India To USA, The Wrong Way! Singapore Airlines AMD-SIN-JFK IN J Part 1

After a lovely 2-month vacation back home in India, it was time to return back for my junior semester of college. For a person alike me, this has become a part of life, leaving home and setting sail for lands far away in order to pursue further education. Such is life for us, with a basket full of emotions, I set sail for the United States. However, Not the way you would expect. Instead of the Atlantic, I would be flying through the pacific from Ahmedabad and catch the longest flight in the world onwards to JFK.

Ahmedabad Airport

I arrived at Ahmedabad airport at around 8:30pm while visibly noticed dome like structures in the drop off area which clearly reminded of Abu Dhabi Airport :) After bidding Adeau to my parents, I headed off to the security checkpoint and proceeded inside Terminal 2 of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport.

After Screening my bags, I proceeded to the Singapore Airlines Check in Counter, the business class had 2 counters, meanwhile economy class had almost 4-5 counters. Upon Inquiry with the check-in agent, I got to know that the flight was completely full in Economy and meanwhile business class had a few seats empty.

SVPI airport badly need a new terminal (both T1 and T2) as the terminal has started to feel a little old and if the airport wants to expand its operations, it needs to improve its existing terminals. However, since the takeover by Adani, a completely renovated terminal has been proposed. Nevertheless, the airport is of high importance of me as when I was young, going to Ahmedabad airport meant commencing of my annual summer vacation or Diwali vacation which was the undoubtedly were the best times of the year.

After completing check in and Immigration, which mind you, was my all-time fastest at Ahmedabad, I headed towards the Adani Lounge. Funnily enough, I thought I had lost my boarding pass in the security check area and as it turned out, it was hidden under my own tray, LOL!

The Adani lounge is rather lackluster in terms of the amenities available. There is just a big sitting area and self-serving food section. The food choices were lackluster at best. I ended up having a puff and a sandwich which certainly wasn't the best. The lounge was extremely hot as the air conditioning seemed to not work properly. Considering the fact, it gets very hot and humid during this time in India and the lounge was packed, it can get uncomfortable at times without proper air conditioning.

At around 10:20 boarding started at gate number 2 and we proceeded to the gate. Passangers with kids and wheelchair passengers were the first ones to board followed by us people in business class.

27th August 2023

Singapore Airlines Flight 505

Ahmedabad International (AMD) to Singapore Changi (SIN)

9V-SHC

Seat 12K

Time of Departure-23:20

5 hours and 14 minutes

The Flight Experience

Our flight today was operated by 9V-SHC, a 4.6-year-old A350-900 delivered to the Airline in 2019. Singapore Airlines is the world's largest operator of the A350 with 64 in operation and 2 still on order. Singapore A350's have 3 different configurations and our ones was the "Regional" configuration with 40 seats in Business and 263 in Economy. These regional configured A350 fly mostly to short and medium haul routes.

Singapore Airlines A350 Regional Business class Picture via Milelion

9V-SHC in Ho Chi Mihn City, Vietnam, Photo by Hao Phen via Planespotters.net

My seat for today's voyage to Singapore was seat 12K which was right in front of the Aircraft. Singapore Airlines have used the Stelia Solystis seats for its Regional Configuration which is also used on Vistara 787-9s.

Already present for me in the seat storage was a bottled water, a pair of headphones (I always tend to use my NC700's) and a menu.

Here are a few snippets of the menu.

Snippet of the wine selection

The Cabin Crew went around serving a choice of orange or apple juice as our welcome drink considering Ahmedabad is a dry city. Unfortunately, as much as I would have liked it, amenity kits were not provided and were available on request.

We pushed back at around 10:45 ish and took of around 11:20 for a slightly delayed departure from Ahmedabad. Alas, I was off to lands far away from home as my time to leave home was here, see you in a few Ahmedabad, You always rock.

GoAir Jet grounded here in AMD, hoping they return to the skies soon.

Last view of Ahmedabad until December

Post- departure, we were given a bowl of nuts with a drink of choice. Wanting to have something fruity, I went with the Apple bliss mocktail which was sweet and refreshing.

Singapore Airlines had the Krisworld system on its aircraft with the same choices of movies across all their fleet apart from the 737-800. Although there was plenty of choices across various languages to choose from, it may feel a bit lackluster in terms of choices. In the meantime, I killed my time by watching Jug Jug Jeyo, a 2021 Bollywood film starring the popular actors, Varun Dhawan and Anil Kapoor.

After a while, I decided to use the loo which was pretty clean and also stacked with all the amenities. The crew always make a point to keep the loos clean and stacked regardless the flight time.

In a short while dinner was also served. For the starter, there was a romaine and mushroom salad served with egg slices and a dressing with was good but I'm not a big salad person. Although initially going for the paneer option, the crew informed me that its unavailable, so I had to settle for the other vegetarian option which consisted of a cauliflower curry, daal, spinach and rice which also was good but not spectacular. The dessert was an ile flottane which again was ok. A choice of breads was also served in which I went with the Singapore Airlines special Garlic Bread. I beg your pardon for not having pictures of the meal since I was very tired.

The highlight of any Singapore Airlines flight is definitely the crew and the service. The crew in my flight was extremely nice and very generous. So much so they always made it a point to give me extra bread! The service throughout the flight never felt forced but was warm and professional.

After failed attempts at sleeping and lazing, it was finally time for our decent into Singapore, at around 7 past 3 we arrived at Singapore Changi airport.

I managed to catch a few Singapore Airlines A380s and 777s parked however, due to windows being fogged out, I was unable to capture it.

9V-SCF headed off to Denpasar Bali as SQ936

Transit In Singapore

Throughout the years, Changi airport has been voted the best airport and I couldn't agree more. I remember travelling to Cambodia via Singapore in 2019 and being in absolute awe of the hanging gardens in Singapore Changi T3. However, our destination this time around was a different location in T3. After transferring from T2 on the high-speed rail, I made my way to the best business class lounge in my opinion, The Silver Kris lounge.

On my way, I managed to spot a few planes at Changi Airport.

The 777-300ER 9V-SWG would later head to Melbourne

Conclusion

Singapore Airlines proves yet again that it's a consistent and efficient carrier in terms of on time performance and passenger experience. I am happy with the overall experience of mine with slight rooms for improvement in the IFE. However, for this service and the price I've paid, it's absolutely a killer of a deal. I shall write about my experience at the Silverkris lounge and my Singapore to New York in my next blog.