SQ Premium Economy Food & Service

[ozjuice]

Not a rant but wanted to share my disappointment.

I'm quite a fan of the SQ product and fly them as much as possible. However, my recent flight SIN - BNE was a PE flight that landed in BNE at approx 7AM.
Once boarded we had no bottled water (We did on the way out) and the dinner served was pretty average at best.
The worst thing though was breakfast as we headed into BNE. After a bad attempt at sleep and quite looking forwrd to a decent breakfast option i was offered my tray (No choice) which consisted of a greasy Muffin, a bread roll and a croissant among a few other useless items like over sweetended orange juice. I declined and ate when i landed.
For the price paid to fly SQ PE I really felt let down by their lack of effort and non existent service.

I won't waste money on PE again for a 7 / 8 hour flight. It's just not justified IMHO.

 

[Denali]

Youre not alone. When SQ PE first came out, my boss and I also held high hopes and was really disappointed with the actual product. How did they get it wrong, they are usually so good at everything else.

Ive only flown PE with VA once previously and was really impressed so when the boss told me about his SQ PE flight, he was disappointed in the meal/serving, felt ignored by the FAs and no PE cabin toilet.

 

[JeeJee]

The SQ PE is at best an economy+. The service standard I experienced on the same BNE 7 AM arriving flight was nothing better than economy. A year ago the crew were not sure what different to offer to PE, gave me a Y meal tray first and then replacing it with a PE one. The food wasn’t any different, just the tray size bigger! I was disappointed too

 

[ozjuice]

I agree that the VA PE product was a much better experience and maybe justified the additional cost. I would think long and hard about SQ though if flying a night flight.

 

[hossein_au]

That is very interesting indeed. I have flown QF, VA, and BA in PE, and I rate QF and VA offerings almost on par, and way ahead of BA's. I have thought about PE on SQ, but I have a lot of points to burn and therefore have been mainly flying in J or F for the past couple of years. Nice problem to have I guess

Based on the feedback on this thread I will give SQ PE a miss when the time comes...

 

[aaronm]

Will echo the sentiments here, SQ PE is good for the larger seat and extra status credits, nothing more. Although on the A350s even this is barely an improvement as they've squeezed 8 seats per row compared to 9 up the back. Remaining service is basically the same as economy with an extra meal choice and book the cook options from some ports. I cannot for the life of me understand how they won an award for it, QF and VA are miles ahead.

 

[dajop]

I won't waste money on PE again for a 7 / 8 hour flight. It's just not justified IMHO.

Agree, never seen any value in it on shorter sectors - unless it is of only marginal increase cost. In fact if flight is relatively empty, it can be worse than economy, as in economy you can often spread across 2 seats, and if lucky go fully flat across 4 seats, something you can't do in Y+ ,

Will echo the sentiments here, SQ PE is good for the larger seat and extra status credits, nothing more.

Yes, that's the way they seem to have designed the product. But also they tend to have a better price than those with better F&B service (eg. QF) , it's not uncommon for SQ Y+ to cost 20-25% less than QF Y+ (eg Australia - Europe). Mind you QF Y+ is probably not a good reference point, yes it has a pretty good Y+ product, but often I've seen it charged more than some second tier carriers charge for fully flat J seats (eg Vietnam Airlines, Royal Brunei and sometimes even Thai). I know what I'd be doing.

 

[SuzieQ68]

+1 for disappointing experience with SQ's PE product. Upgraded via the 'bid' system and, thankfully, only paid the minimum amount (think it was $180 each) to upgrade to PE from MEL-SIN. Expectation was high given past SQ flights (in Y & J) - but came away saying that there was absolutely no way I'd pay to fly this cabin again. Food was exactly the same as Y (and presented same as Y) - and when it came to breakfast, the cabin crew served the Y cabin first leaving what was left over for the PE cabin (ie no choices left). Staff had no idea about the wines on offer (which were disappointing too - and only the Y selection). No sparkling wine option at all. All in all, other than the extra legroom, nothing special about the PE product. Not for me. Have flown better PE product and would rather fly Y with SQ.

