Review of Thai Airways flight from Singapore to Bangkok in Economy

This trip report consists of both the onward leg on Thai Airways’ A350 and the return leg the next day on Singapore Airlines’ regionally configured A350. However, since the focus is on Thai Airways, I have entered only the former flight’s details above.

Also, it’s noteworthy that this trip was written during my trip to Hong Kong on 29–31 March 2025, coinciding with my 25th birthday and Eid-ul-Fitr or Hari Raya Puasa. More significantly, I flew in Business Class for the first time on two Oneworld carriers (MH602 SIN–KUL; CX617 HKG–BKK) and this made for another very memorable trip.

Error code (TG)404: Disappointment not found!

Thai Airways is a lovely airline on most days. From its splendid violet livery — according to me, the best colour combination in the world — to its A350 tail cameras to its awesome gifts (as I saw in the Thai Airways headquarters’ gift shop), it remains one of my favourite airlines out there, in spite of stiff competition from SQ and CX… as long as the aircraft is good.

All too often, however, I end up getting the awful 777-200ER on its Indian routes… and sadly this happened twice in August 2024. My bête noire HS-TJW operated the flights both to and from Bengaluru, which normally receives the A350, and also the A330-300 since October 2024. Even the connecting leg to Singapore (TG403 BKK–SIN) was not the expected A350 but a 777-300ER — thankfully not the ancient -200ER — and this meant that out of three flights I’d booked on TG in August 2024, every single one was changed from the A350 to a 777 of some sort. (While I’ve written about the BKK–BLR leg recently, in March 2025, I’ll be writing about the BLR–BKK–SIN journey later in April… after I publish another report on the Singapore Airlines 737 MAX to Phnom Penh.)

I refused to have August 2024 pass by without flying a single TG A350, and so my OCD compelled me to book a Saturday night in Sukhumvit, Bangkok. I’d booked the Bengaluru trip specifically to have a taste of TG’s wonderful A350 again, but was denied on each of my three flights, and now I took matters into my own hands by booking a TG A350 to BKK for Saturday, 24 August. The return the following morning would be, yet again, on a Singapore Airlines regional A350 — interestingly my first-ever miles (points) booking — and this provided for an effective comparison between these two top-notch Star Alliance members on the SIN⇆BKK sector. I’ve flown the SQ regional A350 a large number of times recently, including as many as four times to and from Bengaluru from December 2024 to February 2025*, so I know only too well how it’s like.

However, flight TG404 would turn out to be much more special than I imagined, because, on leaving the aircraft, the flight attendants noticed my violet Thai T-shirt (which I’d bought from the TG gift shop some weeks before) and gave me postcards, even posing for pictures! That’s how much the Thai Airways cabin crew went above-and-beyond, despite their limited English skills, with Garuda Indonesia being another underrated — and even more struggling but still special — airline that comes to mind. You simply cannot go wrong with Southeast Asian airlines like TG, GA and even MH at times, though they don’t always match the top-notch calibre of SQ, CX or top-rated Northeast Asian airlines like ANA, JAL and EVA.

As it turns out, HS-THN, the last of TG’s original twelve A350s, would operate not only this flight but also two more on 26 November 2024: TG326 BLR–BKK and TG403 BKK–SIN. The former helped to break my jinx of getting only godforsaken 777-200ERs when departing India on TG. As a result this became only the second aircraft registration, after that old ‘witch’ HS-TJW, on which I flew three times.

So much so, in fact, that the bitter disappointment of the 777-200ER (twice) earlier in the month was more than compensated by this one A350 flight that turned from ordinary to special. Hence the heading of this introduction: Error code (TG)404!

*That includes my first-ever Business Class flight, on the nighttime SQ510 SIN–BLR service, on 26 February 2025!

Part 1: TG404 SIN–BKK, 24 August 2024, HS-THN

Pre-departure: Dressing all violet for the occasion

Flightradar24 told me that HS-THN would be the A350 operating the inbound TG403. Little did I know that this would be the only TG A350 registration I’d be getting for the next two flights on TG in November!

