Review of Singapore Airlines flight Zurich → Singapore in Business

This is the translation of a report I did on a flight in business class with what is in my opinion the best airline in the world. Singapore Airlines.

I took this flight with Lagentsecret who will be my teammate in reporting this memorable 12 hour 20 minute flight!

Having arrived from IST via VIE and after a refreshing night with a lovely AirBNB host, we were ready at 6 AM to tackle this eventful day! We took the bus to the terminal which we found not exactly user friendly with confusing signs to hall No. 2 where SQ operates out of. Eventually we find the right check in area which is impressive when you see the number of desks SQ has!


The check in agent is very nice and we get our boarding passes 5 minutes later and she will direct us to the LX lounge which we weren’t too enthusiastic about having read several reviews about it

The corridors are not very appealing as there are some renovations going on


There is a fast track for premium pax but given the low amount of passengers this morning it is not really useful


Following the security checkpoint the terminal becomes abit more pleasant


Number_2 knows this airport pretty well, it’s almost his homebase you could say :)


The SEN lounge is nothing to write home about and it’s quite small and dark, we will not be staying here too long


The food on offer is average at best but at least the coffee is decent


My meager selection


After less than 20 minutes we decide to part with this depressing place and head to the E gates where the panorama lounge is said to be ideal for spotters like us


But before hand Lagentsecret advises me to check out the bar upstairs which is said to be really long


As a model collector I am appalled by what LX tries to pass for A330’s


Passport control before taking the train to E gates which is much more pleasant but it makes photo taking hard because of the structure of the terminal and pillars everywhere. But I am hoping it will be better upstairs with the patio… Except that it is closed until May :(

Well, let’s try from inside anyways with this QR 788


And LX


The food on offer here is very slightly better than in the SEN lounge but at least it’s more spacious and there’s natural light


A332 Edelweiss


Check mate for this skyteam lone star


If I were to fly the 787, EY would be one of my first choices


Our huge bird getting ready for the short hop back to SIN, 9V-SKP, the 5th newest A380 for SQ (9V-SKT being the latest)


This lounge is used by a lot of patrons, no wonder it’s bigger than the other


Frustrated by the lack of clean spotting we decide to try and go downstairs again, we will leave our carry ons with the agents manning the front desk.


LX


EY


This plane is truly magnificent


A343 LX


Our whale


76W UA


QR


This café has better food on offer than our premium lounge


We try nevertheless to find decent viewing angles


TG


Edelweiss


DL


EY


Germanwings departing, couldn’t read the reg.


UA is leaving us


I am surprised that TG sends an A346 to ZRH with a much lower product quality than its A380


UA departs


LX also


Special delivery for 96A! My Book the Cook masterpiece


We find abit to eat before the flight, bearing in mind we should save room for the SQ goodness on board :)


My selection


An A330 pushes back


BA in the background


Another A330 pushes back


EZYjet arrives


BPs and stamps


After about an hour and a half we leave this dreaded place with excitement knowing we are about to embark on an awesome 13 hour flight with the SQ girls! (and boys)


Lagentsecret easily identifies our Suites neighbors but I do not dare photograph them, I’ve got more interesting specimens to photograph on board!

This plane isn’t easy to photograph but the jetbridges have windows which makes it abit easier


An A340 next door plays abit shy


Yes we arecoming!


My suite is waiting for me at the back ^^


TK which doesn’t interest me at this point in time, I’ve got bigger fish to fry!


Awesome welcome, with a big smile by Hoon, the chief stewardess of the business class cabin, Hoon who will gracefully lead me to my seat (and subsequent personal SQ Girl for the remainder of the flight)


Excellent first impressions with a minor imperfection, the stain cannot be removed which is why the crew placed a coaster over it.


The back of the upper deck with the staircase


Welcome drink, Tattinger of course !


Cheers !


Boarding is slowly proceeding but at the back everything is calm which is why I chose this seat along with Lagentsecret. It is well known that people prefer to sit up front which will benefit us as the last cabin will mostly remain empty, and as the crew is split into sections, our flight attendants will be much more available to cater to our every needs and desires.

There is however one drawback to seats 96A and K. Because of the curvature of the plane these seats are narrower than the others, just like rows 11 and 12. It’s not a problem when you are sitting but if you are tall, the bed is approximately 17% narrower than other seats. Thankfully for us, the pai 96D and F will remain free thus we will be able to use these as beds.


