Review of Singapore Airlines flight Singapore → Bangalore in Economy

Introduction

Welcome, everybody, to another Flight-Report! In this review, I will be taking you along with me to fly with Singapore Airlines on the A350-900 in Economy from Singapore Changi to Bangalore/Bengaluru Kempegowda, India.
This review will cover the airport experience in Singapore, as well as the onboard hard and soft products. I will only lightly touch on my experience in Bangalore, as I will cover most of it in my review of my connecting flight coming soon.
For each aspect of the experience, I will rate it on a scale of 1 to 10. The final score for the full experience will be out of 100.

Booking the flight

This was the first leg of a five-leg return trip between Singapore and Edinburgh, UK. For this trip, I booked through Lufthansa for a routing of SIN-BLR-FRA-EDI-FRA-SIN for SGD1660/EUR1140. This first leg was to be operated by codeshare partner Singapore Airlines, a fellow member of STAR Alliance, while the other four were operated by Lufthansa.

expectations

I had very high expectations for this flight. The last time I flew with Singapore Airlines was more than 5 years ago, on the A380, and I remember really loving the experience back then. The crew were very friendly, the meal services were flawless, and overall, the flight was sensational. Despite SQ (like all other airlines) having diminished their onboard service, I was still expecting something from this flight today that could compete with its pre-Covid self. 

departure airport

Check-in

I arrived at a busy Changi Airport Terminal 3, around 2 hours before departure time. Singapore Airlines passengers are allocated self-check-in kiosks and self-baggage-drop areas, but I was unable to print my boarding pass from the kiosk due to the complicated nature of my booking and sequence of flights. I was then directed to a queue for the manual check-in and bag-drop process, which took a 30-minute wait. 

Once it was my turn, it was a very quick passport check before my boarding pass was printed and handed over to me. The check-in agent ridiculed over how ridiculous my routing was, which would take 3 flights over 35 hours before I reach my destination. We also discovered that we shared a birthday… what a pleasant surprise! The check-in experience gets an 8/10. 

Immigration

The procedure going through the electronic immigration gates was a breeze; after a passport scan and a facial recognition process, I was airside within 30 seconds. I really appreciated that I had no problems with it this time, unlike two weeks prior, while travelling on Shanghai Airlines/China Eastern to Shanghai Pudong. 10/10

Airside

The ever-so-familiar Louis Vuitton display came into view – I had only encountered it around two weeks ago, after all. It was the usual left turn, which saw me going past the same duty-free shops, along the same route. This time, however, instead of gate A18, which was among the furthest gates in the whole terminal, my flight today – SQ510 to Bangalore – was departing from a far more manageable gate A11. 

Security and Gate Area

Gate A11 shared a common security area with gate A12, which would be handing a later flight, the 21:35 SQ235 to Brisbane. My flight was called for security first, but the announcements were not quite clear, and a few Brisbane-bound passengers were mixed into the lot too. I personally witnessed an elderly couple heading to Brisbane getting reprimanded loudly for not following instructions, and were told to “get out and sit back down”. Yikes… 

Once in the gate area, there was a quick document check, where I assured the officer there that I, in fact, did not need a visa to transit in India. He quickly confirmed, and I was led into the waiting area with plenty of comfortable seating options, and a nice view of our aircraft. 7/10 

DEPARTURE AIRPORT SCORES: 8/10

FLIGHT AND AIRCRAFT INFORMATION

Flight information

Flight date: 27/11/2023

Airline: Singapore Airlines (SQ/SIA)

Operated by: Singapore Airlines (SQ/SIA)

Flight number: SQ510

Route: Singapore (SIN) – Bangalore/Bengaluru (BLR)

Scheduled Departure Time: 20:05 (UTC+8)

Actual Departure Time: 20:28 (UTC+8)

Scheduled Arrival Time: 21:55 (UTC+4:30)

Actual Arrival Time: 21:53 (UTC+4.:30)

Scheduled Flight Time: 4h20min

Actual Flight Time: 3h55min

Aircraft information

Aircraft Registration: 9V-SHG

Aircraft Type: Airbus A350-941*

Engines: 2× RR Trent XWB-84**

Line Number: 309

First Flight: 17/04/2019

Aircraft Age (as of flight): 4 years 7 months

Aircraft Delivered: 17/05/2019

Seating Configuration: J40Y263***

*If you take a closer look at the picture of the aircraft, you might notice some surface degradation occurring around the cockpit windscreens. This involves the aircraft’s outer layer of paint flaking and falling off, resulting in exposed aircraft skin. This was the problem that had resulted in Qatar Airways grounding most of its A350 fleet and causing a massive dispute with Airbus, the manufacturer. Interestingly, back then SQ had insisted that their own A350s had no such problems, so it certainly was surprising to see our A350 today having such a poor looking paint job around the cockpit windscreens.
 