I looked the part by putting on my violet Thai Airways T-shirt that I’d bought from the TG gift shop just weeks before, while my phone’s featured photos widget showed the interior of the Cathay Pacific A350 I’d flown to Bangkok (the one with the heavy delay) after a brief layover in Hong Kong.*

*I’m writing these words during my first-ever proper visit (not counting transits) to Hong Kong at the end of March 2025, where I also visited the luxurious Cathay Shop in the extravagant Cityplaza on Hong Kong Island… I digress.

Meanwhile, some interesting planes in the vicinity included a Cambodia Airways A319 (XU-787) as KR751 from Phnom Penh, and — though this one wasn’t landing at Changi — an Uzbekistan Airways 787-8 (UK78702) as HY541 from Tashkent to Jakarta.

This is the kind of airline from the ‘stans’ that you’ll find aplenty in Bangkok, but never Singapore, which is a rich people’s airport with a hefty premium to pay — as the sheer number of nonstop flights to the US is proof of.

A model TG A350, a rich violet TG tote bag… I’d really selected the very best things from the gift shop to show off! A spacious Toyota Alphard MPV arrived to whisk me off for the 15-minute ride to Changi Airport Terminal 1, my least favourite of the four terminals. (Fortunately, TG moved to the swanky Terminal 2, where most other Star Alliance members operate, in February 2025.)

Now I don’t particularly like Terminal One(world), as I’ve nicknamed it owing to the presence of so many premium lounges from the blue-circle alliance. But we can all agree that even the relatively staid décor of this terminal is leaps and bounds above the grey ugliness of Suvarnabhumi. All the more so since there’s just the one massive terminal at BKK, with hordes and hordes of big and small airlines from across Asia-Pacific, Europe and Africa jostling for space at those counters.

On my part, at the automated check-in kiosk, I printed the baggage tag for my one little baby-pink suitcase, and was off to the bag-drop machine thereafter.

Terminal One(world): less impressive than the other three — but still impressive

A dazzling Louis Vuitton store (also present at Terminal 3), alongside a Dior boutique by the viewing gallery, makes it clear that Changi makes no bones about its luxury credentials. But the row of bargain-basement Scoot aircraft gives the opposite impression, and exposes Terminal 1 for what it acrually is: an old place with a veneer of modernity!

There were quite a few ecletic arrivals from both big and small airlines: Shenzhen Airlines, Cambodia Airways, Batik Indonesia, Etihad, Vistara (RIP!), Cebu Pacific, Air New Zealand — which, like Star Alliance partner United, is one of the very few to serve SIN and not BKK.

Far many more airlines serve Bangkok without serving Singapore (like Uzbekistan Airways above) than the other way round, so NZ and UA, with their 10-hour-plus flights, are exceptions.

I popped by the retail stores without buying anything, instead heading straight to the food court upstairs.

At the food court, I settled for a burger combo at Popeyes, one of the few burger joints in Singapore that manages to provide some variety in its offerings while also being affordable.

And then I headed to Gate D42, where HS-THN, named Khiri Rat Nikhom, was ready and waiting. The sexy, sharp violet A350 gave me the same thrill that HS-THF — my first-ever A350 and Thai Airways plane — had given two years before, in June 2022! If only I’d gotten the same in Bengaluru earlier in August 2024, but…

An AirAsia A320, 9M-AQB in the General Electric livery, strolled past in the near distance, while an Air India Express legacy 737-800 (VT-AYD in the Nagaland Folk-Manipuri Dance livery) did the same in the opposite direction — all while A6-BMH, Etihad’s ‘Greenliner’ 787-10, rested nearby. I’ve seen that Etihad plane at both Bangkok and Jakarta previously.

I was elated to finally be able to step on the TG A350, after being denied three times before, earlier that month!

The flight: Boarding and departure

Flight: Thai Airways International TG404/THA404
Date: Saturday, 24 August 2024
Route: Singapore Changi (WSSS/SIN) to Bangkok Suvarnabhumi (VTBS/BKK)
Aircraft: HS-THN, Airbus A350-900, named Khiri Rat Nikhom — I’d get this plane again (twice on the same day!) on BLR–BKK–SIN on 26 November.
Age: 6 years 5 months at the time (built: 6 March 2018, delivered: 3 May 2018)
Seat: 55K (window, starboard side)
Boarding: 12:00pm SGT, UTC +8 (11:00am Indochina Time (ICT), UTC +7)
Departure: 12:20pm SGT (11:20am ICT)
Arrival: 1:30pm ICT (2:30pm SGT)
Duration: 2 hours 10 minutes

Notes:
• Fourth flight overall on the TG A350, the previous three all being in June 2022, with the first — also TG404 SIN–BKK, operated by HS-THF — being my first-ever flight on both Thai Airways and the Airbus A350. The other two were from Bangkok to Bengaluru, and later that month from BKK back to Singapore.
• First flight on HS-THN out of what would turn out to be three in 2024, with the other two coming in November, making this the second aircraft of any airline (after TG’s infamous 777-200ER, HS-TJW) on which I flew three times.

