Review of Singapore Airlines flight Bangalore → Singapore in Economy

Introduction

Over the course of four-and-a-half days — 28 June to 2 July 2023 — I visited my parents in their new home in the southern fringes of Bengaluru (Bangalore) for the first time after they shifted from Chennai at the beginning of May. In fact, my father’s transfer was kindly taken care of by his new employer, HSBC, to the extent that they were put up for free in a luxurious five-star hotel — the ITC Gardenia, where cricketers and celebrities often congregate! Now that it was time to take my first departure from BLR as my new Indian home airport, I was somewhat excited and somewhat subdued. Excited because of the spectacular private airport this is, with destinations from San Francisco to Sydney, and subdued because of the two-hour climb all the way up to get there. I knew that this was my first — and very likely my last — international departure from Terminal 1, since all international flights were due to shift to the spanking-new T2 by September.

In fact, when I next arrived here after two months, staying a week after recuperating from an extended weeks-long coughing spell, my departure (on a very humdrum IndiGo A321neo, much like the early-mornng arrival) was on the first day of T2’s international operations: 12 September 2023. There, the terminal would more than make up for the rather spartan aircraft, but this time around there was nothing stopping me from flying a second SQ A350 Regional in quick succession — the third such redeye from India, but the first not from Chennai and not on the 787-10. SQ’s redeyes have much nicer timings than 6E’s, landing in comfort in 6am daylight instead of in the dead of night at 4:30, when taxis charge an arm and a leg. This report will be a bit shorter than my previous ones, so let’s get into it!

Leaving India on the 2nd, every three months

Yes, this was a hat-trick: I’d left Indian shores eastbound three times every three months, from a different South Indian city and to a different airport each time — on 2 January from Hyderabad to Kuala Lumpur on AirAsia; on 2 April from Chennai to Colombo on SriLankan Airlines (which I’ll be flying again in November, westbound to BLR this time, on two late-night flights); and now, on 2 July, from Bengaluru to Singapore on SQ. Unlike on the previous flight, I’d not forgotten to take a screenshot of the menu this time around.

Here’s a few shots of my new home, in the southern suburb of Begur, which is sadly as far as you can possibly get from Kempegowda Airport — in a city infamous for its snarling traffic, requiring a good two hours to get there. None of the rooms have air-conditioning, not that you’d need it in a higher-altitude city like this with a nip in the air, compared to coastal and sweltering Chennai, where our house had a grand total of five ACs!

In order to reach at nine, we had to get out by half-past six, and it had begun to drizzle a bit. My dad cannot drive long distances, and we don’t have a driver here like we had in Chennai, so there was no choice but to call an Ola: Uber’s main Indian competitor.

To even get to Bannerghatta Main Road, which isn’t all that far from home, it took one hour in the rain and the jam. That’s how bad traffic here gets, to the extent that people are sometimes forced to walk for miles.

Meanwhile I’d caught sight of the registration of the inbound aircraft: 9V-SHP it was, not something I could twist into a fun name like I could for the previous one, 9V-SHE the ‘Hermaphrodite’.

It was well past eight when we inched past the techparks in the northern fringes of Hebbal and Jakkur leading up to the airport, but at least the sight outside was pretty in the night sky.

Every now and then, the ride would be punctuated by large factory outlets like these, apart from the odd McDonald’s.

As always in Indian metros, big hoardings for property, jewellery, cars and pretty much anything under the sun were everywhere to be found.

A much more orderly drop-off than the chaotic one in Chennai — with under-construction buildings and frantic taxi touts — awaited, with families seeing off their loved ones like mine would now.

A view of T1 Departures, with the DigiYatra (automated facial recognition) counters to the left, and one of umpteen Third Wave Coffee outlets to the right — an up-and-coming Indian chain with suave baristas.

A Relay bookshop to the left, smaller than the ones inside the airport, where I’d make a stop and buy three books today; Dad’s signature silver head below.

More views of the queues: to the right, an outlet of Ooru Canteen, with its ‘delightfully South Indian’ fare originating from the foodie town of Udupi on the west coast of Karnataka.

As I was capturing the surroundings, a young woman from the Northeastern part of India (hence the smaller eyes) accidentally bumped into me, to which she immediately apologised profusely. I, in fact, should have ensured that she wasn’t in the frame!