**Most of the A350-900s across the world, including this one, use the RR Trent XWB-84, which produces 84200lbs of thrust. However, in SQ’s very interesting fleet of A350-900s, some use the less powerful and much rarer RR Trent XWB-75 (same as Japan Airlines’ domestic-configured A350-900s), which produces 75000lbs of thrust, and were originally developed for the eventually-cancelled A350-800. The aircraft in SQ’s fleet that feature these RR Trent XWB-75 engines, are the newer medium-haul ones, registered 9V-SHK to 9V-SHY, and often used on this flight. I was hoping to get one of these to compare the noise levels between the more common XWB-84 and this rare and less powerful XWB-75, but luck was not quite in my favour as I got a generic XWB-84-equipped aircraft for this flight.

***SQ's massive (most in the world, in fact) fleet of 63 A350-900s come in three different configurations.

The first is the ULR (Ultra Long Range) configuration, found on the world’s only 7 A350-900ULRs (registered 9V-SGA to 9V-SGG), which are the ultra-long range A350-900s used on flights to New York (EWR and JFK), as well as Los Angeles (LAX). These aircraft have a very premium-heavy C67W94 configuration with only business class and premium economy seats.

There is also the long-haul configuration, the most common across the fleet with 31 (registered 9V-SJA to 9V-SJG and 9V-SMA to 9V-SMZ). These A350-900 aircraft come in a 3-class configuration of C42W24Y187, and are used for many long-haul destinations to Europe and Australia, as well as their South Africa flights.

The last configuration is the medium-haul one, which is found on my flight today. These 25 A350-900s (registered 9V-SHA to 9V-SHY) come in a configuration of C40Y263, and are used for high-demand medium-haul routes to destinations such as China, India, and other parts of Southeast Asia.

pre-departure

Boarding

Business class passengers and STAR Alliance status holders were called to board first. This was then followed by the passengers in Group 5, where the last 10 or so rows were. Since I was seated in the very last row of this aircraft, I was easily in this group, and was among the earlier passengers to board. In the jet-bridge, there was a man holding a large box filled with complimentary wired earpieces, offering them to the passengers.

Welcome Onboard

Once onboard the aircraft though door L2, two flight attendants warmly welcomed me onboard. I was immediately greeted by the boarding music, which happened NOT to be the usual SQ one. Instead, it was a playlist of instrumental Christmas Carols, since it was less than a month until (almost) everyone’s favourite holiday. This consisted of ‘Hark! The herald angels singing’, ‘Frosty the snowman’, and ‘Joy to the world’.

I passed by the rear business class cabin, configured in a staggered 1-2-1 arrangement, with 8 of the total 40 Stellia Symphony seats onboard. These are the business class seats found on SQ’s medium haul A350-900 and B787-10 aircraft, and also the seats that Turkish Airlines uses on their own A350-900 and B787-9 aircraft. The seats looked really nice, and I look forward to an opportunity to try this product in the future.  

I then walked through two economy cabins, configured in a mostly 3-3-3 arrangement, noting some Christmas wreath decorations on the cabin walls, before arriving at my seat, 70B, in the very last row of the aircraft. While the cabin was generally clean, some parts of the seat, such as the mirror in the tray table and the IFE screen, was still stained with grease, which I had to clean off with an alcoholic wipe. 

cabin + seat

Let’s take a look at Singapore Airlines’ A350-900 economy class cabin and my seat. 

