SQ Tips, Trips and Tales

[lovestotravel]

Oh yeah, I'd much rather have IRROPS with SQ rather than QF, any day of the week.

I had a flight BLR-SIN-MEL last week where BLR-SIN was delayed by an hour and a half, and given the ~1 hr transit I had at SIN, there was no way was I going to make the SIN-MEL flight. Landed at SIN and SQ had agents there, with signs, and new BPs printed out for all affected pax (there were A LOT of pax affected - so many flights ex-SIN to AU ports have this transit).

If it was QF, I'm pretty sure we'd be left to fend for ourselves.

Now look, it wasn't all smooth and rosy by any stretch, as the new BPs were given for an arrival into MEL an entire 3 days later than scheduled (and not even on a direct SIN-MEL, it was SIN-DPS (SQ) and DPS-MEL (QF). Their direct flights into all AU ports were full. No seats left, nada. For the next 4 days. With work needing me to be back on site rightaway, I couldn't afford that option.

Live chat with SQ came to the rescue, had a chat open with them for about 5 or 6 hours, at BLR airport, during the BLR-SIN flight itself (thank goodness for in-flight WiFi), and managed to get the SQ251 service SIN-DRW added to my PNR, which was then ticketed at SIN Transfer Desks. Pretty sure my wife and I got the last 2 remaining seats into the entire AUS continent on that flight, SQ was that chockers. Made it to MEL at 0730 Monday morning, drove from the airport and walked into work at 0900. Couldn't believe it.

Only managed to make it to MEL due to being proactive and finding a solution for the agents to work with. I reckon I need to make a thread to really explain in full depth the lengths I had to go to, to find a way home (nobody should have to go through that effort just to get to work on a Monday, but I digress...).

So SQ will get you home, but will they get you home on time especially for time-sensitive events, is another story.

Still, rather SQ than QF. QF will tell you to go f*&$ yourself while laughing that you got delayed.

100% We went down to board SIN-MEL a few months back.

Everyone was still sitting waiting, so we waited for a bit then sat down. I noticed the red beacon light was flashing on the A350, and thought that doesn't look good.

Sure enough about 30 minutes later, sorry this plane has a tech fault, go back to the lounge/collect your care kit if needed.

We boarded a new aircraft about 1 hour later, and left with a 1.5 hour delay

 

[kerfuffle]

I received the same for SQ212 on the 21/12, i did laugh when it's just arriving 10 mins earlier.

Also same for SQ212 for 3/11

 

[MathNerd]

100% We went down to board SIN-MEL a few months back.

Everyone was still sitting waiting, so we waited for a bit then sat down. I noticed the red beacon light was flashing on the A350, and thought that doesn't look good.

Sure enough about 30 minutes later, sorry this plane has a tech fault, go back to the lounge/collect your care kit if needed.

We boarded a new aircraft about 1 hour later, and left with a 1.5 hour delay

Beautiful. Just amazing.

 

[daft009]

100% We went down to board SIN-MEL a few months back.

Everyone was still sitting waiting, so we waited for a bit then sat down. I noticed the red beacon light was flashing on the A350, and thought that doesn't look good.

Sure enough about 30 minutes later, sorry this plane has a tech fault, go back to the lounge/collect your care kit if needed.

We boarded a new aircraft about 1 hour later, and left with a 1.5 hour delay

thats great at the home port but not the experience we had in Sept 2023 at Haneda.
aircraft deemed unsuitable to fly after about sitting on the aircraft for 90-120min. then go sit back in the lounge for about 7-8hrs then sent to an airport hotel with a flight home on ANA's direct flight to Sydney the next day.

I had no qualms (these things happen!) except leaving us in the lounge for 8hrs with 2 young children. tried getting an update a few times but no one from SQ was to be found. just hoped the decision for airport hotel was made quicker

Edit: I rang KF help centre too and they couldn't help as as per them the flight wasn't cancelled. So they couldn't look for alternatives

 

[MathNerd]

What a week for that to happen! SQ was chock full all week to Australia due to school holidays. I’m pretty sure other carriers were too. Add insult to injury and QF2 SIN-SYD was cancelled (or delayed severely?) on Wed 16th which exposed QF to some criticism for not rebooking pax on other carriers … but other carriers were full. Seems like some knowledge/research coupled with perseverance you created your own luck!

Yeah, all the agents I spoke to in SIN reckon that it was about the worst they've seen it, they've never seen such levels of zero'd out availability, in all fare buckets, on all flights, on so many consecutive days.
It was absolute mayhem.
School holidays ending, Europe summer vacationer returns, and a bunch of other factors all contributed to it.

I didn't know about QF2, that's disappointing. Pax deserve better. I hope they were able to get pax home.

Seems like some knowledge/research coupled with perseverance you created your own luck!

Oh, absolutely. The first rule of IRROPS is "find your own way home that works, feed it to the agents, let them do the magic behind the scenes". Because if you don't do that, you'll get an itinerary that works for them, but may not work for you (especially in terms of timing).