That said, you can’t always avoid other people getting into the frame, as seen at a sweet-shop further below with a young girl and mother. The best I can do is at least to use the image-blurring tools of Flight-Report.

Once inside, with Mom and Dad having waved goodbye as always, I found myself in the departure hall, which was handling mostly domestic flights but — increasingly as the night progressed — those requiring passports.

Interestingly, in addition to the typical SQ/MH/TG, two of the departures were on Lion Group airlines: OD242 on Batik Malaysia to Kuala Lumpur, and SL217 on Thai Lion Air to Bangkok–Don Mueang.

I’d bought a bright lime-green jute bag with indigo-blue lettering and a cute tag on it. Beside, SQ’s big Wi-Fi upgrade: unlimited, complimentary Wi-Fi for ALL passengers with KrisFlyer accounts, absolutely no restrictions.

The big three full-service carriers of Southeast Asia — SQ, its intra-alliance enemy TG and its cross-alliance friend MH — were all taking passengers: A350s on the Star Alliance carriers and the 737-800 for MH. Some other passengers from the Northeast, like a mother-and-daughter duo with a big red suitcase, formed part of the line.

Security was done in due course, and I went up a level to the immigration counters, which gave me a soaring panoramic view of the check-in desks.

Before that, a poster for Qantas’ service to Sydney, which the Aussie flag carrier had launched in September 2022 and was doing quite well.

The Relay reading race: BLR T1 International departures (for the only time)

Up the escalator and onwards to the immigration and security counters I went, turning right for the first and only time at BLR T1. (I’ve turned left past the Aster clinic a couple of times for domestic flights: IndiGo in June 2022 in the morning; Vistara on the penultimate day of 2022 in the evening.)

Above the security counters were ads to promote special discounts and offers for the airport’s fifteenth anniversary, as well as other things like the DigiYatra facility and (not shown) the Karnataka state government’s digitisation initiatives for senior citizens.

A Dufry-run duty-free store was standing past security, with your typical cosmetics, perfumes and fragrances. For the record, the one in T2 is far more opulent, high-ceilinged and glitzy gold, compared to the sedate tans and browns of this one, which is still many leagues above that in Chennai (MAA)’s old international terminal — or even the brand-new integrated terminal — and pathetic shops for handicrafts and books.

I’ll be comparing BLR and MAA a few times over the next couple of pictures, and no prizes for guessing which one I prefer, even though MAA has come a very, very long way.

More shops from multiple retailers, major names like Shoppers Stop and Starbucks among them, made me feel proud and ecstatic of my new Indian home airport, never mind the traffic. No matter how good Chennai’s terminal — and the new integrated terminal is (I’m shocked I’m saying this!) actually excellent in terms of design and architecture, though still nothing on BLR T2 — it will never get any more than a few stalls, cafés and mom-and-pop shops, while BLR and other private Indian airports like Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi get major consumer brands aplenty.

And now the biggest (to me) middle finger to my old Indian home airport: a Relay bookshop, which I have seen countless times in other Indian airports, but never got to enjoy in my home airport until now. Sweet revenge indeed — literally, since all manner of local mithais and foreign chocolates were placed at the enrance.

Note: These pictures were the best I had of the store — too bad that I couldn’t quite remove the girls from them without disturbing the collage’s aspect ratio, so blurring will have to do.

Some non-fiction books on the right, and comics — including the age-old tradition of Amar Chitra Katha mythology and history comics — on the left.

Three books by women authors caught my fancy: one (right) being Let’s Talk Mutual Funds by a financial expert, which my father has delved into at great length over the decades; another (left) being One and a Half Wife, a fiction book republished after a decade; and the third, Moms in the Wild, being a brand-new fiction book with a particularly striking cover. (It’s a jungle out there, it said — referring to the ruthless nature of protective, hoity-toity moms in the crème-de-la-crème of Bengaluru.) This one I voraciously finished in three days the following week, but the other two I am yet to touch — not that I intended to forget about them, but rather because my fancy was piqued by many other reads.

In addition to the stationery section — in addition to the Reynolds (everywhere in India) and Sharpies (as rare an American import as Crayola) — there were also a number of skincare and beauty products for show, which wasn’t what I’d expect at a bookstore!

Heart and mind sated with those three purchases, I moved on to the gates — but then realised that many of my electronics were missing! Sure enough, I hotfooted it back to security, where — silly me! — I’d forgotten to take the bag containing my chargers and cables. Goodness gracious! Still, better late than never, as I continued to take in the grace and glory of the refined surrounds.

