Review of Singapore Airlines flight from Melbourne to Singapore in Economy

Introduction

Hello all and welcome to my first Flight Report!

I've been quite excited to start sharing my flight experiences with you all, so let's get straight into it!.

This series will cover my trip from Melbourne, Australia as my wife and I head off for a big UK & Ireland trip for my brother's wedding. The flights will be predominantly operated by Singapore Airlines between Australia and the UK, with two other carriers for short hops around. 
In terms of booking flights between Australia and Europe, there are plenty of choices, however, none of which are very cheap. Most carriers were offering return tickets of a minimum of $2000 AUD return and we were tossing up whether to fly with Emirates, Qatar or Singapore. In the end we opted for SQ as I found a handy credit card deal which fast tracked my Krisflyer status to Krisflyer Elite Gold, giving us lounge access along with other benefits to make the journey that bit more comfortable.

Before I start I would also just like to apologise for the low amount of photos within this series. I have to admit, as someone who doesn't like to take many photos in general, taking photos in a public place like this where everyone was staring at you, wondering what your doing was rather daunting. My number of photos do improve as the series goes on I promise but seriously kudos to all of you who are taking 50, 60+ photos for these flight reports!

Check-in & Terminal 2

We arrived at Melbourne Airport at roughly 8:45 PM (2 hours 45 mins before departure) to what was a relatively quiet terminal as we had arrived at the end of the evening rush. The departure drop off area is always rather hectic in Melbourne regardless of the time of day as there are constant roadworks and simply a poor terminal layout. The departure drop off includes all of terminals 1-3 (Qantas, Internationals & Virgin) and the traffic is always bad so I would definitely recommend leaving extra time when travelling to MEL. 

Once we were inside terminal 2 it became a lot more peaceful and quiet as the last late night international departures were in the process of checking in. We headed over to check-in area E where SQ was located.

Having already checked in online, check-in was a breeze as we simply had to print our boarding passes and bag tags from the automatic counters that SQ use at MEL. There was no wait time at all so we didn't even bother using the priority check-in lane. Within 5 minutes of arriving at the airport we had sent our bags off to LHR!

We headed off to security right after in which we had fast track access thanks to my new found Gold status with SQ. Security in MEL is all automated and we were through without any wait. I took a peak at the none fast track line and it looked very short as well, maybe a 2-3 minute wait at the most. Once through security we entered the obligatory duty free maze.

One thing I will say about the duty free mazes in Australia is that they really do work. Thanks to our exorbitant tax prices on alcohol (and the fact that Aussies like a good drink too) the duty free section is often very crowded. And I must admit I am often a sucker for these deals as well, however not this time, I had my eyes on a much higher prize of some good Scotch straight from Scotland itself. 

SilverKris Lounge

In terms of the international terminal at MEL there is really very little to do. It does have some good viewing areas, however it was night and the majority of traffic had already finished. As a result we decided to head to the lounge right away. After reading a number of reviews on the SilverKris lounge at Melbourne and seeing that it was rather average I had been hoping to try the Air New Zealand lounge which has impressive reviews, I was disappointed to find that this closed at 7:00 PM. So it was the SilverKris lounge for us.

All lounges at Melbourne Airport, except I believe the Qantas First Class lounge are on the bottom floor. Meaning there is no view whatsoever of the tarmac, an Avgeeks worst nightmare. 

The entrance to the lounges are easy enough to find and are well sign posted. We reached the bottom floor and were met by a lovely looking SilverKris Lounge entrance.

We were greeted very warmly upon arrival and directed through to the lounge upon a quick inspection of our boarding passes. The SilverKris Lounge is usually reserved for Business class and First Class passengers only, however, due to it being the only SQ lounge available in MEL Gold status members were also invited.

The lounge itself was nice enough, however was very small and crowded and this wasn't even at peak times. 

There was a decent buffet-style food offering and a self-service bar on offer. I was not very hungry at the time and knowing I was about to eat on the flight I opted to just have a beer while we waited.

There were also a shower on offer for those who felt like they needed to refresh.

The staff in the lounge were very friendly and helpful and really I have no complaints of this lounge except that it was small and can imagine it could get very crowded during the peak of the day.

The Flight - SQ218

We decided to leave the lounge a bit earlier and stretch our legs a bit before the flight. Our gate was maybe a 10 minute walk from the lounge and I also wanted to do a bit of plane spotting along the way.

Melbourne airport has these cool painted pandas along the way to the terminal extension which adds a bit of fun to the airport.

Some aircraft I saw along the way to the gate…

A Jetstar A321 NEO, finished up for the night.

Malaysia Airlines A330-300 heading off to Kuala Lumpur. This flight is now operated by an A330-900.

And to the left a Thai Airways A350-900 on its way to Bangkok.

And finally our aircraft, 9V-SMK, an 8 year old A350-900.

The aircraft was fitted in a 3 class format. 42 Business, 24 Premium Economy and 187 Economy seats.

The Economy cabin is fitted with Safran Z300 seats in a 3-3-3 layout.

There were 5 bathrooms shared between economy and premium economy, allocating about 42 passengers per bathroom.

Boarding was on time for our flight and I quickly settled into my middle seat, 51J. The seat was very nice with plenty of legroom. It offered a large and clear entertainment screen, phone and tablet charging, a coat hook, foldable try table and a drink holder. 

We were also provided with a very comfy blanket and pillow on our seats.

We pushed back on time and taxied past the Emirates A380 that had just arrived from Dubai.

As we were taxiing hot-towels were distributed to all passengers. This is still a very nice touch in economy and not something I am used to in Australia.

We shortly took off which went very smoothly and meal service followed shortly afterwards. There were three mains on offer today which I'm not sure if that is very common in economy anymore? Certainly none of my recent flights have had 3 mains on offer. The menu for the flight was available through the SQ app 8 days before departure and available in flight through the SQ portal if you connected to the wifi, which I did not for this flight.

I opted for the Braised Beef this time which I accompanied with a red wine (I cannot for the life of me remember what bottle I had). The beef was good and tender, however the appetiser was not my favourite. I'm just not a huge fan of smoked salmon unless it's done really well, particularly on an aircraft.

After dinner I perused through the entertainment offerings. I had saved my favourites to the app before the flight which is supposed to connect to your seatback screen when connected, however I could not get this working on this flight, let alone any of my flights.
Despite this SQ offer a good selection of movies, tv shows and music. I did not take any photos of the offerings on any of my flights. Completely slipped my mind! 

Since this was such a late flight I decided to try get some sleep. I slept for roughly 4 hours before being woken by the snack service/breakfast being prepared. I was hungry again and with only an hour to go in the flight I decided to try wake up a bit.

SQ offers just a small snack for this second service and I opted for the chicken and veggie pastie. I had a coffee along side this as well to try wake up.

The pastie was good and the coffee was…well…aircraft coffee so what can I really say. We had now started our descent and we got some good views of some cities and a distant storm as we approached.

We shortly touched down into a humid Singapore almost 40 mins early and the windows fogged up immediately taking away any further plane spotting and photographing opportunities. 

De-boarding went quickly and before long we were in the familiar carpeted Singapore Changi Terminals awaiting our next flight.

I shall leave you here as we begin our stopover in Singapore. Thanks heaps for reading and hope you all enjoyed it!

A quick view of the days route….