Ah, how nice it feels to see the Thai A350 cabin again!

After so many flights on the wretched 777-200ER, I’d almost forgotten just how nice TG’s A350 cabin interiors looked like, even though the seat fabric colours are much more muted than the ancient aircraft’s vibrant seats. I proceeded to 55K, my favourite seat on most airlines other than SQ and CX with their 70+ row numbers.

Waiting for me was the splendid purple welcome screen of Thai Airways’ A350, replete with Royal Orchids everywhere and — most importantly — an inset for the tail camera!!!

At this point I decided to have an imaginary conversation with the aircraft, assuming it to have the personality of a pretty girl called Khiri Nikhom. (I removed the Rat in between to make it a little easier to pronounce, but Khiri Rat Nikhom is a district of Surat Thani province in southern Thailand.)

Soon enough, the exotic, exuberant TG safety video was screened. ‘The Art of THAI Safety Onboard’, as it’s titled, is set in a lush rainforest with butterflies flitting all around and pretty girls in all manner of costumes. I’ve seen it several times, and, while nice and creative overall, it does not have the soothing effect that SQ’s tranquil video does, instead pitching you headfirst into constant chatter and lively music — though perhaps not to the extent of Malaysia Airlines’ over-the-top ‘Satu, Dua, Tiga, Jom’ dance routine!

I will note, though, that with Thai Airways the English subtitles correspond to the English audio portions, and similarly with the Thai subtitles and audio. That’s in contrast to Cathay Pacific, as I flew earlier that month — with a new safety video celebrating Hong Kong’s tourist sights — where English audio has Cantonese subtitles and vice-versa.

Oddly enough, the safety video’s final frame remained frozen for the next few minutes. I held the contents of the seat pocket, from the headphones packet to the duty-free magazine to the safety card to the Wi-Fi card, next to the ending screen with the all-important ‘A Star Alliance Member’ logo in the corner — something that SQ’s safety video strangely lacks, and neither does CX’s new safety video feature the Oneworld logo at the end. (Full resolution here.)

We taxied out past the Etihad ‘Greenliner’ 787-10, and my A350’s violet wingtip made for a gorgeous contrast with the fresh minty-green colours of A6-BMH.

Cultural entertainment for all passengers — during takeoff?!?!

Something rather strange and funny happened next. It was decided to screen a culinary video, ‘Taste of Thai Tales’, for all passengers after the safety demo was done, featuring a chef who’s cooked cuisine from all over Thailand. While the video itself was an eye-opener into the country’s rich culinary heritage, I must say that, despite their good efforts, the English — both in the subtitles and the narration — was awful. It goes to show how much Thailand needs to improve its English skills compared to other Southeast Asian countries.

Meanwhile the plane continued to hurtle towards the runway, and then… the A350 took off even while the video continued to play! This was exceptionally strange behaviour, as I’ve never seen, before or since, a case where a common video is shown for all passengers while a plane takes off. Needless to say, it was potentially dangerous — not to mention I wasn’t allowed to use the tail camera during departure, which is a bummer.

Anyway, after the culinary video ended, I proceeded to check out what I’d dearly been missing so long: my favourite tail camera. And then I continued my imaginary ‘conversation’ with the plane as she soared over the azure islands of eastern Malaysia!

Soon enough, the meal was rolled out. Wasawilai, the young woman serving the aisle, started reading out ‘Chicken in sweet-and-sour sauce…’ but I was too busy listening to my music to pay her any heed. I automatically replied ‘Chicken’, and a minute later asked her to repeat the dish. Chicken in sweet-and-sour sauce with egg fried rice, Wasawilai said, before flashing a big smile, giving a thumbs up and adding, ‘Very nice!’