Relay’s main competitor, WHSmith, was also not far off, and I popped into it to buy a few drinks and snacks, as a last taste of urban Indian goodness.

This, too, had its fair share of bestsellers on display, in addition to a number of souvenirs including some stone and metal figurines.

As well as these ‘Melts’, placed atop a counter for San-Cha Tea. They were as colourful as they were nutritious, but I decided to spend on liquid nutrition instead!

Below a Hershey’s chocolate ad was a lineup of cute (but somewhat old-fashioned!) teddy bears, holding hearts and sitting atop polka-dotted heart-shaped cushions, below which lay shelf upon shelf of Ferrero Rochers, Toblerones, Daims and Oreos.

I was finally done with touring my very own airport’s Relay and WHSmith — there being other outlets in the domestic departures and the arrivals sections in T1, not to mention those in T2 — and proceeded down the long travellators, past the 080 International lounge, whose domestic counterpart I’d already visited.

Down to the far end of the terminal I went, past TG326 to Bangkok, which is by right supposed to be on the A350, but more often than not has been swapped to the awful 777-200ER — much like TG337/338 at Chennai, which has been often denied its rightful 787-9 which I flew in December 2022.

My next visit to Bengaluru in November 2023 for the Diwali holidays will conclude with this very flight — TG326 — followed by a few hours in Bangkok and then the Gulf Air 787-9 on GF166. I for one hope that I won’t be ‘TGed’ this time around!

Here, with the reflection of the Urban Food Market on the window, 9V-SHP was awaiting her passengers, who’d already made a beeline at Gates 40 and 41.

At close to eleven I was on board, on a jetbridge filled with IndianOil ads — this being one of three major Indian government-owned petroleum companies, along with Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum — instead of the HSBC ads you find at Changi. Same-same but different!

Not Hewlett-Packard, or Hindustan Petroleum, or Harry Potter — no point trying to create an acronym out of nothing!

The flight: Boarding and departure

Flight: Singapore Airlines SQ511/SIA511
Date: Sunday, 2 July 2023
Route: Bengaluru Kempegowda (VOBL/BLR) to Singapore Changi (WSSS/SIN)
Aircraft: 9V-SHP, Airbus A350-900 (regional configuration)
Age: 2 years 8 months at the time (built: 14 August 2020, delivered: 2 October 2020)
Seat: 69G
Boarding: 10:40pm IST, UTC +5:30 (1:20am SGT, UTC +8)
Departure: 11:25pm IST (1:55am SGT)
Arrival: 6:00am SGT (3:30am IST)
Duration: 4 hours 5 minutes

Notes:
• Third A350 Regional of Singapore Airlines flown, after 9V-SHE on the previous flight and 9V-SHJ on Flight 714 to Bangkok in December 2022. Fourth A350 overall on SQ, with the first being 9V-SMF, the 10,000th Airbus aircraft ever built, in October 2022.
• Seventh A350 overall after HS-THF, THJ and THL on Thai Airways, and I hope to add to that in November with TG326, also from Bengaluru. (I have flown neither A350s nor 787s outside the Star Alliance — also having flown 787s on Air India and Ethiopian — but plan to change that with a 787-9 on Gulf Air, and A350s on Cathay Pacific and Vietnam Airlines, by the end of 2023!)
• Third eastbound nonstop flight from India on SQ, after SQ529 in January 2022 and SQ527 in October, both 787-10s from Chennai.

For once I’d chosen an aisle seat instead of my typical window seat, since the latter were all booked. This wouldn’t have been a problem if my seatmate hadn’t wanted to get up repeatedly to go to the restroom, as a result of which my half-eaten meal was inadvertently taken away — I’ll explain below!

Unusually, the twice-weekly SQ512/513 late-night flight — which has now been scrapped in the NW23/24 winter schedule, as the SQ508/509 morning service is instead served by mostly A350s — was operated by 9V-SMY, an A350 Longhaul, instead of the A350 Regional. In fact, Mumbai is the only Indian city to receive the A350 Longhaul at all, on a similar weekend late-night service, which is numbered SQ426/425. Not far behind was 9V-SHL as SQ526 to Chennai, an A350 flight that operated every night except Tuesdays in the summer schedule, but has also disappeared in NW23/24 — all while Scoot’s inferior A320s have returned there after pulling out of Hyderabad, so Chennai loses out yet again.