Cabin and seat details:

Seat: 70B (Port-side window/middle seat*)

Seat type: Slimline

Seat model: CL3710

Seat manufacturer: Recaro

Seat pitch: 32”

Seat width: 17.3”

Recline: 5”

Class: Economy (Y)

Cabin: Rear economy cabin (between doors 3 and 4)

Seating arrangement: 3-3-3/2-3-3* 

*Due to the curvature of the aircraft towards the rear, there is not enough cabin width to maintain the standard 3-3-3 configuration. Hence, the last two rows are configured differently, with row 69 being configured 2-3-3, and row 70 configured 2-3-bulkhead. The leftmost seat in these two rows are hence the B seats, which is still in the middle seat position in line with the other rows, but also being the closest to the port-side windows. Hence, it is debatable if this is a window or aisle seat, but I would personally argue for it being a window seat.

Seat features:

6-way adjustable headrest

Bi-fold retractable table (with built-in mirror)

Fold-down cup holder

11.6” HD touchscreen IFE display 

USB-A socket

Universal Power Outlet

No individual air nozzles were implemented, but the cabin did not get too hot during the flight. 

Some thoughts about the seat:

Seat comfort: The seat was well padded, soft and breatheable, with a decent headrest providing plenty of support. 9/10

Legroom: The legroom, at 32”, is above the industry average by itself. With the added space by the side due to the absence of the A seats of my row and the row in front, I had a limitless amount of space for my legs to stretch out. Easy 10/10 here.

Seat storage: On top of the standard under-seat storage, there was also a pretty sizeable seat-back pocket which had many compartments on it for storing different things. 8/10 

Recline: The recline was splendid, though my space gets reduced by quite a bit when the person in front reclined all the way. I was very happy that being in the last row, I could recline all I wanted without bothering anyone else. 8/10

CABIN + SEAT SCORES 9/10 

taxi + takeoff

We pushed back soon, and the safety video was shown. Singapore Airlines has been using the same safety video for a long time now; the same one the last time I flew with them, over 5 years ago in 2018. This safety video brings passengers along across Singapore, featuring some of the island’s most famous sites. To be honest, I don’t find the safety video to be too effective, as I find myself only focusing on the filming locations and details instead of the actual safety briefing. I find this to be quite a widespread issue across airlines as they don’t seem to quite get the point of an effective safety video. 

The announcements on this flight were made in English and an Indian language, likely Kannada, which is the most commonly spoken language in Bangalore. Since none of the crew onboard (seemingly) spoke Kannada, the Kannada announcements were made by an AI female voice. 

We lined up on Changi’s runway 20L after a monstrously long taxi for our take-off towards the south. Lift-off was at 20:28, 23 minutes behind schedule. Immediately after taking off, we made a huge 222° turn to our left, changing from a heading of 202° to 340° within seconds. While doing so, we had excellent views of Changi Airport and the east of Singapore, before we disappeared into the clouds. 

flight path

Now is a good time to take a look at our flight path. Our rather straightforward route out of Singapore took us over Southwestern Malaysia, over the Malacca Strait, through the Andaman Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and over the eastern Indian coast over Chennai before we started our descent into Bangalore. We cruised at 40000ft for pretty much the entire duration of the flight. 

dinner service

Once at cruising altitude, the dinner service began. This started with the pre-ordered meals being delivered personally by the flight attendants, one by one, to the relevant passengers. This process itself, took a decently long time, around 30 minutes. I was expecting a couple fully loaded trolleys to be pushed up the aisle now, but that never happened. Flight attendants simply just walked up and down the aisle, holding single trays at a time and delivering them to the passengers in the most random fashion imaginable.

I watched this go one for another one-and-a-half hours, before the cabin manager, a middle-aged Singaporean male, came around to my seat (which was right next to the rear galley where he was stationed) and announced that the chicken option (which I was looking forward to trying) had ran out and that fish or veg were my two options. I told him that I would like to have the fish option, which he had already prepared in his hands having anticipated me to go for it, and he shoved the tray onto my tray table. 

The meal itself came on one tray, featuring an appetiser, a main course, a packaged bread roll with butter and jam, a small tub of yoghurt, an Indian-style snack made up of rice crackers and a spicy vegetable paste (comments, please enlighten me), and a bottle of water. Metal utensils were provided. As per SQ tradition, ice cream was handed out individually as dessert after the meal service. I also never received the orange juice that I had ordered, showing how unviable the absence of a trolley to provide an instant service really was.

