SQ Premium Economy from Singapore to London

[yflyer]

I took a walk to the back of the plane. To my surprise, the Y cabin was not overbooked, or even full. Far from it. While there were a reasonable number of Y pax onboard, towards the rear of the plane there were a fair number of empty seats. And a few passengers had rows of 3 or 4 seats to themselves. It looks like at least in this introductory period, SQ is giving some passengers courtesy upgrades to PEY, which must be a first for SQ, given their usual approach of never giving upgrades unless overbooked.

I asked one of the cabin crew for a Y menu to compare this with PEY.



Y beverages…



Y supper…



Starters looked similar, but desserts were different in Y compared to PEY.

It looked as if the main courses were the almost the same: 3 choices of main course in Y. Essentially the same choices, although the descriptions were altered slightly, and the sequence changed. What was the point of that, I wondered. As if pax could not figure out they were the same in PEY/Y if the ordering of dishes in the menu were different…

Y breakfast…



For breakfast, there were only 2 choices, not three. If you wanted their signature carrot cake, you would only find it in PEY.

[yflyer]

Back in the PEY cabin, I requested eyeshades, which are available on request, and not part of the amenity kit.



The PEY aisle seats had an unusual feature: the armrest could be lowered.







This provided more space to rest, and also allow you to slide out of your seat even with the tray table lowered. That said, it was quite stiff to raise the seat back to its original location, and I had to get help from the cabin crew to raise it back afterwards.

Another quirk was the brightness and screen turn-off function on the IFE screen, which as I mentioned earlier, was not a touchscreen.



This menu could only be activated by touching an area below the screen (The spot to touch was sometimes illuminated by a blue light, other times there was no illumination). The blue spot is on below the screen in the photo below.



The slightly counterintuitive thing was that, once the blue spot under the screen was touched, there was no other touch screen capability. You had to then switch to the IFE controller and adjust brightness not by touching the screen but by using the controller arrow keys to select between the buttons, with the active button highlighted in green.



Not a major issue, obviously, but less than intuitive. I wonder how many people on the flight figured it out.

[yflyer]

I slept soundly for several hours before waking up about 4 and a half hours prior to landing.



I headed to the forward galley in search of snacks. There was a snack basket of different sandwiches, fruit, chips and chocolate.



My ham bun was moist and tasty.



But I felt like having more than that, and asked if there were noodles on board. Yes there were! I had noodles and coffee.



On this flight, requests for coffee in between meal service were served in takeaway-style cardboard cups, and not in the usual plastic cups and small trays.


There was just sufficient space on the tray table to use my MacBook even though the person in front had fully reclined his seat to rest.

[yflyer]

Two hours prior to landing, breakfast was served.



I ordered the carrot cake, which looked (and tasted) really good, and came with a tub of chilli sauce as well.



This was fairly authentic, and was not too far off from the hawker centre variety. It is not easy to find good carrot cake even in a Singapore hawker centre, so I was quite happy with how this one turned out. In fact, the portion of prawns was more generous that what you got in hawker centers. I am glad SQ takes our Singapore food heritage seriously.



There was also a choice of croissant or plain breadroll. The croissant was surprisingly fluffy.

[yflyer]

The entire flight was flown in darkness, and we landed just after 6am at Heathrow T2.



I have not talked a lot about cabin service on this flight – this is something I probably take for granted on SQ, as it is so consistently excellent from front cabin to back. All cabin crew were gracious, polite and professional, and every request was handled promptly and to the satisfaction of the passenger in question, as far as I could see and hear in my section of the cabin. Full marks to SQ once again in that department.

Our flight was one of the first to land that morning, touching down after 6am in the morning, so we missed the crush at UK border control. And with the fast track card, I breezed through in minutes.



It remains a very long walk from the gate in Heathrow T2 to the luggage claim, and there is another fairly lengthy trek from T2 International Arrivals (Pictured above) to the Heathrow Express train station to the city, but overall things went smoothly that morning, and I got into London that morning in no time at all.

Overall this was a great flight – I arrived feeling well rested, and very satisfied with my experience in SQ Premium Economy.

[yflyer]

PEY is definitely a step up from Y, and if you are flying on a long sector like SIN-LHR, or that marathon flight SYD-SIN-LHR, then you would want to consider PEY for a far more comfortable flight.

So PEY as a product does fill an important niche between Y and J/F, and is class of travel which I would recommend, and indeed consider for my own travel if the price was right.

But is SQ’s PEY the best that it can be? Let us turn the microscope on to specific aspects of the hard and soft product.

