Review of Singapore Airlines flight Amsterdam → Singapore in Economy

After three long years of not flying intercontinental due to the pandemic, a newly-bought house and a busy working schedule, I gave a notification to my employer back in March that I'll be unavailable on the given dates (20 december to 5 January) as I've booked my christmas holidays well in advance. In March, Singapore Airlines offered me a good price for a one-way ticket to Thailand via Singapore for 1266 EUR (1346 USD) for two persons (as my wife moved in with me about a year ago after her move to the Netherlands) with a two and a half hour stop in Singapore Changi.

Given the recent struggles of Amsterdam Airport with shortages of Security Staff and a public transport in the Netherlands that seems to become more unreliable than ever before (given that a lot of train/bus rides are canceled on short notice), I decided to use one of Schiphol's car park (P3) for a total of 104 EUR (17 days). 

Car Park P3 offers a 24 hour bus service with a bus departing every 15 minutes or so to the terminal.

The bus of the car park normally drops you off in front of the departure terminals, but this has temporarily been suspended due to overcrowding of the departure section by cars and it will now drop you off in front of the terminal's main square. While many shops are still closed, the airport was already very lively at 7 AM in the morning.

Singapore's check-in counters are in the far aft corner of terminal 3 and would open at 7 AM sharp. We arrived like 5 minutes past 7 and the check-in was already very busy. Given that Singapore Airlines still allows multiple baggages and 30 kg as a limit to be checked in, the check-in progress was very slow with 2 counters being occupied for more than 15 minutes by the same persons. The total time it took for us to drop off our luggage was 45 minutes. 

The lady behind the counter kindly asked me if I have an itinerary for leaving the country (which I did as I booked my return ticket with a different airline) and asked why my wife wasn't checked in online yet… I explained to her that even if she is returning to her home country (for a family visit), the website did not allow me to check her in given that her passport's expiry date was within 6 months of expiry. She acknowledged and gave us our boarding cards providing us with the boarding time and the gate we'll be using today and wished us happy holidays.

After a completed check-in, it was now time for the weakest point of Schiphol and that was security. Everyone here is well-aware of the troubled situations of Schiphol Airport in the previous summer season and yet it remains a hot topic in the Netherlands. In the end it took us about 15 minutes to clear and passport control was just a matter of minutes.

Once clear of the border control, we had to navigate the long line of people who were waiting to order breakfast with McDonalds. It's something I would never understand, but once clear of the line we took the elevator down to the departures level which gave us a view of Schiphol's christmas decoration. 

After buying some small gifts for friends of my wife, we sat down at a small coffeeshop ordering coffee and a small snack as we didn't have any breakfast since wake up and we expected to have a bigger meal in the early stage of the flight. While sipping my coffee, I had a view over PH-BKL. A Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner that would depart later today to Los Angeles as KL601.

About 10 minutes to boarding, we decided to slowly move to our gate, which would be Gate G7. I took the opportunity to capture this Boeing 777-200 (N78017) of United Airlines in Star Alliance Livery which would depart to Houston, TX as UA 21.

The neighbour of our plane is PH-BQF, A 777-200ER of KLM that was prepping for it's flight to Willemstad, Curacao as KL 733.

And here's the beauty of today's flight. A 6.2 year old Airbus A350-900 (9V-SMF) that has solely been flown by Singapore Airlines with a worthy note of being the 10.000th aircraft of Airbus. It is the 54th Airbus A350 built by Airbus, is powered by 2 strong Rolls-Royce Trent XWB Engines and is configured in a C42, W24 & Y187 configuration, which equals to 253 seats in total.

Boarding went smooth and you were suppose to grab a pair of earphones shortly before entering the plane, which I almost missed. The flight attendants greeted us very kindly and gave us directions to our seat 53K & J, which was located in the last section.

Christmas decorations have been placed every 5th row or so in this rather dull looking cabin. The seat however had a pillow and blanket waiting for you.

The seat is equipped with an In-Flight Entertainment System which offers plenty of entertainment to keep you occupied for over 24 hours, so sufficient for a twelve hour flight. It's also equipped with a cupholder, table, a connector for your earphones, two charging points and an additional plug for whatever that may be and three buttons which you can use to call a flight attendant, cancel the call and turn on the reading light.