Appetiser: Papdi Aloo Chaat 

This Indian-style appetiser item was made of flour crackers with chickpeas and potatoes, yoghurt, mint, and tamarind. This tasted wonderful, the flavours combined exceptionally well, and I would have loved another portion of it. 10/10

Main: Mediterranean Fish 

This hot option was a grilled Mediterranean style fish fillet, served with tomato-braised edamame, chickpeas and potatoes, as well as a very green herb sauce on the fish. While it tasted alright, it was not too mind-blowing. This meal item also caused the cabin to smell of fish, which is not ideal for anyone who is stuck in a pressurized carbon-fibre-reinforced polymer can for 4 hours. 7/10

Side: Packaged bread roll

This tasted like any other bread roll – hard and dry. Provided butter helped with this a little (strawberry jam was also provided), but I would still rather have fresh bread any day. 6/10

Side: Plain Swiss yoghurt 

Unflavoured yoghurt was an odd thing to serve at 11pm since it usually is a breakfast item (anyone, including the catering department at SQ, should know this). This had absolutely no flavour. In retrospect, I could have mixed it with some of the strawberry jam that was supposed to accompany the bread roll, but that never happened during the flight. 6/10

Dessert: Magnum classic ice cream bar

As per Singapore Airlines tradition, each passenger was handed an ice cream after the meal service as dessert. On this flight, Magnum bars were handed out. However, due to how late my meal was served to me, the Magnum came just as I started on my fish. This put the ice cream at strong risk of melting before I got to enjoy it. Fortunately, I am a fast eater, so that never happened as I could enjoy my ice cream at the texture it should be taken. 8/10

I will also note that it seems like not every SQ flight gets ice cream catered to it (according to others).

Drink: Orange Juice (not), bottled water

I opted for an orange juice when a female flight attendant came around for my choice. She nodded, then disappeared behind the curtains into the rear galley. However, the seconds, minutes, and hours passed, and I never received the orange juice that was promised to me. Luckily, the provided bottle of water found on the tray kept me hydrated during the flight. 4/10

DINNER SERVICE SCORES: 6/10 

amenities

Bedding

Since this was a night flight, a blanket and a pillow was provided at each seat. The blanket was large enough to cover my sitting self, though I did not use it much during the flight since the cabin was not very cold to begin with. The pillow, which came in a really high-quality fabric pillowcase, was of a decent size, but provided limited support due to how soft it was.

The bedding gets 8/10.

Lavatories 

The lavatories were kept decently clean throughout the flight. The most basic toiletries such as hand-wash were well stocked, but nothing else too exciting was to be found here. 7/10

AMENITIES SCORE: 8/10 

in-flight entertainment

IFE System

Singapore Airlines uses the Panasonic eX3 system for its in-flight entertainment. The interface was pretty well designed, and the 11.6” touchscreen was quite responsive. The selection of movies, TV shows, music, and games was also quite extensive. The menu, in-flight map, and on-board duty-free shop (KrisShop) could also be viewed from the IFE, which is quite convenient, though I do miss the old paper menus. Interestingly (and very disappointingly), there were no outboard cameras fitted to this A350-900, unlike many other A350s in service around the world. 8/10. 

I decided to entertain myself with the 2023 Chinese movie ‘Born to Fly’, which is a film featuring the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, the air force of China PR. It features many of China’s fighter jets, including the Chengdu J-10 and J-20, which were used on various missions and tests in the movie. Interestingly, this film has been heavily compared to the much-more-popular American-made Top Gun, and there have been controversies about Born to Fly’s release being delayed due to its inferiority in terms of action, manoeuvres, and stunts, to its American counterpart (which was released just slightly earlier than it was supposed to). 

Onboard Wi-Fi

Onboard Wi-Fi was the Panasonic Avionics Ku-band satellite Wi-Fi system. Krisflyer (SQ’s frequent flyer programme) members are entitled to free Wi-Fi connectivity for the full duration of the flight. However, as my booking was not linked to a Krisflyer account, I could not have the Wi-Fi connection for free, though I could still purchase the Wi-Fi for a fee.

Onboard charging

There was a Universal Power Outlet in between the two seats (for the rows of 3, the 3 seats share 2). There was also a USB-A charging port below the IFE screen. This makes it very convenient for those who wish to use their devices on board. Dual-pin headphone jacks were also found below each IFE screen. 9/10 

IFE SCORES: 8/10

sleep

With less than two hours left in the flight, I put my seat in the fully reclined position. Here, the recline angle is very generous, making the seat very comfortable. Even better, since I was in the last row, I did not have to worry about invading the space of someone behind.

