For the next segment of my Iceland to The Residence via Cambodia trip, it was time to fly Singapore Airlines’ Airbus A350-900 business class on the 50-minute flight from Kuala Lumpur (KUL) to Singapore (SIN). At 184 miles, this is Singapore Airlines’ shortest route, and it’s always impressive to see what a high service standard…
Continue reading: Review: Singapore Airlines Business Class Airbus A350 (KUL-SIN)
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Doesn't get much shorter than KUL-SIN. For them to fly wide-body, and to have meal-service (with cutlery, glasses, etc.) for premium cabin is impressive. That'd be like doing so on FLL-TPA.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this route or product provided by SQ. We have covered the route many times when there have been issues with the rail service. I’m pleased that Ben, had a pleasant flight too.
KUL to SIN desperately needs high speed rail, and MH/SQ could still sell interline tickets too the way European cities do as well.
This is one of the busiest routes in the world, but really doesn't need to be given the short distance and frequency.
KUL airport is so far from the city center, your commute to or from KUL is longer than this flight itself.
This is a nitpick, but it would've killed me to pay 5k extra points for a "stopover" only for the stopover to be 25 hours.... I know youre targeting specific products and i have no idea what availability wouldve been like but spending the (admittedly easy to replace) 5k Aeroplan pts for only ~1 hour of extra time would've driven me nuts. to each, his own!
@ Ecr12 -- Hah, totally agree, was less than ideal. Given limited service between SIN and KTI, the only other option was to take an earlier flight. The catch is that this would've also been operated by the 737 MAX (which I would be reviewing on the next installment), and I also wouldn't have been able to have breakfast at the Park Hyatt. So given those circumstances, I decided that redeeming the extra points for the stopover was worth it.
What a complete waste of CO2 . Using a wide body for such a short flight. Ridiculous!
Nice flight. All of the reviews say about the same thing. Singapore Airlines is perfect in every way. Consistently great.
DEN, those who know, know only too well that you are absolutely correct. The ‘Jimboys’ of this world know not what they post …. poor demented proletariat type don’t you know …. 🙂
Your flight expertise was so much better than ours when we flew the same route 20 years ago on a SQ 777-200 in "Jubilee" configuration. Even though we had business class tickets for our trip, we ended up in coach for this segment. (Apparently there were no or very few J seats on the aircraft.) Coach was a vast expanse of fully occupied seats.
It's interesting that your flight was blocked for 75 minutes vs. the 55 minutes for ours (more than a third longer). Is that due to schedule padding, crowded airspace, crowded taxiways, or plate tectonics?
It beggars belief that SQ can provide this level of service while AA cannot provide anything but its disgusting snack basket on a Miami - Belize flight of 2 hours.
LOL, Westerners with their occidental thinking.
Regardless, you think they never thought of that? One of the biggest reasons this (and many other ASEAN) routes remain as air-links, is because there's a virtually unmitigated demand for air freight that neither rail nor sea cargo would be able to replicate at cost.
THAT is the driving force behind not only much of the traffic (which would NOT be profitable at the rates often charged), but also the sheer number of widebodies used on such routes, in addition to narrowbody frequency.
Yours is a particularly uneducated response, seeing as:
1) CO2 isn't the gas to be worried about here (that'd be CO), and
2) a widebody will actually burn less of it on a per-seat basis
Pre-covid i flew Singapore air houston to manila enhanced economy. There were 2 long connections. Houston to Manchester to Singapore. Both times i recall flight attendants rarely pushing carts down isle. I remember wondering why everyone worships their service. I guess you gotta pay 8,000usd for business class to get the service you think that entitles you to. Yep a meal on a 185 mile flight is stupid! Imagine a 20 mile car drive and you feel entitled to some great 4 course meal. No wonder Americans are fat, obese, and getting fatter. And the employees refused to dance with me! How rude!
So then, what an Asian carrier does, on a regional route wholly within Southeast Asia; is a reason that Americans are fat . . . .
That one definitely qualifies for Most R3t@rded Post award - which for this site, is saying a lot!
Meanwhile in the third world in the land of Epstein, you are lucky to get a bag of peanuts on a 700 mile flight in "First Class"
@ImmortalSynn no need to be so condescending. Malaysia and SG did indeed ink an HSR agreement and started construction several years back, until the Najib government fell and Mahathir gained power again. Construction might restart soon with the newer government these days.
@John Dod,
The reason I'm condescending is because so many of you people make declarative statements as if they were fact (like the doof above, who just doubled down on the ASSUMPTION that the kind of freight being referenced would move more cheaply by rail, when logistical cost inequity to airfreight is one of the main reasons the project shut down), when they're so often the exact opposite of reality.
And no, there's no indication that "construction might restart soon with the newer government" in the foreseeable future, as MYHSR released its development holdings to the private sector, with RFPs to Berjaya, CRCC, and YTL; with none of them showing the least bit of interest in reviving the cancelled project in the 3yrs MYHSR has been (half-heartedly) trying.
You're probably confusing it with the new link between Bukit Chagar to Woodlands North link that's supposed to open in a while, but that can hardly be described as an HSR project.
It is indeed impressive that SQ offers these seats on such a short flight - though that makes their regional a350 and 787-10 fleet interchangeable of course.
The seats are great for the fact that you can have them on really short flights.
Fly these occasionaly between SIN and BKK/SGN.
The downside, which you mentioned, is the shield on the side which I find claustrophobic.
Besides that, the service is always great on SQ.
(+ the chicken rice and other dishes via BTC do not disapoint)
Have a nice trip everyone because with the orange man in charge who knows how high ticket prices will go. Airplanes need fuel. The “war” in Iraq is going to make oil prices go up and up.