[yflyer]

Seat

The SQ PEY seat is very good. Overall, the seat is quite similar in space and comfort to what other carriers such as BA and LH offer in PEY.

BA, LH and SQ all state their PEY seat pitch to be 38”, and the cabin ambience in all these PEY cabins is similarly spacious and airy. QF’s PEY appears to have slightly longer seat pitch for some seats.

Going into specifics, the SQ seat is better than the LH seat in that every PEY seat on SQ has a fold-out thigh rest, whereas on LH, only the front row PEY seats do.

The SQ and LH seats are both on the firm side. The LH seat is fabric covered giving it a warm, homely feel, whereas the SQ leather seat felt more stylish and sports-car like.

Of the three, SQ, BA and LH, I marginally prefer the styling and softer cushioning of the new BA PEY seat, which I have tried on their 77W (It is also available on their A380). On the other hand, the BA thigh/footrest is not as good as SQ's. So overall, I would judge SQ's PEY seat to be marginally better than BA's. Note that if you are flying PEY on BA’s 744 (Which is occasionally deployed on BA's SIN-LHR route), this is their old PEY seat, which is a fairly dated/tired design.

My favourite PEY seat remains the Qantas PEY seat, which subjectively feels slightly wider (Although it is also advertised as 38" width), and also, subjectively speaking, seems to recline more.

Qantas PEY on the A380 is 2-3-2 on the upper deck. I’ve not seen the actual measurements, but subjectively speaking, my impression is that the QF PEY seat reclines a little more than the other PEY products here, which is also borne out by this photo from a previous TR.

For comparison, some pictures of other airlines' PEY seats:

LH PEY Seat on A380 Main Deck (Pic1 and Pic2)
BA PEY Seat on 77W (Pic1 and Pic2)
QF PEY Seat on A380 Upper Deck (Pic1 and Pic2)

In-Flight Entertainment

In terms of IFE, the SQ PEY screen is the best I have seen, better than many J screens on other airlines, in fact. Superior to the LH, QF and BA PEY screens in terms of size and picture quality. The Krisworld system itself is of course great, with a massive selection of programmes that can also hold it’s own against these other airlines.

In terms of internet access, LH provides a flat fee for unlimited access, whereas SQ’s charges vary. On the SQ 77WN, I believe this is also a flat fee for unlimited access, whereas on my SQ A380 flight, this was a very costly service based on data usage.

SQ also offers better headphones in PEY than both BA and LH.

[yflyer]

Catering

In terms of catering, there are major differences in approach across different carriers' PEY products.

QF PEY offers pre-take off drinks service, and LH offers pre-take off orange juice. On my flight, there was no pre-take-off drink service on SQ in PEY, but they did come round with champagne after take-off.

For BA PEY meals, you get the Y tray with starter and dessert, but a larger main course, and for some meals you get the BA J main course, which is good, but do note that the BA J main courses fairly basic compared to SQ J or QF J. You also get a real glass goblet to drink from on BA PEY.

On Lufthansa PEY, you get a special PEY meal tray, with ceramic bowls and a real glass and coffee cup, but the main course is the regular Y main in an aluminum casserole. Starters and dessert are also better on LH PEY than Y. You had two choices for the main meal, but no choice for breakfast.

On SQ you get the same Y tray (With a tablecloth added) with plastic bowls/cups and metal cutlery, but more choices of main (3 in the case of SIN-LHR) and also 3 choices for breakfast. Apart from a real stemless wineglass on the meal tray, the other cups used in PEY were plastic. The catering was very good, however it was hard to tell if the PEY mains were different from Y, but that may also be because SQ Y mains are excellent to begin with. SQ PEY desserts were also different from Y.

On balance, in terms of food quality SQ PEY is better than either LH or BA PEY. However LH provides ceramic bowls, cups and real glasses, as opposed to plastic, and in that respect LH comes out ahead.

QF’s PEY product is almost business-lite, with ceramic tableware, metal cutlery and a special menu, including main courses which could pass for J. Catering on QF PEY is far ahead of either SQ, LH or BA. (This was so the last time I flew QF PEY was 2 years ago. Not sure if the product is still the same today. If anyone has feedback on this, I would appreciate it.)

For comparison, here are some other airlines' PEY meals:

LH PEY Meal and Breakfast
BA PEY Meal and Breakfast
QF PEY (2013) Meal, and choice of either Hot Breakfast or Cold Breakfast

Cabin Service

SQ’s PEY cabin service was excellent. This is so for all classes I have travelled in previously on SQ, and certainly for J and Y. All I can say is that SQ PEY cabin service on my flight was top caliber, well up to the high expectations that passengers have for Singapore Airlines.

