With many bad experiences of flying having made their way on to this blog I thought I’d relate some of the excellent service I’ve recently received from Singapore Airlines.
Check-in was fairly fast at all 4 of their flights I took – enough counters to dissolve long queues. The flights all left on time and whenever we were delayed on the runway for 5 or 10 minutes the pilot was straight on the intercom telling us why. The in-flight movies were all recent and on-circuit. I watched “Kung Fu Hustle” (still to make it here to SA) which is kind of like a Chinese Monty Python martial arts movie – and very funny. Plus there is a huge selection of in-flight entertainment – about 60 movies (!), a huge selection of TV programmes (from Frasier to the new series of Dr Who), network games (play against your passengers) and great music.
I couldn’t even go through the whole music selection, but I was quite happy listening to U2’s Vertigo and Norah Jones (and I’m going to buy her cd’s as soon as I get near a cd shop – bugger downloading them from the net, I want to own them).
The food was fairly good – nothing to complain about and actually quite enjoyable. The best thing was just after supper on our outbound flight to Singapore, they came around and handed out Mega ice-creams. Mega ice-creams! On a plane! It was great – and inspired my Dad to being a “in all my years of flying I’ve NEVER seen this…” comment.
Some extra service we received was something they did not have to do but, believe me, much appreciated. When we arrived at our gate at 1:30 in the morning – half-and-hour before check-in – and already having travelled for 12 hours we were not quite happy campers. Enter stewardess who asks us if we’re flying Singapore Air and would we like a newspaper? A very simple act of service (and kindness) which, given its context, was so much appreciated and was the inspiration for blogging this.
Singapore Air is also on the forefront of innovation. As of September they’re offering in-flight broadband internet through the Boeing Connexion project – US$30 for unlimited usage for the flight. Soon we’ll be able to chat with each other via Skype while someone is over the Atlantic and someone else is over the Pacific.
I’d definitely choose to fly with them again.
A GOOD airline experience
