In fact, there was serious consideration to discard the return ticket and instead route via Hong Kong, throwing miles at an Upper Class reward seat home. Although Paul rejected that plan, he had seeded the idea in my head and it festered there nagging me into eventually placing a melting credit card on the ticket desk at Singapore when we discovered that business class seats were available to upgrade to. So heres the scenario; Paul sat in 74D, in a rather full economy cabin at the rear of the upper deck, and I managed to bag two business class seats, one which was made up into a bed pretty quickly, and the other left in sofa (more of that later) config which I used as an office to write up this report and watch TV. Basically, what had been a flight that had filled me with gloom and was going to be a pretty depressing end to an otherwise dazzling few days in Singapore has turned into a really rather sensational cherry on the cake. Even if it has left me quite a few quid lighter than I had anticipated. But hey. I probably wasnt going to get a chance to do this on an A380 for quite some time.
So, bringing this meandering tangent back on course; the trip report.
Armed with my blue Business Class boarding pass, Paul and I made our way to gate B5 where the mammoth tail of the A380 towered behind the air bridge. It really is difficult not to be impressed by the size of the plane.
Because of the sheer number of people that the A380 seats, the gate area can look pretty intimidating. Spread out over a vast room, you get a real sense of just how tightly packed aircraft get. It also presents some logistic issues around boarding which are unique to this aircraft; and the fact without a minimum of two jetways (one for each deck), loading passengers would be chaos. Singapore Airlines at their home base actually use three jetways, one for the upper deck, one for economy on the main deck and one dedicated to their First Class Suites at the front.
Priority boarding seems to work everywhere for SQ. It was evident on the outbound leg from Heathrow, and also the SIN-KUL runs that I had done while in Singapore and it worked like a charm loading the passengers on this flight too. There was little evidence of a scrum around the gate, and I was surprised how quickly everyone was on and the aircraft doors closed.
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So, the business class seat or sofa, as I referred to earlier. It can comfortably seat two people side by side. The photo might not do the width of the thing justice; but you can probably get a good idea. You get a lot of space for you; and you get a lot of space for your stuff. In fact, theres so many places around your seat to stow bags, etc, that the overhead bins are largely irrelevant. The width of the chair means you have an alcove under the seat in front of you which doesnt interfere with your leg space, as you can probably spot from the photo. The seats on the sides of the 1-2-1 config also have the benefit of large stowage bins under the windows a bit like the ones on the upper deck on VS where PE seats are fitted; only bigger. The high sides of the seat also offer a real sense of privacy. You dont get that feeling of being watched that the herringbone UCS can occasionally give you.
Take off was smooth, and deceptively sedate. Perhaps its the size of the beast, but I didnt think we were going anywhere near fast enough and then we were in the air. The attentive service started almost immediately the seat belt signs were extinguished, with menus and wine lists handed out, followed by a rather modest amenity kit of eyeshades and flight socks. The lack of other items in the goodie bag isnt really an issue as the toilets are loaded up with toothbrush kits, razors, etc, and never seem to run out. I noticed this even in economy on the outbound and theorised that either the majority of passengers hadnt spotted these useful items, or that (more likely) the crew are discreetly topping up supplies throughout the flight.
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Talking of toilets, in business class not only is it a better class of seat, you get a better class of privy. Tricky to get a decent shot in there, but you can possibly just make out the wood panelling and details that make you feel that the finish wouldnt be out of place in a Jaguar. There are even fresh flowers. Its rather a pleasant experience, although thats not to say the lavs in economy look like portaloos at a Glastonbury Festival; its just that little bit more stylish.
In my original economy seat I had requested a vegetarian meal (unlike VS who offer three standard choices, and one of those is always veggie, SQ typically dont have an option for lettuce munchers like me unless you order it); and given the late upgrade to business only a couple of hours before boarding I was expecting, at best, Id get my economy meal served in business, and the ticket agent had said as much. However, it seems mountains were moved and a full business veggie meal was loaded for me. So let me take you through it.
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The starter looked simple, but tasted simply amazing. A salad of leaves, cucumber, cherry tomatoes and well Im not sure; but it really was an explosion of flavours on the palette. Those not having a special meal like myself were offered marinated lobster and tomato couscous.
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My main course was a vegetarian lasagne, which was complex and interesting; quite unlike anything called veggie lasagne that I have tasted before. On the side I had a portion of garlic and onion bread, but Id already scoffed that before taking the snap. On the standard menu, there was a choice of braised duck confit with sauteed mushroom, eggplant and dried shrimp in XO sauce; a grilled beef fillet with mustard sauce and veggies or sauteed prawns with a shiitake mushroom sauce.
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The desert was a silky chocolate and mango fruit tart, which didnt last anywhere near as long as I would have liked.
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To finish, a cheese plate which I washed down with a coffee.
After dinner I converted my seat to bed mode. SQ have adopted a similar idea to Virgin in that its the back of the seat that provides the flat mattress surface, although their implementation has a couple of key advantages. Firstly, its not electronic so theres less mechanical gubbins that can go wrong. Also, when you tip the seat back forward, it reveals a both a flat area and a raised hump which means when youre in bed mode but want to sit up and watch TV or read, for instance, you dont have to switch the bed back or hope theres a spare Suite available. Its a handy compromise solution facilitated by the width of the seat.
I slept soundly for about six hours, and then when I woke up I watched a movie on my iPhone hooked up to the IFE to take advantage of the generously-sized screen. The cabin crew supplied me with cappuccino, Ferrero Rocher and wasabi-flavoured nuts. I pottered about a bit for a while, then decided to try and get my head down again as my body clock was all over the place. Even though in the hotel for the previous couple of days I had been going to bed at 11pm only to wake up again a 4am, I managed to get to sleep again and had a further 3 hours sleep before being gently woken for breakfast by the crew.
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Breakkie started with melons and grapefruit followed by poached egg and potatoes. The non-veggie options were braised egg noodles with soya flavoured chicken; fluffy hotcakes and maple syrup or a chive omelette with bacon, roasted tomato and roesti potato.
I watched Family Guy and Scrubs on the IFE and wrote up some notes, anticipating an uneventful arrival into Heathrow. It was pretty gusty that morning, so we were being blown about a bit on final approach and landed with a bump. On taxi to our gate number 3, the same one we left from a few days earlier you could see the A380 is still a novelty on the airfield and there were many silhouettes of figures in windows watching the plane trundle past. At the gate there was a frisson of excitement as all passengers were asked to remain in their seats and two policemen boarded the plane and went to the rear of the economy section. On finally leaving the aircraft Paul and I spotted the policemen questioning a gentleman who was with a small child. No idea what it was about, but it did spice up the arrival a little.
Priority baggage was working well, and our bags were off almost as soon as we got into the baggage hall. We left the terminal building only to realise how different the temperature is in London. Snow is forecast across the Home Counties today.