Indeed, BOM remains the luckiest Indian city for Singapore flights: SQ has daily A380s at night, and A350 Regionals in the morning, plus the A350 Longhaul on weekend nights; Vistara has the late-night departure from Mumbai and midmorning return on the A321neo, which I’ve taken. Even IndiGo and its bare-bones A321neo has much more humane timings — a late-morning departure and an early-evening arrival — as against the atrocious arrivals in Changi at around 3 to 5 in the morning from Bengaluru, Chennai and other cities. Only Air India’s A320 service could have done better with its late-evening timings that do not have a good product to match. No wonder, then, that I’ve chosen none other than SQ424 to Mumbai for the Christmas weekend to have my first flight on the A380, three years after the Restaurant A380@Changi event in October 2020!

Pillow and blanket in hand, a number of passengers looked like they were ready to hit the sack there and then. Not so easy on an aircraft! You have to contend with the meal service, which easily takes up one hour out of four.

Bizarrely, instead of the usual welcome screen, all IFE screens remained blank until the safety video was played.

Now the becalming, relaxing Singapore Airlines safety video, with its pretty sights, prettier girls and cute children, which I’ve repeated several times and won’t rehash here. But I will note two special points about this briefing, specifically pertaining to this flight.
1. It was released on 8 August 2017, the day before Singapore’s 52nd National Day, and I’d be seeing a couple of patriotic videos on this flight performed by SQ staff during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, as I’ll go into below.
2. This video had Hindi subtitles, which is often the case on SQ flights that depart (but not arrive in) India. However, unlike the previous leg, there were no announcements in Kannada — the local language of Bengaluru — and this was a purely English-speaking flight.

Only now did the IFE turn to the welcome screen, and not a minute too soon. Not that I particularly care for Hollywood movies, and after my disastrous experience on the inbound leg, I knew better than to watch movies on a redeye sector where eyes are supposed to be closed.

As we appeared on the map, 9M-MLT, who I’ve seen before at KUL, was all but ready to land as MH192. Two other 737-800s from Southeast Asia — the Lion Group’s HS-LGK and 9M-LCV — were ready and waiting, having arrived as SL216 and OD241 respectively.

I laid out the three books I’d bought at the Relay, chuckling at the two artistic portraits and admiring the one real photograph (that of financial advisor Monika Halan) — one that gave her an impression of friendly authority.

Meanwhile Akasa Air’s VT-YAK had landed as QP1326 from Ahmedabad, a metro in the west of the country, and the hijab-clad woman at the window sat glued to the screen — not the IFE screen, but the screen of nature, if you know what I mean.

As it was nearing half-past eleven, the lights dimmed and 9V-SHP took for the skies, the dark blue winglet with an orangish outline adding context and contours to the scenery. The powerful, rousing words of Scars to Your Beautiful by Alessia Cara — a song on body positivity, mainly for nervous young girls but in fact for everyone — kept ringing through the headphones.

There’s a hope that’s waiting for you in the dark / You should know you’re beautiful just the way you are
And you don’t have to change a thing, the would could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful / We’re stars and we’re beautiful

The flight time remaining and estimated arrival time remained blank, for some reason, before they filled up later.

I went straight to 3DMaps and enjoyed the vew of our A350 circling over what is now South India’s largest city, not to mention the registration prominent in the corner.

Someone had started watching Atrangi Re, a romantic drama which had released in December 2021 to mixed reviews. Others wisely left the IFE screen unheeded and drifted off, only to later be woken up by the dinner-serving crew.

The lights on the Deccan Plateau were quite a different scene from what I was accustomed to seeing when leaving India: the coastline of Marina Beach — but that was to come later!

Onscreen ‘amenities’ — or lack thereof

SQ is one of those airlines who pioneered the quasi-sustainability movement to make a number of comfort-and-convenience items available ‘only on request’. That is to say, if you don’t know they exist, too bad — the joke’s on you, provincial oaf!

You’d think that someone as class-leading as SQ, where the menu was available on its app — premium cabins have had their physical copies restored — might also make it available on the IFE. Wishful thinking, sir!

These were the music options, and I thought I’d rather rotate among the Indian audio selections (specifically the Arijit Singh album, as I’ll show below) than make the mistake of fixing myself to one movie I wouldn’t enjoy much anyway.

