TG 409 Oct 6 A380 Inaugural flight to Singapore

[zilchster]

I won't go into much details about this flight. I'll try to let the pictures to the talking with a few sentences here and there. I want to apologise if the pictures aren't nice. I'm not a professional photographer.

Will do a longer write up for the TG 404 sector.

TG 0409
BKK-SIN
1705/2020
Seat: 76J (Economy Upper Deck)
Aircraft: HS-TUA (Airbus A380-841)

At Gate C3 at BKK.

This would be my ride home to Singapore after a 3 day 2 night stay holiday in Bangkok









[

Some shots of the first class cabin after the plane's arrival in Singapore. There are 12 first class seats in the upper deck of the aircraft.














I didn't get a chance to try the seats. So no ideas on seat comfort. Anyway the seats are not opened to passengers on the Bangkok to Hong Kong and Singapore flights.

I think the colour is fine, a little but reminds me so much of SQ's J class colour. Unless the colour is supposed to remind people of the gold colour.

More photos to come.

[zilchster]

Now for the J class pictures.

There are 60 J class seats on the upper deck, just behind the first class. They are configured in a staggered layout.

There is also a small cabin of three rows after door 2 in the upper deck. It is separated from the economy cabin by a partition. This seems to be a good cabin to be in. But I'm not sure if the noise in the economy cabin would disturb the J pax.

The small J cabin just before Y cabin.







The main J cabin pics.

[zilchster]

And now for a review of TG A380 Economy Class.

Economy class occupies the entire lower deck from the nose to the end. Lower deck is the 3-4-3 layout.

There are 58 seats on the upper deck.

Some general pictures of the upper deck cabin.

During boarding






Taken in-flight.



Stairs to the lower deck at the rear of the plane



Galley in the upper deck



Anyway service began from the port (left) side in an U shape (from port-starboard side). There were two crew members working the economy section. One serves food, the other serves drinks.

Some pictures in the main deck.

The nose of the aircraft/front economy cabin.



Row 31 (the first row) as a lot of leg room. Same for the all the emergency exit seats. I spoke to a staff from TG who is based in Singapore. She told me that TG has no plans to charge for the emergency exit seats.



I think this is Row 35 in the lower deck front economy cabin. Notice the general space.

[zilchster]

Various shots of the economy cabin, can't remember where they were taken, sorry.

[zilchster]

Rear economy cabin (lower deck)






Lower deck galley.











How I wish I could work in the galley for a day or two.

Toilets (upper deck)







And no, I don't have a fascination for toilets. Just that I couldn't find a good angle to capture the entire toilet.

[zilchster]

And now let's look at my seats and the inflight entertainment. I was assigned 76J, an aisle seat. But I ran into a friend onboard, an ex cabin crew and I ended up seating next to him on row 75.

My seat 76K. Just behind the J cabin. The legroom is pretty wide. These would be good seats on a long haul flight.









Row 75 on the upper deck. Just behind the J cabin. Notice the wide legroom. As I said those emergency exit rows have the best legroom.






Overall I think row 76 (the pair seats) are better than row 75.

Normal economy class seat legroom on the upper deck

[zilchster]

Inflight entertainment. Touch screen system.



Inflight camera


You can check what meal options there are for your flight. Not only that, you can check the meal options for other flights on economy class.




Menu for TG 0409


Menu for another flight

[zilchster]

Inflight service and thoughts.

My economy class meal. There was a choice of steamed chicken with chicken flavoured rice or tum yum fried rice with prawn. Unfortunately the latter ran out and I had to settle for the former. It was still a delicious meal nevertheless.








The meal comprised of an apple with shrimp salad. A soft run roll with butter. (Hear that SQ? Your butter and buns are pretty hard). Dessert was some tiramisu like mousse. There was a box of pralines given in commemoration of the flight.