I have to say, while TG’s catering from Indian stations leaves a bit to be desired — with their version of ‘Indian non-veg’ consisting of wrapping a single piece of chicken tikka in aluminium foil — that’s thankfully not the case for Southeast Asian routes, where TG beats SQ handily in the catering department. Coupled with the chicken pasta salad and brownie for a change, instead of the usual cut fruits on TG, I was soaring on cloud nine.

Then I tried to connect to the Wi-Fi, but I have never found that to work on Thai Airways, and this time was no exception at all. It did, however, show a preview of some random destinations: both big ones like Paris and Sydney, and smaller places like Agra (the home of the Taj Mahal), Kyoto and — astonishingly enough — Yangon, Myanmar. (To all people of Myanmar affected by the horrific earthquake on 28 March 2025, which killed over 2000 people, you have my deepest condolences.)

Here’s a bit of the entertainment selection, which isn’t much to write home about — especially (for me) given the lack of Indian content compared to SQ, CX or even MH. But I didn’t need it, really. Not with those spectacular views of the ocean, the carpet of clouds and the tail camera!

All too soon it was time for descent, and this time some ads were shown — something that I don’t recollect having seen on TG before. I’ve seen such pre-landing ads being screened on Vietnam Airlines, but otherwise most onboard ads I’ve seen are either when a programme starts or just after takeoff, as seen with Gulf Air.

Thailand Privilege has been advertising quite a bit lately, in my opinion, with the ads aimed at well-heeled expats with millions to blow. There was also Singha beer in a much more relaxed, beachy, pocket-friendly atmosphere as the A350 neared final approach to BKK.

Suvarnabhumi: Grandiose outside, ghettoish inside

The culinary video may have robbed me of the opportunity to do so during takeoff, but this time there was no way I wouldn’t capture the landing on the tail camera. In glorious HD resolution, the flamboyant violet and gold stripes made for the perfect accompaniment to a paper-smooth landing at ‘Swampy’ — as expats fittingly call Suvarnabhumi Airport.

After touchdown, HS-THN Khiri Rat Nikhom made her way slowly to the gate, bypassing a China Eastern A350 (B-324X) and coming to rest next to a company A350, HS-THZ — which I’d also seen tantalisingly close some weeks prior when boarding TG325 to BLR on the ancient aircraft. I stepped out of the plane, thinking that my TG A350 experience was over, but… well, the cabin crew would prove me delightfully wrong a few minutes later!

These were some of the arrivals at the time, including both a puny ATR 72 from Lao Airlines and the giant A380 from Qatar Airways and Emirates.

At the next gate stood 777-300ER HS-TKU, named Acharasobhit, which I’d flown from BKK to Singapore two weeks back, on 11 August — one of my few TG flights on neither the 777-200ER nor the A350, with another being 787-9 HS-TWB to Chennai, with its magical rainbow lighting, in December 2022.

Some more captions are below, as part of my imaginary talk with the A350 when disembarking.

I now reached the ugly grey arrivals corridors of BKK, and there would be no nice SAT-1 midfield concourse terminal this time. Instead there was a smörgåsbord of random Thai tourism pictures, a bunch of AIS and True/dtac SIM-card kiosks and an unending series of ads for beauty products and cosmetic treatments.

All of a sudden, I saw the cabin crew from my flight make their way towards the arrival and immigration area, and one of those girls noticed my Thai Airways T-shirt. She paused and said, ‘Hey, I like your T-shirt! Where did you get it from?’ or words of a similar kind. I replied, ‘Gift shop at Thai Airways headquarters.’ And then I proceeded to tell them a bit about always being short-changed with the 777-200ER and wanting to get the A350 for once.

In a trice, the Thai cabin crew were all over me, complimenting me, gushing at my passion for aviation and eventually handing me two TG A350-themed postcards and two pens — which I immediately asked them to sign, and they gladly obliged. They even took pictures with me, so excited were they!

I’d rather not post the picture of myself with the Thai Airways cabin crew directly in this report, out of respect for their privacy, but I’m linking to it here.