My journal this time was a tad messy and unwieldy: the flight details on the left, the names and authors of a bunch of Indian fiction books I was lugging to Singapore on the right — among them the ones I’d bought, Moms in the Wild and One and a Half Wife.

KrisWorld Wi-Fi being completely free to use (without time limits) for the first time, I waited till I was out of the Indian coastline — the SITA OnAir systems on planes like this A350 Regional don’t work over Indian airspace — and then proceeded to see all my fellow SQ planes crossing the Bay of Bengal at one glance.

SQ’s Ninth-of-August patriotic fervour: COVID edition

What next caught my eye were some music videos: not the Olivia Rodrigo/Taylor Swift ­× Singapore Airlines collaborations, but instead a couple that were performed by the cabin crew at the height of COVID in 2020, when neither SQ nor any other airline was doing much flying.

The informative TEDx videos were for another time: now I selected ‘Home (Perfomed by Cabin Crew)’, thoroughly intrigued and piqued.

Here were some different sides of the airline’s most famous brand assets, when they weren’t strutting down the aisle in sarong kebayas (or, rather, couldn’t): some played violins, others tied the knot, and yet others simply hung out with friends and family.

Then they turned to sing the praises of the tiny little city of a country that they (and I) call home. The great majority of participants, as you’d expect, were steward(esse)s and flight attendants, not pilots or other airline crew, since those are not the most visible faces of Singapore Airlines.

Shawn and Halim, Angel and Listi, Chia Yan and Shakila, Sha and Sya: all of them talked about Home, a common concept you’ll find in all the patriotic songs that are played in the lead-up to the Ninth of August.

The violin- and keyboard-playing was interspersed with a round of photos with near and dear ones: children, family, friends and the like.

One of the young stewards, Syafiq, led his aged parents by the hand in one frame and played the electric guitar in the next. One stewardess girl hugged her pooch, and another, Krystel, would also make her appearance at the beginning of the next pandemic-era video.

Now the tone shifted to the efforts SQ cabin crew and staff had been doing on the plane to minimise the risk of COVID spread, and those which were taken by frontline workers on the ground. The screen shifted to ‘Let’s take care of one another’, and a collage of all the cabin crew members in their homes zoomed out to eventually segue into the iconic Kris logo — minus the ‘A Star Alliance Member’ bit.

Time to move to the second (and last) COVID-patriotic video: a stark, sordid yet uplifting and inspiring reminder of the trying times Singapore and the world has finally, mercifully, left behind.

Our friend Krystel, the one with a bob cut and a fringe on her head, led me into the next video with its spellbinding views of the Gardens by the Bay, the Marina Bay Sands, the Merlion and all the tourist clichés you expect to see of this little island.

Sya — was it the same Sya as before? — then provided the vocals to a number of tiny children clustering around their daddies and mommies, waving the flag with five stars and a crescent.

Ah, the black (or pink or designer) mask! Good riddance, I’d have said, but even today many people choose to stick to it out of an abundance of caution, and I cannot blame them.

All barring the tiny tot on the central swing, of course, as he was too small to need one. At this point — nearly one in the morning Indian time, half-past three SGT — the crewmembers started to roll out their meals, with mine below. I’ll get into that a bit later.

To conclude the second video were some crewmembers pirouetting in their rooms (L–R: Natasha, Clement, Kat, Haiqel) followed by a bunch of COVID initiatives conducted in late 2020 to spark interest on the ground and provide an inside view on all things that make SQ tick.

two Indian meals and music at the price of one

At this point I saw that my seatmate was playing Arijit Singh, one of the most popular Indian musicians today, with a large number of popular film songs like Kesariya and Channa Mereya to his credit. I decided to follow suit and put on the same tracklists, and it was a most worthwhile decision: all the more so since he has added to his repertoire with the romantic chartbuster Chaleya from the worldwide blockbuster Jawan — starring Shah Rukh Khan, the ‘King of Bollywood’, who celebrates his birthday on 2 November 2023, the day this report is published.

As the food was being served I noted down the names of the FAs while keeping them ever-so-slightly in the picture so as not to cross the line — after which I switched my phones to Singapore time. They were polite but completely forgettable, as I always find to be the case on SQ, the prim-and-proper airline that it is.