 

[LakeCathieConnection]

I have to agree about SQ’s PE product. We recently flew PE Sin - Syd via the bid system. The only plus was the slightly bigger seats. The food, including the ‘book the cook’, was terrible. Our food in economy Syd - Sin a few weeks earlier was a better offering. I cannot see any justification for the huge additional price for SingaporeAir’s PE product. Very disappointed.

 

[Dee Thom]

Travelled Sydney to Hong Kong via SIN return recently, all daylight flights in A380, seats were comfortable, food edible with a few selections, though admittedly we didn’t have breakfast.
Overall was happy with the early bird pricing, and product. Will readily do it again in the future.

 

[Mary Carol Kelly]

We recently chose Singapore PE to fly Perth to Paris and Barcelona to Perth based on research which suggested they had one of the best PE products .
I can’t tell you how disappointed we were in all aspects - from the seat , to food to amenities ( or lack of) and total experience . We paid nearly $4000 over economy fares and would never do it again. Like many here -we received food which was poor and staff who were very busy serving all economy and PE passengers - so had little time . Even going to the toilets were problematic as we were unable to use the ones up front just the ones at rear of plane .
I provided constructive feedback to the airline and was again disappointed with their response . The end result was receipt of a $100 Myers voucher ..
I’m not sure what’s happening in the company as it’s not good .

 

[Blinky]

I was successful in getting an upgrade to PE on SQ from Singapore to Melbourne, but upgraded to J. Reading this, a very good decision.

My first longhaul flight from MEL to LHR about 12 years ago on Virgin Atlantic was PE and it was quite good, but in my view, the price differential usually makes J a no brainer, particularly on long flights.

 

[Nouflyer]

Different airlines offer vastly different PE.

The Air New Zealand product is by far the best: Business Class food and wine but with a recliner seat comparable to domestic Business Class

Bottom of the class has to be the Qantas 787 Premium Economy, with its appalling legroom.

The issue across the board however is price - most airlines seem to charge double the discount economy fare.

Mind you, the China Airlines $1600 Premium Economy fares from Australia to Europe are outstanding value, especially if combined with Priority Pass lounge access.

 

[Rod James]

At least you were offered Breakfast. When travelling back from UK with SQ I was freshening up prior to breakfast then landing in Bne.
My wife had declined breakfast so, as it turned out, they presumed that I did not want any too!
When I finally asked what was happening they explained that they thought that I did not want breakfast and scratched around to try to get me a lousy feed.
This was after not having my dietary requirements , as booked , on flight over and back . Never again SQ.
Have flown since with QA, BA and JAL. Not game to use SQ

 

[bullerdude]

Comes down to price for me. If Singapore PE is going for a good price then I’ll usually take it over economy due to the better seat and more space. I find not sharing armrests and having good legroom to make a big different to my inflight comfort. Yes the service is economy plus, but I buy for the other benefits.

 

[hossein_au]

Comes down to price for me. If Singapore PE is going for a good price then I’ll usually take it over economy due to the better seat and more space. I find not sharing armrests and having good legroom to make a big different to my inflight comfort. Yes the service is economy plus, but I buy for the other benefits.

I understand that if the price difference was 10%-20%. But for usually double the price of economy, I tend to have double the expectation.

 

[ozjuice]

Yes basically you get better recline and more legroom and that is often a very valuable difference on long haul. Service, toilets and food though do not reflect the extra cost. I think they're slipping in that department which really surprised me.

 

[stm1sydney]

Had a call from SIA just now offering to upgrade my SYD/SIN flight on the weekend from Y to PE for the low, low price of $399. Based on the above posts, I won't be taking up their offer.

 

[ozjuice]

Had a call from SIA just now offering to upgrade my SYD/SIN flight on the weekend from Y to PE for the low, low price of $399. Based on the above posts, I won't be taking up their offer.

$399 is actually good value if you need more comfort.....but that's all you'll get really.

 

[Blinky]

$399 is actually good value if you need more comfort.....but that's all you'll get really.

I agree. That’s what I paid, before forking out more for J.