Singapore Airlines 747 service to LHR – The end of an era (LGW-CPH-LHR-SIN-ICN)

[SQ LPP]

Nice pictures indeed, and thanks for sharing your experience stargold.

Thanks for the pictures, stargold.
It will indeed be very sad to see the MEGATOP leaving SQ fleet.

The first quote is from post #14.
The second quote is the latest one post #30.
But the last pictures collection was posted by SQTalker.
I am confused now.
Anyhow, thank you for both stargold and SQTalker for posting wonderful pictures of 744 front nose section. It will always be a wonderful memory.

[StarG]

The first quote is from post #14.
The second quote is the latest one post #30.
But the last pictures collection was posted by SQTalker.
I am confused now.
Anyhow, thank you for both stargold and SQTalker for posting wonderful pictures of 744 front nose section. It will always be a wonderful memory.

Oops... indeed I meant SQTalker for my second post.
Perhaps you are not the only one that's getting old, SQ LPP.

Anyway, thanks to both of you for the nice pictures, stargold & SQTalker.

[Nick C]

Great TR stargold!

[wsssaero]

Thanks for the TR. You're really lucky to get a cockpit visit. My only regret now is not having seen the upper deck on my last 744 flight. Could have kicked myself for forgetting to ask.

[stargold]

I'm so, so sorry that it has taken me so long to reply to the very nice compliments. I had to find a new home for the photos since receiving a bill from the hosting company for the extra bandwidth used - it has used 80GB of bandwidth since uploading these photos I knew that replying to the threads would make it worse because it would keep bumping up the thread and more and more people opening the photos.

Anyhow, hopefully better than never -

Firstly, thank you for all the wonderful comments. It really keeps me motivated to strive for better quality each time. And I will be uploading the trip report for the return portion in the next few days or so (hopefully) with my adventures in NH F. Keep tuned!

I was right behind you in 22H! Thanks for the TR. Did you notice the lady in the dark suit supervising the crew and occasionally helping out? I guessed she was either a trainer or performing a spot check.

Yes, I noticed her too - she was the one that took the picture of me and the IFS/LS/LSS. I thought at first she was an F passenger since she took off in seat 3C, but suspecting she might be the dreaded IFA, I asked Kelvin who she was and he told me she was the IFA.

I can't believe we missed each other on the same flight!! It's a shame we didn't manage to say hello. Next time, perhaps!

Any chance i can get a copy of that last photo of the ships around Singapore...... it will help explain to my boss why our company's order intake has dropped off the planet in the last couple of months

Drop me a PM with your email address and I'll send you a copy

Crikey, they must be having a blitz on LHR then!. You flew last Friday, right ?. I flew SQ319 day before and we had an IFA as well !!.

I wondered that too - I don't think I've seen an IFA on any flight before until this one. Again, shame we missed each other by one day - would have been good to get a little SQTalk trio in the cabin!

Wonderful report, stargold! You look really tired in the pics Looking forward to the next installment.

Well, I didn't sleep properly for the 3 preceding days so I'm more surprised that I didn't just drop dead! You must be looking forward to your Suites experience, btw!

What camera?

Actually it's a really cheap one I bought on ebay. Canon A570IS - it cost me £55 which is basically nothing, so I'm very pleased with it (and it does excellent video too!)

[SQFAN]

Thanks SQTalker for the cockpit pictures.

[stargold]

Thanks SQTalker for the cockpit pictures.

Oh, yes, I forgot to say also thanks to SQTalker for the (much better quality than mine) pictures! I wish I had a better camera with a proper wide-angle lens to capture the aircraft better

[stargold]

Truthfully, I have no idea why I left this one so late - as if it was a whole bundle of fun and adventure worth waiting for. This was probably one of the least interesting flights I've taken, due to the fact that I slept more or less the entire way without even eating the meal and I am already very familiar with the OZ C product. I hadn't slept properly for the previous 4 days or so, which guaranteed that I would collapse as soon as the aircraft reached cruising height.

Anyhow, hope it still makes for a decent reading and I can tell you now, my next flights were much more exciting!

========================

Once I disembarked from the SQ 747, almost tears in my eyes, I headed to the Transfer counters in Terminal 1 in order to obtain my OZ boarding pass, so that I can take a shower in the SQ Silver Kris lounge in T3. However, due to some problem to my ticket (apparently), the agent was unable to give me a boarding pass for the OZ flight. I told him I needed a boarding pass in order to use the shower in the T3 lounge, but he said it should be no problems - just explain what happened.