Oshibori which was piping hot just the way I like them. There will be many on this flight, at least half a dozen.


Yours truly!


Jaclyn who will be in charge of our section throughout the flight will turn out to be perfect in every way possible, very charming, sociable, and eager to please and the festivities begin right after boarding when she accepts with great pleasure to pose with me! As a fair warning this is not the last time she will be pictured in this report! Hehe! Also just to clear things up, my arm is hanging from the ledge of my suite lol, I am not actually touching her (though I would not have minded ^^ )


Your two humble servants :)


Following this fun introduction which will set the tone for what will be a most memorable flight, doors are locked armed and cross checked, push back is on time (or at least I think so, I have to confess this wasn’t my biggest concern at this point haha) ^^


Another added bonus, because of strong headwinds, this flight which on average takes 11.5 hours will be longer by almost 1 full hour! Another reason to celebrate!


Lining up with the Runway


We will wait a couple minutes, point at which I notice a couple of security vehicles behind us and I am wondering if they are here to make sure we get off safely?


Some narrow bodies land in the meantime


And off we go! (Video to be published shortly)


The A380 is not the best looking bird flying around but it is one graceful one on takeoff with the divided ailerons providing more accuracy in turns etc


Bye bye Kloten!


Esteban’s smurf left behind


Leftwards bound


ZRH under the cloud layer


It’s already much more pleasant up here


The middle seats will remain empty which will increase our comfort by a lot of points! It will negate the narrowness of the side seats plus it provides easy access to our carry ons


Post departure drink – Tattinger served with packaged nuts which is abit disappointing knowing that out of SIN they are served warm in a dish.


Bubbles submitted to gravity altitude ^^


Jaclyn pampering 007


First round of Satays. Jaclyn explained to me that they are loaded in SIN, blast frozen and then reheated for the leg back from ZRH which is why they are not offered on the inbound leg, also due to the late departing hour


Jaclyn poses for me again along with a fine bottle of bubbly she’s so charming!


Luxury at its finest


Not being able to contain myself I will gladly accept 4 more Satay skewers…


… Followed by another 3… If every skewer weighed in at 50 grams, I ate half a kilo of meat before lunch even began!


In order to burn some calories before lunch starts an hour later I will take a short stroll across the cabin, you can see here how intimate the cabin feels, which is in a league of its own where Best & Beyond has no room to speak ;)


View from 91A


Then 19A


The Suites are well protected


The most spacious lavatories on SQ’s fleet, very intimate and comfortable


When I come out, lunch service has already started and I notice a merry couple seated where I was seated with my wife back in November.


Cheese board and fruits for after the mains


Which is making me hungry


Back to my den and noticing that 007 has already been served his starter, he will not notice me lurking about as he was probably focusing on a nice piece from Dire Straits as well as producing excellent FR work ;)


Our galley empty at the moment


Sorry bud, you can’t go down there!


The lovely cheeseboards


What can I say about the service? Completely personalized, you are served when you are ready, at your leisure, it’s almost as if the crew had a cam on every seat to detect when you would be ready for the next course. I’ve never flown First Class before but I wonder what extras there may be to fly there.


Here comes the appetizer: Parma ham with roast vegetables-orzo pasta salad


Garlic bread


Appetizer without flash


With flash


The tray, I mean the table sorry ^^


For intermission I will take a SilverKris Sling


At this point a SQ Boy pops in from behind and starts chatting with me querying about service levels, I tell him my honest opinion and then I explain to him that me and my friend opposite from me write reports on flights we take and I mention Flight-Report to him, he seems quite interested and asks me to hold on for a couple minutes, he pops back a few minutes later with a flute of Dom from Sweets class!

What a nice touch, James will also get one


About 3 minutes following this little masquerade, my main is served, I heard chosen a grilled filet of beef despite knowing that the chances of it being overcooked were extremely high, nevertheless I wanted to give SQ the benefit of the doubt and boy was I in for a treat! I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.


Visually speaking it’s extremely appealing and several leagues ahead of what European airlines could offer. Apparently Gate Gourmet handles catering for SQ ex ZRH which explains the high quality of the products.


Throning as the master, my glass of Dom


I was really surprised by the sheer size of this piece of meat, I would guess 12 oz minimum which takes me 750g of meat since we took off!


Grilled to perfection


The meat is well cooked, pink in the middle, I would’ve preferred it slightly pinker but this was still an excellent result in my opinion.