The food, as I’d done for the inbound, was the vegetarian option — I told my parents as much — which I’ve also posted at the very beginning: paneer tikka masala, bhuna onion pulao and dal hariyali. (Pro-tip: Vegetarian is probably the safest option on SQ’s Indian flights nowadays — something I’ll bear in mind on my A380 flight to Mumbai on the eve of Christmas Eve!)

Served on the side were a walnut brownie and Pasta and Vegetable Salad with Tomato Garlic Vinaigrette (in the menu) and the following items not in the menu: mango juice, dry bread roll and some very Indian brands to replace the generic ones on the inbound — Himalayan bottled water, Amul butter, Mother Dairy curd and some sort of mixed pickle.

Now played Rasiya Reprise, from the 2022 superhero-fantasy film Brahmastra, a song so powerful in its capability to induce tears with its fervour, it must be seen to be believed. This is what I played at the end of July as my Ethiopian 787-9 (ET-AUO, see Flightradar24 pictures below) took off for Kuala Lumpur on a Sunday afternoon for a cute little four-hour journey. I invite you to discover this soulful, powerful musical masterpiece for yourself here.

Still two-and-a-half hours to go — barely enough for the necessary shuteye, but my seatmate ensured it wouldn’t turn out that way!

A large number of cargo aircraft were descending now at Changi, at the dead of night, among them a Silk Way West Airlines 747-400F (4K-SW008) from Azerbaijan. In addition, the same ET-AUO that I just mentioned — named Beijing — was completing the fourth and final leg of its 4x-weekly ADD–SIN–KUL–SIN–ADD rotation, operated by 787-9s only on certain Sundays until July.

As I was completing the meal, I took stock of the goodies I’d bought from the WHSmith at Kempegowda: a handful of juices and an ice tea, as well as Walkers shortbread biscuits from Scotland, a favourite of mine.

Now, Sunday, was a day when both Kolkata and Hyderabad got the A350: the former 3x from Saturday to Monday, which remains the same in the winter schedule; the latter 4x from Thursday to Sunday, which has now been bumped up to a daily A350 flight at Chennai’s expense. In contrast, for the inbound that Tuesday, both CCU and HYD were relegated to the 737 MAX 8.

Now there was a bit of confusion over my seatmate’s need to relieve himself — leading to my half-eaten meal being taken away, and a new one issued in its place. I won’t attempt to rephrase anything: I’ll just state the words from the picture below, for the benefit of those requiring screen-readers.

‘Unlike the previous South Indian-dominated flight, the Hindi-speaking North Indians are very much predominant on this one. The one beside me wanted to go to the bathroom even though I’d not finished eating, and I put the tray on the floor. Someone picked it up presumably to put it back, but she didn’t and took it away. I asked for a new vegetarian meal and got that! No, I won’t be sneaky and try to try out the non-veg meal here!’

Not because of not wanting to eat non-veg food — mind you, the Western chicken and South Indian lamb options sounded every bit as good as my North Indian vegetarian option — but rather out of uprightness and honesty, and also because I enjoy that yellow dal tadka so damn much!

As I was going through my second meal, I reminisced over my previous eastbound SQ flight nine months before, in October 2022, on SQ527 from Chennai. The Mutton Chettinad with Green Peas and Onion Pulao was okay enough, but nothing on this one.

Several minutes later, I was finally ready to pull the eyeshades on at 41,000 feet, or so said Flightradar24. Meanwhile, some more were taking off from the south of India, the aforementioned TG326 (A350-900 HS-THK) from Bengaluru and AF107 (A330-200 F-GZCN) from Chennai being the widebodies amongst those.

It was not yet time for lights-out, and I took a last image of a cup of water in my hand, which had been generously and repeatedly doled out by the cabin crew.

At long last the lights were turned out, and my ears went back to Alessia Cara’s Scars to Your Beautiful, all while I was peacefully tucked under the cosy blanket — a rather inspiring if energetic (and hence counter-productive) way to drift to sleep amid the inky-black clouds!

Descent at daybreak

At length, we had reached the Malaysian coastline, with new flight connections appearing on the map and the lights turned back on — but the sun was yet to make its daily ‘super-horizonal’ appearance. (Is that even a word?)

This — one too many Flightradar24 screenshots already; I’m obsessive! — was our present scenario, with 9V-SHP part of a procession of aircraft making early-morning arrivals from South Asia.

Unless you were snoozing so soundly as to miss all the landing announcements, chances are you noticed SQ’s reminder not to leave anything for the lost-and-found department!