But no, this is SQ we're talking about, famous for being incredibly inflexible to the point of infuriating, especially on the ground. I schlepped dutifully with my heavy laptop bag back to Terminal 3 where, after reaching the Silver Kris lounge, the entry dragons treated me like some scum trying to scam access into the inner sanctum of utter luxury and tranquility (trust me, had I not been so desperate for a shower, I wouldn't have even looked at it as I walked past). Showing them my inbound SQ F boarding pass was no use - they said "Need departure boarding pass, otherwise no entry" and kept repeating it regardless of what I said about the problems getting my boarding pass at the Transfer desk.

Finally, after some phonecalls to the OZ airport office by the chief dragon who appeared to see what the fuss was about, I was finally allowed access to the lounge for my damned shower after some 30 minutes of fighting for access. If I had known it would take this long to obtain access then I really wouldn't have bothered - but this was a typical "waiting for a bus" problem. The more you wait, the more time you have invested towards waiting so the more you stand to lose by giving up, even though you would probably have walked had you realised at the beginning that it would take that long.

I must admit, the moment the hot water hit my back in the - admitttedly quite nice - shower in the T3 Business Class Silver Kris lounge (again, inbound F boarding pass did nothing), I momentarily forgot all about the stress of fighting for access and just enjoyed the hot water for a while. After all that was done, I walked out of the lounge again, giving a forced smile to the script robots at the entrance and made my way to the immigrations and baggage claim.

Of course, since so much time had passed from the time of arrival of my flight, the belt was no longer running for my flight and I made my way to the lost and found office where the staff took some 10 minutes to retrieve my luggage. After that, I went out of the customs into the arrivals hall and looked for the left luggage office since I did not want to carry around my laptop bag all around Singapore with me. The weather was already quite horrific in terms of temperature and humidity to make me sweat buckets without needing the help of a 7kg laptop carry-on to make me sweat some more.

Left luggage was so much cheaper than London that it almost made me wince - it was literally 1/10 of the London price to leave the two items for the same duration, although in this case I was collecting it just 6 hours or so later. I gave them everything I didn't need in Singapore and then made my way to the MRT which one of my friend's dad successfully convinced me to try. This turned out to be a mistake as it was quite crowded and I gave up my seat for an old woman and stood for 25 minutes. Should have just taken the taxi in hindsight...

I met up with my FT friend IPLawyer who I had emailed the previous day my desires to try out some huge prawns and scallops. I would have been perfectly happy with some hawker food stall type affair, but he had reserved a very nice Chinese restaurant at Chijmes (pronounced "Chimes" - why must they bastardise the spelling??). We had the following dishes:




Drunken prawns - they prepare this fresh from live prawns flambéed with some liqueur and then set alight to the prawns again once on the plate, which burns off some more alcohol with yellow flames. Very cool to watch, and very tasty!


Razor clams - meaty and a really good sauce



Scallop and mushroom - the scallop was good enough to not make me feel shortchanged had I collapsed and died there and then



Noodles with huge prawns. The noodles were really, really good and the prawns were to die for.

All in all, a really excellent meal which was absolutely what I had in mind. IPLawyer insisted on getting the meal, which now means I owe him major portions of Galbi when he comes to Seoul - you better visit soon!

[stargold]

Flight 4: OZ752 SIN-ICN 28MAR (SA), A330-300, Seat 4K
STD: 2240 (5 mins late) STA: 0600+1 (On Time)

After the satisfying dinner, I had to start contemplating my journey back to the airport as it was beginning to get quite late. My original plan was to get the MRT on my way back as well, but after reaching the platform and realising that I may end up missing my flight, I went back up to street level and got a cab. The cab took no time at all (I think less than 20 minutes) and I reached Changi Terminal 3 with a decent amount of time to spare. However, it ended up being the most expensive taxi ride to Changi in my life, as I forgot to get the change in notes from a SGD50 note and overpaid him by roughly SGD40 - arghhh!!! Oh well, it could be worse...

Side note: I had previously agonised about how to fly SIN-ICN, whether to take OZ C or SQ F, or whether to stay one night in the transit hotel and then fly SIN-HKG-ICN, etc etc. In the end, OZ C seat was actually better than SQ F regional, and it was also >USD100 cheaper in fuel surcharges so I opted for the most hassle-free option which was the OZ SIN-ICN nonstop.

Once the carry-on was retrieved from left luggage, I took the Skytrain to T1 where I walked up to the deserted OZ check-in counter. There I found a Korean supervisor who recognised my name and apologised profusely for the earlier mix-up regarding the boarding pass. The copious amounts of seafood for dinner had already made me forget about the incident completely, but it was nice that she addressed the mess-up. She also very helpfully suggested that I take the other entrance to immigrations since the one near OZ's check-in counter was also quite close to all the European flights departing around the same time. I went through the passport control in no time and spent 10-15 minutes buying something from the electronics shop, by which time I didn't really have any time to use the lounge so went to the gate instead.