After each one of the cabin crew members had written their given name and the initial of their surname — and one of them, Cherry, had conveyed her thanks for my enthusiasm for flying TG — I added a few details of my own. I even juxtaposed my diecast model TG A350 plane next to the postcards for an extra-special touch. In that instant, an otherwise generic flight on Thai Airways turned into a defining, memorable moment in my travelling history.

As I proceeded to the immigration and arrivals corridors, I snapped at whatever I could, from the row of TG aicraft to visitors as varied as Vistara from Mumbai, El Al from Tel Aviv and Lao Airlines’ ATR 72 from Vientiane — the latter two of which are also not ‘rich’ enough to serve Changi.

From the ATR 72 (Lao Airlines and Bangkok Airways) to the mighty A380 (Emirates), BKK has it all! If only the airport’s interiors were half as good as the brilliant, marvellous, gorgeous or should I say supercalifragilisticexpialidcious Changi and HKG?!?!

Curiously, I spotted a Thai Airways A320 (HS-TXM) with the callsign 999, presumably on a test flight. The TG9xx series is otherwise used for flights to Europe, including Istanbul.

And the magic ends — now the gloom begins (but not for long!)

Once all the brouhaha and excitement over the postcards died down, I dragged myself to BKK’s immigration counters. I’m so tempted every time to take pictures of all the ads of the beauty products and treatments, but since it’s an immigration area, I dare not try!

Nothing much to say, except that this was the first (or second?) time I spotted the big-ass Star Alliance baggage assistance office, with standees for the troika of Lufthansa, Austrian and Swiss nearby.

No amount of randomly arranged artwork will ever convince me that Suvarnabhumi is, even remotely, a beautiful place. If you have to do artwork in an airport, Jakarta T3 (domestic and international) and Mumbai T2 do it so much better in their arrivals corridors.

After collecting my sole suitcase, which had been placed to the side of the luggage belts, I turned out into the customs area and took some more pictures of the postcards and the cabin crew’s compliments, along with an airsickness bag that I’d filched from the plane.

And now I headed to the Grab pick-up point, situated past the grey maze of chaotic passengers and drivers. A ten-minute wait later, my number was called and, instead of the standard Bangkok green-and-yellow Corolla Altis, an all-yellow Corolla Altis turned up.

This took me away from Suvarnabhumi, a place that’s as awful from the inside as it’s awesome from the outside — no doubt thanks to its impressive views of all the planes on the tarmac, including rows and rows of velvety violet TG planes.

A big ad for Bangkok Bank preceded another one for Thai noodles, and this one inexplicably had me drooling despite its simple and uncomplicated nature!

As always with the road out of Suvarnabhumi, the hoardings are divided among luxury shopping malls (in this case Central Embassy), Thailand Privilege promos and new Chinese EVs from the likes of GAC Aion, Denza and Omoda — not to mention endless female beauty products!

After passing the local office for Myanmar Airways International (as seen above), the surrounding cityscape got a lot more big-skyscraper-y, and eventually I entered the thick of the Bangkok urban jungle by entering the cheap but cheerful Anya Hotel in Nana, Sukhumvit.

You can see that the wheels had come off my model Thai Airways A350 plane — and I’d preserved them in a packet of refreshing wipes to prevent them from getting lost (something that almost always happens whenever I’m travelling)!

Part 2: SQ705 BKK–SIN, 25 August 2024, 9V-SHS

The following morning, I was up early — I needed to be, given that mine was the day’s first SQ departure from BKK — and among the A350s surrounding Changi were Turkish Airlines’ TC-LGF (a delayed departure for Istanbul as TK169, having arrived late from Melbourne) and mine, 9V-SHS. This continued a streak of not having repeating registrations on any SQ flight of mine, a streak that was only broken four SQ flights later in February 2025!

I packed up all the gifts that I’d bought from centralwOrld the previous day into my little pink suitcase — which I’ve now lost in Hong Kong during my March 2025 trip! — and checked out of the cute, cosy little room, bundling into another (red for a change) Corolla Altis.

The Grab car took me past a number of predominantly Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Arab restaurants and shops, before turning into some bigger thoroughfares — one of which had advertising for China Southern Airlines, which happens to be Asia’s biggest airline (but by no means its most reputed!).

