The core part of this trip is to go to northern India with Kim and family, as his father was born in India. My first leg takes me to Singapore where I’ll spend some time with my Mum and take them on side-trips to Xiamen and Bintan.
Kim’s parents too me to the airport for my 1400 Singapore Airlines flight to where else, but Singapore. I had counted on flying with Air New Zealand on staff tickets but the airline suspended the route at short notice, forcing me to buy a commercial ticket on Singapore Airlines.
The plane was stifling hot when we boarded. The flight attendant said it would be cooler after take-off. There were no personal air-vents on the aircraft. The head flight attendant made an announcement to apologise for the temperature and the captain followed-up with another apology explaining that one of the air-con packs was turned off – no word about any technical issue which suggested it was voluntary!
I was in disbelief when the crew came round to offer passengers hot towels before take-off! I would have thought that they would have done cold towels instead today. [Edit: A Singapore Airlines flight attendant commented on my original post hosted elsewhere that they must do hot towels before take-off and there is no discretion to change to cold towels! How inflexible.]
What a relief when we were eventually airborne and the temperature was brought down. The crew impressed us with two rounds of drinks before serving the first meal. The sweet and sour fish was nice but the cold-cuts for the appetiser were warm due to the onboard heat. Fortunately I didn’t get food-poisoning from that!
About 4h before landing, the crew offered a good selection of snacks such as chips, sandwiches, cookies and apples. Definitely a notch better than Malaysia Airlines who offer just cookies. But on Singapore Airlines, the ice-cream offered after the meal is the dessert whereas on Malaysia Airlines, it is in addition to the dessert on the tray.