The A333 taking me to ICN

It was 22:15 when I arrived at the gate which meant it should have started boarding by then, but there was a short delay to the commencement of boarding so I sat around for 10 minutes or so and then they started boarding. As soon as I got into the aircraft, I changed into my SQ sleepsuit and settled down in preparation for take-off.


The familiar OZ C seat.


I think the aircraft had AVOD, but not too sure - I never got round to watching or listening to anything!

Pre-departure drinks of champagne, orange juice or water was offered, and I decided to have a couple of glasses of champagne to properly send me to sleep. I didn't even get round to asking for a menu from the flight so I'm not sure what the bottle was.


My "trip report notebook" and also the glass of champagne.

The load was fairly light in C tonight although Y looked chock full. Almost everyone in C had two seats to themselves. The doors closed 5 minutes late at 2245 and I fell asleep soon after take-off, but not until I had taken the take-off video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6y1vPEPMwk
(Not too much in the way of things to look at, so I hope you enjoy the sound at least!)

Once the seatbelt sign was switched off, I woke up just long enough to stretch my seat into the full recline and slept for a good 5 hours until 35 minutes prior to landing (05:15 Korean time). Once I woke up, I found a "We couldn't serve you any food as you were sleeping, but please let us know if you would like something to eat" sticker on my seat. After changing back into street clothes for landing and brushing my teeth, I was just a tiny bit hungry but I assumed there would be no food available since there were now barely 30 minutes until landing. But I was pleasantly surprised when one of the flight attendants came round and told me "I'm very sorry but there isn't enough time to prepare you the full meal, but would you like some fruit and cake instead?"


The cheese/fruit plate, cake and the coffee

Could you imagine flight attendants on any US or European airline offering you food and coffee just 5 minutes before the seatbelt sign? Admitttedly, blue cheese is not really my standard breakfast menu (made me feel a bit queasy just looking at it, in fact), but it was nice to at least have some coffee and some cake as well as the fruit on the cheese plate. And more than the food, I really appreciated the proactive gesture. As you could imagine, it didn't take very long for me to eat the fruit and cake, and everything was collected once the seatbelt sign came on at 0535.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3AnxduDeAU
Landing video - again, it's dark so not really that much to see!

We landed at ICN in the dark around 0550 and taxiied to our gate. I've never arrived this early at ICN before and I couldn't imagine what it would be like to start work so early!



As soon as the seatbelt sign was turned off, the flight attendants rushed to the back of the C cabin to close the curtains so that C passengers can get their belongings in peace and disembark.


Curtains closed after seatbelt sign off

The doors were opened at 05:55 and I went through the immigrations very quickly. The bags also came out very quickly, and after buying something to drink from Family Mart, I found myself waiting for the Airport Limousine bus by 06:15.

Most people slept for the whole way to the City Air Terminal on the early morning bus, since most of them would have travelled overnight


The comfortable seats on the bus - I hope I didn't snore!

=============================

So, here ends the outward journey on this trip. It took me roughly 36 hours to travel from London to Seoul, and what fun it was! It was an exceptional pleasure to catch the SQ 747 for my last time and even the other flights were very pleasant in their own way.

I hope you enjoyed following my long and roundabout journey to Seoul and hope you enjoy my next TR for my return trip back to LHR when I upload it. Thanks for all the kind comments and please continue to post comments or questions.

[jhm]

Chijmes (pronounced "Chimes" - why must they bastardise the spelling??)

It's a nod to the school which was on the site before the development (and got moved elsewhere in Singapore) - CHIJ (Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus).

Could you imagine flight attendants on any US or European airline offering you food and coffee just 5 minutes before the seatbelt sign?

Actually, yes. I remember one BA flight in CW where the crew were serving until very late and well into the descent. Eventually, they hurriedly cleared the cabin ready for landing, strapped themselves in and it was only 5-10 minutes later when we touched down.

[stargold]

It's a nod to the school which was on the site before the development (and got moved elsewhere in Singapore) - CHIJ (Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus).

Ah, I see - without the background, it just looked like yet another instance of the usual butchering of the English language. Thanks

Actually, yes. I remember one BA flight in CW where the crew were serving until very late and well into the descent. Eventually, they hurriedly cleared the cabin ready for landing, strapped themselves in and it was only 5-10 minutes later when we touched down.

Wow, I'm quite surprised about that. Must have been a good crew!

---

I'm trying to get started on my return trip TR but there's going to be so much to write that I don't really know where to start! I will try to get mine done as soon as possible, as a few interesting things happened along the way...

[9V-SIA]

After reading this TR, you convinced me to spend my hard earned miles to upgrade to F on SIN-FRA-JFK.

What an experience!

Flew back EWR-SIN so very interesting contrast.

Either route, the best way to get to NYC from SIN