Although Singapore Airlines is expecting to welcome its one millionth A380 customer in February (just 15 months after the inaugural flight), it is still not every day that you get to meet someone who has enjoyed this new travel experience. Our contributor Andrase is such a person and he sent us this report.
Let me share my experience of A380 travel by Singapore Airlines. SIA was the first airline scheduling daily service between London and Singapore using the 380.
At the beginning of November I travelled between that city pair and was lucky enough to be booked on the gigantic, biggest ever passenger airplane, the A380.
I was so excited when I walked through the checking gate and got my boarding pass. When I made the online booking earlier, I selected the upper deck. I was placed in the last section, just in front of the galley and the staircase, right behind the emergency exit to gain extra legroom. And extra legroom there was! Even if I had 2 meter or 3 meter long legs, I would have had no problem stretching them out straight ahead…
The journey started to get interesting already while we were waiting for boarding. The hall did not seem crowded even though I knew that a large number of people would be travelling with me.
The boarding was cleverly organised, there was no rush and in the end it did not take longer than for an aircraft of lesser size. They provided two boarding gates, one for the lower deck and the other for the upper one.
Passengers were invited to board by row number and this avoided all bottleneck effects. I liked the interior. Nice ambient colours, state of the art design… A nice touch is the way the whole plane is divided into smaller sections to eliminate the feeling of being inside a huge monster.
Every single seat has an entertainment centre, providing a lot of options to try out so that passengers can occupy themselves to their satisfaction. There is a huge selection of films, games and music, but you may also opt to learn more about the city you are travelling to or even improve your local language skills to disembark in the end armed with your new knowledge. You get a remote to select your choice and clearly the intention is to make you feel well served at all times of your trip.
This is the renowned quality service of Singapore Airlines. And I can assure you, they live up to it.
Their seating configuration is the best available in its class. As they proudly point out, the number of passengers is limited to keep all classes comfortable, even the tourist class. And you can clearly feel the difference! All seats are spacey and provide good support. This way, on a full flight like ours, you will be travelling with another 480 passengers instead of the maximum of 800 but everyone will be happy.
At the front of the upper deck you can see 36 individual compartments, reserved for business class travellers. They all are perfectly isolated from the other areas. In your suite you can adjust your seat to get a real bed; you get a bigger screen and other benefits plus special service.
The trip was too long to say it seemed like a moment but we were all taken care of very well by the cabin crew so time did seem to fly. There were 17 cabin attendants, all polite, nicely dressed, always smiling and very professional. They work in shifts and have their own rest area where they can take a break. They certainly did not seem to get tired or impatient at any point in the flight.
Visiting the cockpit it is hardly believe that this beast can be controlled with that very simple – if not too basic- bunch of visible instruments.
The captain was smiling and explained that every essential tool is on board, but they should not be visible when they are not being observed anyway. I could only agree, understanding that a single screen can do multiple jobs if it shows the right information at the right time as it is indeed done by the latest enhanced cockpit technology.
The take off was just a feeling of lifting a feather and the landing was smooth too. No vibration or strange noises coming from the huge body of the plane to disturb you. Even the engine noise sems to be coming from somewhere far away…
I can just recommend that you try the same service on the same aircraft type. Very soon the experience will not be unique any more. More and more airlines are introducing A380 service and they are all competing to be your choice.
I hope to meet you soon on board one of these fantastic creatures taking a magical trip to a magical destination….