Legroom was well above average and nothing to complain about. It also had ton of storage space divided into multiple sections which barely obstructed your legroom.

Unfortunately Singapore did not bother to install those individual air vents.

A decent view of the wing from my seat, though the cloudy and rainy day in Amsterdam obstructed my view quite a lot till we eventually rolled for departure.

The safety video was shown shortly after our pushback and was surprisingly well-made with Singapore at it's center.

The view of the cabin when everyone was locked in their seats.

Departure was about 6 minutes past our scheduled departure in a southerly direction and took us in a small left turn directly on course to Singapore. Though the winds will be unfavourable today.

The earphones from earlier today. The quality of them was abysmal as the sound was either way too soft or way too loud.

The table when unfolded. The table of my wife was in a better condition as mine was not so sturdy anymore compared to hers.

and if you only use half of the table, it comes with another cupholder and a mirror…. I don't understand the reason for the mirror to be there, but if you install one, be sure to clean it…. which SQ seems to be forgetting for quite a while as it was very dirty with a lot of stains that I'm pretty sure wasn't from the last flight only.

An additional look of the pillow and blanket. Pillow was alright and I didn't try the blanket.

About 45 minutes into the flight, the flight attendants came around to provide us with some snacks and a complimentary drink service. I opted for a white wine, water and received a small pack of Peas & Crackers. 

About two hours into the flight, the flight attendants came around to provide us with the first meal of the flight. 

The following options were available with the given explanation of SQ.
1. Chicken Curry ''Kapitan'' An Aromatic chicken curry in herbs and spice served with vegetables & steamed rice.
2. Pan-Fried Prawns with Brown Butter Sauce Sauteed peas, leeks and tagliatelle pasta

I asked for a Tiger beer and chose the Chicken Curry as my main. It was served with an breadroll, some Gouda cheese and a package of crackers. The dish itself was surprisingly enjoyable for an economy meal.

An icecream followed about twenty minutes later.

About an hour later, our tables were cleaned by the flight attendants and I took this opportunity to find my way to one of the lavatories on board. The lavatories on board were rather small and lacking in terms of quantity as queues never seemed to disappear, though they were being cleaned and looked after by flight attendants with certain intervals.

Not a lot of amenities available other than a handlotion, soap and toothbrushes.

The literature in the seatpocket contained a sickbag, safety card, KrisFlyer Magazine and a flyer explaining us how to connect to the internet. The prices of the onboard wifi were decent with 2.99 USD for an hour of Wifi, 8,99 USD for 3 hours and 15.99 USD for the entirety of the flight. Wifi was constant throughout the flight, yet rather show. They also give a complimentary package of 2 hours to be used.

A few photos of the IFE System which was working flawlessly and was easy to navigate and yes, I did watch Top Gun obviously.

For now it was idling the remaining 8 hours to Singapore without much action till the last two hours. Flight attendants came around frequently though to serve us drinks and snacks were available in galley or on request.

About four hours prior to landing I decided to grab a glass of wine and a bun as I was getting hungry. The white wine served by SQ was pretty enjoyable.

While the dough of the bun was very dry, the filling though not much was compensating the dryness by a lot due to it's strong flavours.

About two hours prior to landing, the second service ''Breakfast'' began and the following options were available.

1. <i style="">Scrambled Eggs with Chive & Bechamel Sauce Pan-fried pork sausage, button mushrooms, baked beans and potatoes.
2. <i style="">Mie Ayam Jamur Indonesian Chinese Style chicken mushroom noodle.

I opted for the Mie Ayam Jamur, which wasn't very memorable. It however was served with a breadroll and some yoghurt. 

About an hour to landing, the captain made an announcement saying that we will be landing in Singapore in a hour from now and informed us that we will be 20 minutes behind schedule due to strong head winds and instructed the flight attendants to clean up the cabin and prepare for landing. The flight attendants acknowledged the clue and started to clean the cabin.

The landing on Runway 08L was smooth and it took another five to ten minutes to taxi around the terminal facilities to be parked at Gate F41 at Terminal 2.

Thanks for stopping by and the following flight will continue from here.