[Hess963]

Mark regarding your recent food service experiences from SIN to Australia with SQ are very disturbing. What–whether dinner or breakfast? What is going on here! I already comment this in an other thread that I flew in June 09 from SIN to SYD and I had both services. Alright the breakfast service consists of one croissant and jam, one slice of papaya and hot beverage which appalled me how cheap it was and the lack of choices. Now you are saying that you only get one food service for a 7-8 hours flight. What is this — SQ moving to a low cost carrier attitude? If it so–then SQ should at least inform the transiting pax in SIN to eat their dinner or similar in the lounge before their onward flight to Australia and that they only get one food service onboard. These informations and possibilities are essential for the pax’s s feeling of comfort and service expectations. I understand when a lot here are angry and felt fooled by SQ.

Now it is the food cuttings, apart from the diversities of business class seats and the untypical SQ service attitude( lack of smile, more robotic..) What is going on in SQ? Has SQ finally reached the zenith?

[MarcusUK]

Nigel, the NSW Manager for SQ, told me that there services for SIN -Australia, are now regarded as regional! Not for an overnight 8 hr flight as far as i am concerned!

Yes, one meal even if you book the cook, u get it breakfast or as you take off on the 00.30hrs down to Sydney.But they started this almost 2 yrs ago? I got off the flight very hungry & lots of hungry fellow passengers also. An un-waraneted cutback for the pitiful amount it will save, food was always one of the star elements on SQ, but no more!
You will also find the SQ Lounge in Changai T3, has lots of food labels, but most has run out or they done have it there!

[ChrisFreeman]

It would be a pleasant change if any editors reading the above would accurately set out the current standard of SQ service in their magazines.

[MarcusUK]

Yes Chris this indeed would be helpful.
BT did highlight changes to one refurbished 773 used on the 00.30hrs flight down to Sydney each day, prior to it coming into service.
Varying aircraft mean on the same route, you can have the old style Raffles (747), new Business (A380/773-ER), or the “regional Business seats, 773 /A333.
This seriously affects flights from SIN – SYD/ BNE/ PER/ ADL/ MEL.
Completely different cabins, space, comfort & sleeping capabilities.

However, I Don’t consider an overnight 8 hr flight to Australia as regional, & that configuration is as many have noted, unsuitable. I am avoiding, & would not pay a premium fare for that cabin, or ever use it down to Australia again.

[continentalclub]

Amongst frequent flyers themselves, there’s a tendency to attach a reputation to a carrier based on what’s often a very narrow field of experience – a few routes, a few aircraft types. It’s arguably made worse in the UK thanks to the proliferation of carriers’ flagship routes which touch down in London, and which therefore generate a high proportion of UK-reported experiences of those carriers.

The fact is, however, that many of these carriers employ extremely variable service standards on their other routes Worldwide – whether that’s in terms of the soft or the hard product – and yet those carriers’ evangelists often seem unaware of this.

So, quite apart from the practical implications of a single publication having the space to cover all the different service standards of even the main carriers on each of their routes, you also have a situation where a large contingent of the readership wouldn’t actually be all that keen on having their loyalties challenged, nor reading about routes they rarely, if ever, patronise.

Add all that together and a ‘Singapore Expose’ doesn’t strike me as a particularly commercial proposition.

That said, I personally think that the ‘blind’ reporting of (regularly unwarranted) reputations is fairly confined to the mainstream, non-specialist press. It seems to me that, for the most part, publications like BT are reasonably up-front in terms of reporting the service standards as they relate to a particular route – without implicit or explicit suggestion that it’s possible to extrapolate those service standards network-wide. Indeed, they’re the ones most likely to break news like (or remind of) the fact that SQ’s MAN-SIN service will no longer be non-stop from March 28 2010.

It must also be remembered, quite apart from frequent flyers’ own tendencies to laud, say, SQ based on quite limited experience of their routes, that flyers appreciate very different things. Once again, I was discussing with a friend the Virgin/NZ flipper seat the other night, in comparison to other carriers’ fully-reclining versions. He’s absolutely of the opinion that the VS/NZ product suits his preferences perfectly. I’m absolutely of the opinion that it does not suit mine. We’re both quite right, of course.

So, since SQ’s flights between SIN and Oz are often quite short overnighters, perhaps they have plenty of passenger research to suggest that a single meal service is appreciated to afford the greatest amount of sleep – like British Airways’ Sleeper Service.

Or, perhaps, it is indeed simple cost-cutting.

What’s incontrovertible is that Singapore Airlines themselves make no mention of some of their hard and soft product variations in any of their own publications – online or in hard copy. There again, why would they? As many have posted here, they compare unfavourably to their headline-grabbing flagship products.

That then is one of the significant benefits of this forum and others like it; not to bash a carrier, not to blindly laud one, but to extend the terms of reference of the publication and allow travellers on a wide number of routes to impart their experience. If individuals do so regularly and consistently, then other readers can effectively learn about other posters’ likes, dislikes, demands and needs, and align them with their own. Ultimately then, we can read their posts and instinctively know whether we personally are likely to react and respond similarly – and hopefully avoid the missed expectations like those experienced above.

Now, none of that’s to say that BT and others couldn’t expand their route coverage, nor even that they couldn’t commission a generic feature into at least hard product variations. I’d almost guarantee, however, that some of the carriers that would come out ‘best’ in such a comparison in terms of consistency, would be ones that often generate some of the most vehement negative postings here.

You can’t please ’em all!