I managed around an hour of shut-eye until we started our descent into Bangalore. This could have been so much more had the dinner service been faster. 7/10 

cabin crew

Let’s talk about the cabin crew on this flight.

Service speed

The dinner service was beyond slow, with my meal arriving more than two hours after departure. I do not understand what caused the crew (or the airline) to be so disorganised during the service. I sincerely hope this flight was just an anomaly, and that no one else has to wait over two hours for their dinner to arrive while they watch others seated around them finishing their meals. The pattern of which they handed out the ice cream was also quite questionable (very random as well), with some people seemingly missing out. 2/10

Service attitude

The cabin crew on this flight were not so good in this aspect either. While the crew were very nice during boarding and de-boarding, a middle-aged male flight attendant was constantly chatting with his colleagues in the rear galley throughout the flight, and doing so very loudly. Due to my seat’s close proximity to them, I was constantly hearing his sharp voice piercing through the curtains, even with the provided earphones on. This guy was also the one who brought my dinner to me. He seemed quite impatient (though credit to him, did force a smile), and his movements were slightly rash. I will also once again mention that a female flight attendant forgot to bring me my orange juice, despite the galley being so close to my seat (how do you forget in just a couple seconds?).

I deeply understand that being a cabin crew member is a very tiring job, and that most of SQ’s crew members are beyond hardworking while trying their best to be friendly and ‘world class’ (as advertised by SQ everywhere). Maybe they were short-staffed on this flight for whatever reason which put a strain on them, but they score 4/10 for their attitude.

CABIN CREW SCORES: 3/10

approach + landing

We were soon descending over the South-Indian countryside, and the SQ landing music, also part of the official soundtrack, started playing. This music usually plays until the aircraft touched down and the usual passenger announcement has to be made.

I am quite interested though, as to what happens to the music during a go-around. Do they just continue playing the soundtrack until the aircraft lands, or do they just stop playing it all together and land with the cabin quiet? It would feel weird with the landing music playing while climbing away from the airport during a go-around, but would also be quite odd to cut it away altogether, and restarting it after a missed approach would feel pretty lame too… 

We landed at 21:53 local time (2 minutes ahead of schedule) on Bangalore/Bengaluru Kempegowda’s east-bound runway 09L after circling around the airport, descending west-bound. The touchdown was very smooth, and in pretty close proximity to the aiming point, so well done to the pilots (or the autoland) there. We parked at gate C3. 

Notice the aircraft windows fogging up after landing. This is due to the humid outside air being warmer than the aircraft, hence resulting in gaseous H2O condensing into its liquid form (also known as water) on the cool (literally and figuratively) aircraft skin.

arrival airport

While I made my way off the aircraft, the cabin crew warmly said goodbye, though this will not excuse their abysmal performance during the flight.

To my surprise, waiting in the almost-brand new jet bridge, was an airport officer waiting for me. Turns out, he was there to get me through the transit process, which I initially doubted the complexity of, but it turned out to be a lot more complicated than I thought, and a lot more time consuming than necessary. 

I will leave it here for this review, and will cover my experience in Bangalore in much further depth in the review of my connecting flight to Frankfurt. 

final ratings

Airports

Airport Experiences: 8/10

Hard Product

Seat Comfort: 9/10

Sleep Comfort: 7/10

In-flight Entertainment: 8/10

Aircraft Comfort: 9/10

Aircraft Cleanliness: 8/10

Soft Product

Dinner Service: 6/10

Amenities: 8/10

Other Service: 5/10

Cabin Crew: 3/10

OVERALL RATING: 71/100

CONCLUSION

So, that was a look into my experience on the Singapore Airlines medium-haul A350-900 from Singapore to Bangalore in Economy Class!

This flight could not have been further from my high expectations, especially with the cabin crew, since Singapore Airlines routinely markets themselves to have the best of the best cabin crew teams in the world.

I must reiterate, this is only my own subjective experience on this one particular flight. Someone else could have a very different experience on a similar flight. With that, I would still recommend flying with Singapore Airlines in economy, but I would advise against anyone setting their expectations too high like I did.

If you made it so far down, thank you so much! I really hope this review, as well as all my past and future reviews, can help you decide how you want to travel in the future.

Travel safe, and goodbye for now!