I quickly looked up the menu, and this is something that I haven’t seen on anyone other than SQ and Emirates so far. It’s always good to know what kind of tasty meal — or grubby glop, as the case may be — you’re going to be served, well in advance of your flight. Suffice it to say that the ‘wet mee siam’ did not induce much confidence in my hungry appetite!

A few towering skyscrapers and the Audi Phetchaburi showroom later — not to mention a risqué, raunchy, sexy ad that sadly is the main reason why many Indian men go to Bangkok — the Grab finally hit the Suvarnabhumi highway.

A hoarding for Queen Sirikit and the tell-tale row of retired, never-to-fly-again TG aircraft were proof enough that I’d reached this dreary, grossly overrated airport again.

One terminal with a multitude of small and big airlines from near and far. That describes both HKG and BKK, but while HKG is an outstanding piece of architecture with exquisite scenery, BKK is an embarrassment to the people of Thailand — at least that’s my take.

Amid the maze of airline logos, it wasn’t hard to pick out SQ and its joke of a low-cost subsidiary, Scoot, and approach the appropriate bag-drop counters.

A giant statue of a Thai king and a horde of young and old travellers later, I could finally make my way upstairs to the most dreaded part of BKK: the security screening, where EVERY. SINGLE. ELECTRONIC. ITEM. MUST. BE. REMOVED.

At the immigration counters downstairs, I found it interesting that a Kazakh woman and her two sons were standing in line — and Air Astana’s swanky new A321LRs have no doubt made this route a reality. I think Air Astana is a truly underrated with a well above-par premium product. I digress.

The shorter you stay at this tourist trap, the more pleasant it is

Once past the (thankfully brief) passport control, I came face-to-face once again with the giant sculpture of the Amrit Manthan (churning of elixir) followed by a bevy of luxury brands. I couldn’t care less for the luxury quotient; few airports do it better than HKG (yes, even better than Changi, I say) — and instead I was more intrigued by the exotic aircraft, including F-OLRE, an Air Austral 777-300ER!

I’ll just briefly show some pictures of the retail area on the top floor, as I’ve been here several times now. I bought a (rather expensive) breakfast set from Dean & Deluca.

Again, Suvarnabhumi is never short of a wide variety of aircraft, though at this early-morning hour there weren’t as many non-East Asian planes.

Finally, after the retail maze and beside a Sky Angkor Airlines A321…

…I reached 9V-SHS, my A350, where it was already Final Call (as often happens to me at BKK!). The passengers, who were mostly seated, got up in a trice as soon as their number was called, while the Air Austral 777-300ER (F-OLRE) taxied past from behind as an Etihad 787-10 (A6-BMG) waited by next door. It may not have been memorable in any major way, but SQ is SQ, any day!

As I cheekily noted, the letters on the nosewheel door — HS — were the same as the aircraft registration prefix of Thailand, whose shores I was going to leave now!

The flight: Boarding and departure

Flight: Singapore Airlines SQ705/SIA705
Date: Sunday, 25 August 2024
Route: Bangkok Suvarnabhumi (VTBS/BKK) to Singapore Changi (WSSS/SIN)
Aircraft: 9V-SHS, Airbus A350-900 (regional configuration)
Age: 3 years 11 months at the time (built: 22 September 2020, delivered: 20 October 2020)
Seat: 67A (port side, window)
Boarding: 9:20am Indochina Time (ICT), UTC +7 (10:20am SGT, UTC +8)
Departure: 10:00am ICT (11:00am SGT)
Arrival: 12:58pm SGT (11:58am ICT)
Duration: 1 hour 58 minutes

Notes:
• Seventh unique A350 registration that I’ve flown on SQ, with all but one being on the 9V-SH series of regionally configured A350s. (That one, which was my first SQ A350, was 9V-SMF — the 10,000th Airbus aircraft ever built — which I flew in October 2022 on the short hop to Kuala Lumpur.)

• This flight continued a streak of not having any repeat registrations on any SQ flight that I’d taken. This was only broken in early February 2025 when sister-ship 9V-SHK did the honours for the irregularly scheduled early-morning SQ506 to Bengaluru, with me already having flown it a month before, on Christmas Day 2024, on SQ508.

My least noteworthy, most humdrum SQ flight ever?