Well how did it taste? Excellent! The meat was juicy and tender and very qualitative overall, it’s been a long time since I enjoyed a piece of steak this much. The tomatoes were very juicy and flavorful too. Having this meal coupled with Jaclyn who was monitoring my progress and almost cheerleading with with glasses of water to wash everything down…


The view outside was no less epic than the contents of my dinner table, were flying East towards Georgia at this point


I was starting to feel very full at this point…


The bread was also quite tasty


Eventually I end triumphant, I beg 10 minutes relapse before the cheese course. Jaclyn says ok :) Whew! At this point I’m pretty sure Mr. Bon was finished with his second entree.


Dessert: White chocolate and passion fruit crémeux, delicious but at this point in time I was pretty much ready to call it quits !


And apparently my eyes were also bigger than my liver LOL


Baileys to digest… Heavenly!


The very qualitative headset


After a few clouds the scenery outside is no less spectacular


Flying over Caucasus


I wasn’t on the right side to spot it but thankfully 007 saw Mt. Ararat which was awesome! Please refer to his report to see it :)


Following Armenia we flew over Azerbaijan


With gorgeous snowcapped mountains


Let’s not forget the winglet :)


The sun was starting to set above the Caspian Sea


Here’s a comparison shot of the beds between 96A & D


007 is working hard


My seat


The little separation between rows 95 & 96. Please note that the cabin is very much cooler at the back, by at least 5 degrees I would say , the change occurs somewhere by row 93 so if you get cold easily, either double/triple up on blankets or choose a row in front of 93. It feels pretty funky when you’re walking around.


Other cabin views


Nightfall is imminent


The pitch


Our current route


Here’s a little sunset timelapse :)


It is now dark


The moving map had a slight bug in that it showed nightfall 1 hour earlier than reality.

Time for a little movie, I choose something easy on the brain at this point and choose the Internship with Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell and Co. As soon as my screen turned on Jaclyn popped in front of me ans asked me if I’d like some munchies or a drink, I asked for a hot chocolate as I am still VERY full. 5 minutes later she came with it and boy was it delicious!


We will chat for about 30 minutes and she will talk to me about Singapore where she comes from and how she loves her country, she will ask me questions about our travel plans and several times actually she will come chat to me, very naturally she did it and you could really tell she loves her job.

Then I tried to sleep abit but it’s hard when you’re on a day flight and I’ll give up 2 hours later after dozing off lightly.

We are here


2:30 prior to arrival the mood lighting is kicked off very gently which was very pleasing to the eyes. The crew sprang into action


007 patiently waiting for his breakfast. In between meals he had a couple of tasty light bites which you can see in his FR


The seat upright


Jaclyn took my drink order and I chose a fruit spritzer with sprite and apple juice.


In the meantime I ask her for a bit more time to wait before breakfast to which she agrees and heads off to serve James who was anxiously waiting for his BTC :)


And she was not the only one serving him :)


Here is the menu


The mood lighting is set individually per cabin and as such ours was turned off after the passengers who were awake had their breakfast


1 hour later I surrender to Jaclyn’s enthusiasm and accept my breakfast following a photo of yours truly :)


Fresh fruit


Espresso


The croissant wasn’t bad, better than the ones on the ground in Zurich


My table


And here is my choice, Book The Cook : Swiss Roesti with Balik Salmon


When I saw the plate it was as if my stomach gradually grew by enough room to eat this (and believe me when I say that my stomach really doesn’t need to get any bigger!)

Boy was it delicious, the potatoes were crunchy on the outside and warm and fluffy inside, the salmon was tender, fresh and it just melted in your mouth… I would’ve almost been willing to eat a second plateful!


A Grand Slam for Zurich’s Book the Cook stations, well done!


At this point in the flight I realize that it is nearing completion which made me sad. For me, one of the best, if not THE best flight experience in my life. Hoping to extend this feeling abit I decide to go to the back galley and do some photos with the crew who cheerfully accept. Moreover they suggest photos with different groups of crew and even Hoon the chief stewardess will pose with me which I was very happy about!


I don’t think I will ever forget Jaclyn’s smile ^^


These guys were also super cool, Lim Jian on the left will seize the opportunity to promote SQ’s new slogan: The 6th Star campagin : S’pick and span : From take off ‘til we land’


With Hoon & Jaclyn


Jacklyn & her fingers


We have almost arrived, on time if I remember


Our whale jet following disembarkation, fresh as a spring chicken


A 772


Thanks 9V-SKP, you were great !


END