[JonathanCohen09]

Continentalclub,

what an excellent well thought out post. Perhaps others will take note and apply some of your sound logic before they comment on the posts of other contributors.

Safe travels everyone,

Jonathan

[ffidrac]

Just had first hand experience of this thread. Putting on old – 2 generation ago Raffles seats – and calling it business is unworthy of SQ. What they have is a premium economy product which those of us unfortunate to have been booked on SQ 231/232 end up with, yet paying business fare.
But it also the little things which regular SQers now see missing – no satay appetiser, desserts which are ice cream, no nuts with predinner cocktail unless asked for, and even the attention to detail of FAs knowing your name is beginning to disappear.
SQ need to remember the phrase which many US airlines use when the plane has landed – thanking one for your custom in the knowledge that there are a choice of carriers.
Regarding the food, all they have to do is rephrase their menu – instead of making it an “or” selection, they just have to say “you may wish to choose a meal or breakfast depending on how much uninterrupted time you want on the flight”. Most seem to eat in the Silver Kris lounge before boarding and there was plenty both in quantity and choice – it is probably all about brand and how it is presented

[LPPSKrisflyer]

As an LPPS Krisflyer I can remember the days when SQ underpromised and overdelivered. Now it’s very much the other way round with overpromise and underdelivery. Seats are a matter of pot luck with so many variations particularly of business class seats that you really don’t know what you are buying. Catering has been cut for years with things being reduced little by little, less juice with breakfasts, fewer flights with satay, salads reduced in size and quality and if you don’t eat ice cream, no dessert whatever. Turning services from SIN to AUS into regional services is just a bad joke and it is a major cutback on all fronts.

At the same time fares have risen way beyond what is realistic in a time of global recession. Some of the new hard product – the seats in C on the A380 and the 77W are poor, far too wide to sit in comfortably are awful – if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then no other airline has introduced anything remotely similar which tells a story. Krisworld is improved but I’ve always thought that was more use to the masses in Y than anyone else.

I think SQ is now a falling star, others are far better but their corporate arrogance would never allow them to see it. I fly with them less and less. As someone who achieved LPPS status, you would think they might ask why but they never have. In some ways, that says it all.

[MarcusUK]

The SIN – SYD 747 has been replaced by an older 777-200ER!

Just looking to book down to Sydney into Feb/March, there is now one only A380 service a day, 1 x 773-ER (both with the 1-2-1 Business cabin), now also a refurbed 773 with regional seating, & an old 772 with Raffles class seating!
Sneaky.
Whats going on SQ?

I wont be booking when their are 3 differently dated cabins, with 4 different aircraft one one route…

[MarcusUK]

Looking today at the SQ services (In peak season) from SIN-SYD, it seems they have removed one aircraft a day now!

The 747 has disappeared, but so has the A380 on certain days.
On say Feb 14th 2010, there is only one 777-300ER, with the “new” business cabin & seats, the other 773 & older 772-ER have either the “Regional/old Raffles seats!

Clearly booking with SQ is a lottery now, cabins, seating & different services.

Sad to say, I am not going to book a flight on a worldwide flight, where the cabin changes, the seats are highly variable, & in fact, SQ are not being open & honest about this.
They continue to sell tickets, when you are buying into a business/First travel experience, that simply wont be on yr flight!

Perhaps BT could elicit some response from SQ on what why how when these un-announced changes are implimented?

In my view, this relegates SQ from its world class standard of the past…

[BusinessTraveller]

Business Traveller replies:

We’ve just published a detailed news piece which should clarify this situation. To read this please visit:

http://www.businesstraveller.com/sia-upgrades-singapore-sydney-flights

[MarcusUK]

Many Thanks BT, on the ball & adds much clarity.

However, having travelled in the 773 refurbished cabin in Sept 09, I would have to say it was not only a vast change to the ne cabins, but not as comfortable or suitable for overnight trips. The older Raffles was more suitable with softer higher seating, less noise, a better cabin design.

I would not choose to travel on their 777-300 services overnight.
I also think their offer of only one meal in 7-8 hrs to Sydney (Dinner or breakfast) is very poor, a minor cost saving to them, but has a great impact on their food standards, & reputation.
Its the rare time i have left a flight hungry, having had one meal in the 9 hrs i was aboard!

[ChrisFreeman]

Thanks BT.

Now, do an article comparing the overall QUALITY of SQ business class on the SYD-SIN route. Look at some of the above posts. There is more than confusion. It is more of a mutiny. What on earth is going on?

[cityprofessional]

Where did this one meal thing come from? If you choose a flight departing any time before c.11pm, you get 2 meals, that includes the flagship mid-evening SIN-SYD/MEL/BNE flights, and all of the daytime returning flights into SIN. The only “one meal flights” are the ones that depart at or after midnight, where they assume you’ve eaten in the lounge or on your connecting flight, and most probably want to sleep – what, do all of you normally have two meals between the hours of midnight and 7am?! It’s no different to BA’s sleeper service flights, or most airlines’ overnight flights between SE Asia and Japan or Korea

[tarisingh]

when I posted my original message about the “one meal” – it was really the fact that because I had chosen supper I was not even offered a cup of tea before landing – I wasn’t that bothered about something to eat but thought it was totally naff not to offer a beverage even – Have last week had a trip to India on Jet Airways , flight was only 8 hours (one hour less than Syd- SIN) was in economy, had two FANTASTIC hot meals and GENUINELY friendly staff – the way to go!

[Author]

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