As the Air Austral 777 taxied out in the background, I settled into my seat, which was for a change on the left side — 67A — instead of my favourite K-seat on the right. Soon enough the Etihad 787 pulled out as well, leaving an ANA 787-9 visible, as a Myanmar Airways International A320 (XY-ALT) landed.

As hot towels were being distributed, I could not help but observe, for the first time, that the ‘A Star Alliance Member’ text was bouncing around like the iconic DVD Video logo screensaver!

As long as I fly SQ, I will never stop taking pictures of the tiny little guy seated in his mother’s lap with that heart-meltingly beautiful smile of his. This baby and the two other small children — a little boy painting the exits on a plane; a little girl stepping into a raft — with their fathers are perhaps the single most endearing thing about SQ’s safety video, more than the Gardens by the Bay and all the other SG-specific wonders that have made SG the colossus that it is today. (No, SG does not stand for the ever-struggling Indian low-cost carrier SpiceJet.)

Eventually we proceeded to move out, with a China Airlines A330-300 next door.

SQ wouldn’t be SQ without some sort of luxury watch ad at the start of every KrisWorld programme!

Here’s some more of the roll-to-runway shots, including Boeings from ANA, Korean Air and a bit of KLM in the background — until the A350 eventually lifted off at the stroke of ten.

A modest flight made more musical

As always on SQ, I connected to the free Wi-Fi and located my plane on Flightradar24. The last two pictures are a hint as to my upcoming reports, involving Cambodia in November 2024: the Singapore Airlines 737 MAX to Phnom Penh, and the Qatar Airways 777-300ER on the fifth-freedom from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City!

Who needs to rehash everything when my captions did all the talking? From the screen glare to the absence of an onscreen menu (which I’d seen on previous flights from Hanoi and Mumbai), to the effect of the SQ321 incident on service, my thumbs were working busy.

And what to say of the catering itself? With all the greenwashing that SQ’s been doing, the fact that the more appealing of the two breakfast options — the vegetable frittata with chicken sausage and kidney beans — still managed to look like glop is honestly a shame for SQ’s sky-high brand standards. At least the taste was pretty good, even if the presentation wasn’t. I have to say, SQ does a much better job with breakfast on its India flights, which cross the 3.5-hour threshold and hence qualify for much better trays.

But if there’s one thing that you can’t fault SQ for (other than the service, of course), it’s the selection of entertainment. This time, with the flight duration too short for a movie, I instead went for the music selection — with Sia in particular getting the focus. A couple of her albums, This is Acting (of Cheap Thrills fame) and 1000 Forms of Fear (with the hauntingly beautiful Chandelier), caught my fancy, and I listened to the soft piano version of Chandelier for much of the rest of the flight.

Thereafter, though, it was party time with Camila Cabello and Ed Sheeran’s Bam Bam — and this would stay looping in my ears, even on the 15-minute bus ride from Changi to my home!

All too soon we had commenced descent over the ships of Singapore, and few sights scream ‘coming home’ more than this.

It felt as though 9V-SHS touched down at SIN — that code’s a horrible fit for one of the least sinful places on Earth — almost as soon as taking off from Bangkok, a far more ‘sinful’ place in my book!

Flightradar24 time again: not only the descent of this flight, but also other random aircraft in the vicinity — a Drukair A319, a Jetstar A321LR, a Vistara 787-9…

…and, a bit surprisingly, a Vietnam Airlines A350, which isn’t that common at Changi.

After leafing through the KrisShop magazine for a bit (not that there was anything better to read), I thanked the cabin crew — this flight was all too (pleasantly) forgettable, yet I still managed to note their names — and stepped off 9V-SHS and into Changi Terminal 3.

After catching a glimpse of a Myanmar National Airlines 737 and the above Chongqing Airlines A320neo, I was out of the terminal I am fortunate to call my home…

…but not out of the airport! Instead, I headed down a few levels to the basement food court, and tucked into a proper, cheap butter-chicken-and-naan set — something that far too many Singaporean restaurants have butchered in the name of so-called ‘Indian Muslim’ (actually Malay) food!

All I had to do was hop on the 36 bus that took me in 20 minutes from Changi Airport to my home on Marine Parade Road by the sea… and what better than the bouncy Bam Bam in A-flat major!

To finish, my journal entries and the TG A350 crew’s postcards to round off a one-night mission well and truly accomplished!