check that pax had been readied for landing much later than usual. In fact, the crew only went to their landing positions when the pilot announced so. All looked so tired out with no smiles by then, haha.

We slammed onto the runway (with young children shocked to tears by the hard landing) 50min early at 0605hrs when the STA is 0655hrs. That was a really fast flight with strong tail winds! I could actually reach home even before the STA!

9V-SKE after disembarkation.