It was nearing on six in the morning, with the sky still dark, when 9V-SHP glided past the ships of Singapore and onto terra firma with scarcely a screech.

At length, the folks made a beeline for the doors, but I knew better than to join the rush. Now showing on the iPad in my hand was my upcoming travel itinerary, involving some ‘unfinished business’ in Kuala Lumpur which would be done courtesy an Ethiopian 787-9 (as above) and Jetstar A320, reports of which will hopefully be out by the time I start my next six-city adventure — much like the ‘Hexagon’ in December 2022 — involving the SQ A380 to Mumbai, the CX A350 and A321neo to Hanoi via Hong Kong and the VietJetAir A330-300 and Vietnam Airlines A350 between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Talk about an eventful travel plan!

As mentioned, there were all manner of cargo airlines: Silk Way West Airlines (4K-SW008) from Azerbaijan, ACT Airlines (TC-ACM) from Turkey, My Indo Airlines (PK-MYB) from Indonesia, FedEx Express (N845FD) from the United States and Nippon Cargo Airlines (JA11KZ) from Japan. The only non-9V-registered arrivals were IndiGo’s VT-IFV from Chennai as 6E1001 (avoid at all costs!!!), China Eastern’s B-2023 — haha! — from Shanghai as MU543 and Korean Air’s HL8026 from Seoul as KE647.

The cabin was soon clear, ready to make way for 9V-SHP’s next destination, which was unlikely to be in India — unless it was the SQ421 daily morning service to Mumbai. That city just cannot get enough Airbus aircraft to Singapore, and it really is spoiled for choice between SQ’s A380s and A350s (including the Longhaul variant), Vistara A321neos and even to a lesser extent IndiGo  and Air India barely-furnished A320-family aircraft — which at least have good timings going for them, which can’t quite be said for other cities!

I greeted the flight attendants while leaving, not that I had much of an inclination to do a whole lot for an otherwise wholly unmemorable crew. C’mon, SQ, you can surely go up a notch starting from Row 41 onwards!

This, then, is as humdrum as it gets while being cutting-edge: a regulation A350 without any special sticker like 9V-SMF or chuckle-worthy registration like 9V-SHE. So long, then, 9V-SHP, I said as I stepped off her.

Trust the copywriters of HSBC to come up with all these one-liners to fill the jetbridges of Changi and countless other airports!

Besides the HSBCs was an interesting (endangered, if you will) species: 9V-SGE, one of only seven of its kind, the one and only A350-900ULR that was never ordered by anyone other than SQ.

Someone had a connecting flight on Air New Zealand’s NZ281 to Auckland, and a bespectacled, masked woman held up a placard for them.

Here’s how the sweeping, towering ceilings of Changi T3 look like at 6am, where the last set of South Asian and European departures are mostly done with, and the focus returns to regional flying during sunlight.

As was evidenced through the departure board: barring some Australian or Japanese flights — plus the odd UA2 to SFO and SQ308 to LHR — most were within ASEAN.

Homeward bound, minutes away

Before I knew it, I’d stepped into the forest-themed immigration hall at T3 and filled up the SG Arrival Card which is required for passengers from all nationalities — something that was never ditched unlike other COVID-era requirements, and that we would do much better without.

Each baggage belt handled two arrivals at a time, and my SQ511 from Bengaluru at Belt 47 shared space with MU543 from Shanghai (Pudong), while SQ403 from Delhi at the lower-ceilinged Belt 45 stood next to SQ33 from San Francisco.

Thereafter it was a couple of levels down to the ride-hailing gates: Grab and Gojek require a different set of escalators from the blue (often more expensive) ComfortDelGro taxi fleet.

As my BYD e6 MPV sped out of Changi, the day, week and working month were all about to begin with this hint of a sunrise from atop the Crowne Plaza. What I thought was an Etihad 787 with its colourful livery made its landing far too fast for me to capture it out of the (sadly shutter-screened) window. ’No good trying to catch that Etihad 787, sir!’

Turns out that 787-9 was no Etihad ‘Choose [country]‘ special, but rather All Nippon Airways’ Pikachu-liveried JA894A. I sort of chided myself: ‘Since when did the ANA Pokémon livery look like Etihad’s “Choose the UK, Choose Italy” liveries?’ Not that your mind is especially clear after a number of hours on the road in Bengaluru and several more in a plane in the darkness of my dreams!