[yflyer]

Comparison with SQ Economy

Cabin ambience in PEY was far roomier and more spacious than Y. The SQ PEY seat is a definite improvement in comfort to Y – and for that alone, I would recommend PEY over Y if the price was right. The only caveat to that is I still feel that 3 or 4 empty Y seats is superior to a single PEY seat, so if I knew for sure this was a lightly loaded flight, I would stick to Y.

In terms of catering, you have many more choices on the menu in SQ PEY compared to Y.

The PEY dishes themselves were fairly similar to regular SQ Y catering in terms of quality and quantity, so there wasn't a big difference between PEY and Y that I could make out. That said, SQ Y catering is already quite excellent, so you aren’t being shortchanged either.

You get the same plastic tableware, cups and metal cutlery in PEY and Y. I found this slightly disappointing, and would have preferred ceramics and real glassware.

The PEY cabin is small, so you don’t have to wait long for your meals to be served. The BTC offerings in PEY looked very good, though, so if I were travelling PEY, I would seriously consider the BTC options.

Value for Money

A day before I set out on this trip, I called up SQ to see how much it would cost to upgrade my flexible Y (Booking class E, mind you, not an unrestricted Y ticket) to PEY…the nice contact center agent on the phone said, yes it was possible, but it would cost in the region of SGD1200 one way. That was too high for me.

How much of a premium would I be willing to pay for SQ’s PEY product as it is right now? Probably SGD300-350 one way on a 13 hour sector like SIN-LHR, and maybe SGD 200-250 for an 8 hour sector like SIN-SYD.

Others may be willing to pay more, and probably do pay more for PEY on SQ and other airlines, but in my case the amount I am willing to pay is probably on the low side because, as a frequent traveller in Y, I have probably mastered the art of survival in Y, and am usually quite comfortable in the “back of the bus”.

Wishlist

What would it take for me to pay more of a premium for PEY?

I would feel more comfortable forking over more cash for the upgrade to PEY if the seat reclined just a little more, and if there was slight more seat pitch.

I think that there is an opportunity to further differentiate the product from Y if the catering was dialed up a notch in terms of experience: I am thinking, ceramic bowls and main casseroles, and real glassware, and slightly better ingredients in the food.

These wishlist items are probably also what I think it would take for SQ’s PEY product to become a class leader.

[yflyer]

Overall impressions

Right now, my impression is that SQ now has a strong PEY product, which compares favourably, and can hold its own, against the likes of BA PEY and LH PEY. That said, it is not streets ahead of the competition either. I've not flown Qantas PEY recently, but when I did fly their product 2 years back, they were very impressive as well, almost J-like in some respects.

SQ PEY is a definite improvement over regular Economy, and significantly improves the travel experience -- on a long sector, you would get off the plane feeling much better rested than in regular Y.

I was also reminded of how good regular SQ economy class was. Seat and space aside, the contrast between Y and PEY on SQ wasn’t as stark as the contrast between PEY and Y on BA or LH, where the Y product is fairly basic in comparison to SQ’s very impressive Y offering.

Conclusion

A very good first iteration of premium economy for SQ, then. But one which I believe has room for for further enhancements, in order to become a best-in-class product and category leader, in the same way that SQ’s Business Class and Economy Class are seen by many as the leading products out there in their respective cabins.

Next Up

After London and Reading, I headed to Amsterdam on KLM Y, and then to Paris via Thalys high speed train, before heading back home, flying CDG-SIN on SQ A380 Y…more on that in the TR on the remainder of the trip, which can be found here!

Cheers for now!



...and thanks for reading!

[FN-GM]

No read it all as I am running short on time, but good job! The pictures are great. Thanks for the time and effort.

[9V-JKL]

Thanks for sharing.
I had a feeling you might be the 1st person to write a SQ PEY TR here and sure enough.

[9V-SIA]

Thanks for the first PEY TR.

Enjoyable and informative.

Love LHR T2!

Great pictures.

[fone]

Very nice review. I was recently on EVA Air Elite Class (premium economy), which was not bad. Just interested to know how it compares with SQ's premium economy. Being the newer product, SQ wins in many areas.

SQ has better service and probably food offerings (at least I had to provide my own instant noodles on EVA). IFE is better on SQ too (bigger screen, better selections). Storage wise, SQ wins, with plenty of storage and USB plugs, while EVA only have the front pocket. Not too sure if this is illusion, but the EVA elite class seems to be wider, as the seat back increase in width over the armrests.

[sabian]

Hi yflyer





What are those black specks in the grooves and recessed area of the seat?