Overall, I would rate TG's economy class food a notch above SQ's better than CX and way better than UA. I guess most of you won't dispute this point. I still prefer SQ food over CX though. Liquour selections on Y class was more than SQ, though no cointreau or Baileys were offered.

What about service. Service from this crew was much better than TG 0404. The trip report will come later. The crew on this was much more friendly and accommodating. They were much more "senior" and "older". I guess they too were feeling enthusiastic and happy being on the A380.

I like the interior of TG's 380. The seat colours on J and Y are definitely much nicer than SQ. I heard some aviation enthusiast praising TG's 380 over SQ's 380. Rightfully so. But I still have a soft spot for SQ.

Actually TG could have used the upper deck as a small premium economy cabin. Some might feel it is a missed opportunity. I for one, am happy with the economy class on the upper deck.

First class on the upper deck with business behind it? What do you think of it people? Now economy class passengers on the lower deck can probably disembark faster than the J peeps.

Overall, the TG 380 flight was a good experience, though we experienced some turbulent weather. The pax clapped when the plane took off and landed.

Company representatives were there at Changi Airport to welcome the aviation fans including the GM. There was a photo taking session after deplaning.

Anyway I would encourage everyone to try out TG's A380. A great comfortable experience.

[9V-SIA]

Thanks for posting so fast after the flight

Staggered J looks to be becoming the fully lie flat J seat of choice for more & more airlines

And F looks like a TG version of JL's 77W F

Overall impressive. Especially if TG prices to Europe don't go up with the introduction of the A380

[ycp81]

The meal comprised of an apple with shrimp salad. A soft run roll with butter. (Hear that SQ? Your butter and buns are pretty hard). Dessert was some tiramisu like mousse. There was a box of pralines given in commemoration of the flight.

Hmmm, the ceramic casserole is missing

But I also do agree that TG serves pretty good food in economy on the short SIN-BKK sector.

[CarbonMan]

Now for the J class pictures.

...

Having what looks like a re-cycled mag on an inaugural flight in J class speaks of a lack of attention to details and perhaps how deep cost-cutting is being exercised.

But, the hardware certainly looks quite spiffy!

Grateful for the pics, zilchster!

[sqdazz]

Awesome pics. J class looks so good !!! The whole aircraft looks great.... beautiful colours , they have done a great job .

[Kyo]

Awesome trip report, thanks - the same crew seems to have stayed for the return. I recognise some of them and have photos in the pics I'm uploading now (when that's done, will get the TG410 report started)

[feb01mel]

Awesome trip report, thanks - the same crew seems to have stayed for the return. I recognise some of them and have photos in the pics I'm uploading now (when that's done, will get the TG410 report started)

Yes, TG 409/410 are same crew, they do turnaround.

It was a very rush service too on TG 409 business class, dessert was served close to 20 mins before landing, & crew still not very familiar with galley stuff as I noticed, after all is first flight, let's give them a chance. When engines start to roar during take off, crew were still closing the compartments in the galley.

Did they let EYCL upper deck pax board first before JCL pax ? Over at BKK that was the arrangement, & JCL pax was denied boarding before EYCL upper deck pax.

[Kyo]

Yes, TG 409/410 are same crew, they do turnaround.

It was a very rush service too on TG 409 business class, dessert was served close to 20 mins before landing, & crew still not very familiar with galley stuff as I noticed, after all is first flight, let's give them a chance. When engines start to roar during take off, crew were still closing the compartments in the galley.

Did they let EYCL upper deck pax board first before JCL pax ? Over at BKK that was the arrangement, & JCL pax was denied boarding before EYCL upper deck pax.

No - J pax were requested to board at their convenience. There was a short line (roped) on the right but the Y spillover wasn't really prevented.

Yes, they turnarounded like they would on other flights. Wasn't sure if this one was meant to be different at the time, you know how TG does odd things sometimes...

They were still a bit disorganised in the galley but the amount of people photographing stuff didn't help either, including yours truly