Singapore Airlines Officially Starts Flying 737s

I flew SIN HKT once on SilkAir business class and was a great experience.
The seat was very comfortable and I didn’t need to lay down for less than a few hours in the afternoon.
The meal was also nice.
I could use the SilverKris lounge in SIN too.
I actually liked the fact it was not marketed as SQ because SQ does suffer from a bit of a superiority complex especially on flights within Asia.

This is a big benefit for Star Gold flyers. I was surprised several years back to learn that Silk Air was treated as a completely different airline than SQ and not a member of Star Alliance so no Star Gold benefits or even mileage earning. The Silkair brand isn't particularly strong even in its home market, especially relative to the national institution that is SQ, so this makes sense to me from a marketing perspective.

This is a very positive development and a great move. Silk Air's branding is indeed not very strong or well known, as others like @justin have pointed out correctly, and this all makes sense from both brand consistency and customer experience, but also from economics and operational efficiencies. Airlines within Airlines don't work (the model has been tried over and over again and with a handful of exceptions, often end up a temporary solution and end up either failing or being merged back into the main brand). The US industry is littered with these examples, and in Europe as well.

Singapore Airlines' livery looked especially smart on the carrier's 727-200's.

I flew aboard one of the tri-jets in 1979 and remember it had a 'California Here We Come!' banner painted along the side. During the two-hour flight from Singapore to Jakarta a lunch was served in Economy that included a shrimp cocktail and Champagne...

Honestly, I don't think its worth investing in seat-back entertainment. iPads for J Class pax would suffice. These flights will barely fly for 2.5 hours/sector. Look at Qatar Airways, while many of their A320s do not have PTVs, their soft-product across both the classes (Premium and Economy) compensates for it. If Singapore works on its short-haul soft product, I don't think they'd need to work on the existing hard product as the J and Y-Class hard product on Silk Air 737s are great!

Ben, you wrote: “While SilkAir had lower labor costs than Singapore Airlines, presumably the airline group decided that those savings didn’t outweigh the inefficiency of otherwise running two separate airlines in terms of scheduling, marketing, customer experience, etc.”

I infer from this statement that savings from SilkAir having lower labour costs will be lost because the former SilkAir employees will receive higher pay as part of Singapore Airlines. Am I correct? Is this a fact? Or are you speculating?

Also, I see no need for flat bed seats in business class for many of the shorter routes SilkAir serves. The older seats were ok.

Finally, not having personal screens at each seat isn’t a big deal. The old SilkAir Studio app was fine for shorter flights. Perhaps they’ll keep this and simply rebrand it as SQ.

@bruh, Qatar's soft product is wildly overrated. Unappealing food, middling booze, variable service which rarely feels from the heart, service stopping almost an hour before landing in some cases - I could go on. In economy, it's a PR triumph posing as a world class airline.

Flat beds and PTV might not be required on regional 2.5 hours long flights, however silk air was scheduled to operate routes as far as Hiroshima,and Darwin, Australia from Singapore, its a 6.5 hours flight, recliners doesn't cut it in Asia.

What's the big deal? Its back to the future. They used to fly 737-200s around the late 70s.

@shoeguy: "Airlines within Airlines don’t work (the model has been tried over and over again and with a handful of exceptions, often end up a temporary solution and end up either failing or being merged back into the main brand).'

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