Even the Transfer Desk agent I spoke to at SIN just before boarding SQ251 SIN-DRW (for the purposes of checking what will happen to our bags as they were tagged to MEL on the SQ207 SIN-MEL service), reckons I pulled off an absolute miracle. Those bags are still stuck at DRW (there's a fight between QF baggage services and dnata (SQ's baggage agent) about who's responsible, but that's a different story altogether).
None of the other delayed pax on SQ511 made it out of SIN that day. My wife and I were the only ones. She's (the agent) never seen something like this (and she was a senior level, experienced agent).

All the reading I've done here on AFF, over at r/awardtravel, and other places, was the reason I was able to get to work/home on Monday. If I didn't find that option, I would have landed in MEL today. And missed the first 3 days of the school term. And lost my job as a result (maybe..., if I couldn't demonstrate that I did everything within my power to find a way to get to work on time).

As the saying goes, where there's a will, there is a way. And boy oh boy did I have the will. I don't think anybody (either my colleagues or students) have ever fought so damn hard to get to school for the start of term. Ever.

 

[JackMiles]

And lost my job as a result.

Seriously? Are you able to elaborate on how that would have been a fair dismissal? Did they tell you not to take this trip or something? Not wishing to pry, just curious since that seems . . . extreme.

 

[MathNerd]

Seriously? Are you able to elaborate on how that would have been a fair dismissal? Did they tell you not to take this trip or something? Not wishing to pry, just curious since that seems . . . extreme.

Let's just say that some workplaces are so short-staffed, that one staff member missing causes a MASSIVE problem.
"Losing my job" was a bit of a hyperbole (as if you fire someone when you have a staff shortage, just exacerbates the issue multiple-fold), however you're looked upon with scorn if you take a day off. Especially at the start of a school term, after you've already had 2 weeks off.
Not something I'm willing to play with fire for, so had to find a way to bend heaven and hell, space and time, to get to work on the Monday for the start of term.

I hope that makes sense?

 

[dajop]

Yeah, all the agents I spoke to in SIN reckon that it was about the worst they've seen it, they've never seen such levels of zero'd out availability, in all fare buckets, on all flights, on so many consecutive days.
It was absolute mayhem.
School holidays ending, Europe summer vacationer returns, and a bunch of other factors all contributed to it.

Yes, I've not seen anything like it this year (other than 2020/21 of course), and I have been regularly travelling between SIN & MEL since I moved to SIN (from MEL) in 2009. At the start of the school holidays, I came back from BNE because seats out of MEL were impossible (or expensive, even Scoot was charging about $1100 one way in economy, no luggage or meals...) . I think one contributing factor could be Emirates removing their fifth freedom flight that stopped in SIN enroute from DXB to MEL. That had 360 seats, so removing it probably took 120-180 seats out a day of the route depending on how many through passengers (DXB-MEL) there were.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

The other thing for IRROPS like that described by MathNerd - where you have to be home - is to wait it out at the airport. Just like your inbound flight from BLR was delayed, there will be other flights with similar delays, freeing up connecting seats.

Of course if you have the spare time, much nicer to sit it out at a hotel, but if time really is of the essence, there will almost always be something that comes up last minute on standby… although it might be in the main cabin!

 

[MathNerd]

The other thing for IRROPS like that described by MathNerd - where you have to be home - is to wait it out at the airport.

You're talking about waiting it out at (in this example) BLR, or at SIN?
As soon as I heard about the delay (the inbound SQ510 went tech at SIN and departed 1h 20m late as a result, causing the delay to the departure of SQ511), I started looking for options. Even the ground staff at BLR (third party dnata agents) couldn't find any alternatives. So they checked us in as per our bookings and said "sorry can't help, people at SIN will help".
As soon as that happened, I got onto Live Chat on the SQ app. Didn't end that chat until we landed at SIN.

Just like your inbound flight from BLR was delayed, there will be other flights with similar delays, freeing up connecting seats.

Oh, you're saying that there could've been pax from other origins that were booked on the next SIN-MEL service (SQ217, 4 hrs later) that would've missed it due to their inbound being late, hence freeing seats on SQ217 for us SQ207 pax to jump on over into?
That makes sense.
Sadly, no other delays occurred that could've made this a possibility, so SQ217 remained full.

although it might be in the main cabin!

The whole trip was in Y (booked as a cash fare not award redemption), so we were just happy to have a seat - any seat!
Even if we were booked in J, would've happily given it up to fly in Y. As I said before, I was willing to do anything to land back in MEL on time to be at work on the Monday morning.

Everyone I've spoken to reckons I'm insane.

SQ was giving a free hotel stay at the York for 3 nights, could've explored Singapore and had amazing hawker food and just generally relaxed.

Instead, I did all this work, bent all laws of physics, to not piss work off. I hope they appreciated it.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

You're talking about waiting it out at (in this example) BLR, or at SIN?
As soon as I heard about the delay (the inbound SQ510 went tech at SIN and departed 1h 20m late as a result, causing the delay to the departure of SQ511), I started looking for options. Even the ground staff at BLR (third party dnata agents) couldn't find any alternatives. So they checked us in as per our bookings and said "sorry can't help, people at SIN will help".
As soon as that happened, I got onto Live Chat on the SQ app. Didn't end that chat until we landed at SIN.

Oh, you're saying that there could've been pax from other origins that were booked on the next SIN-MEL service (SQ217, 4 hrs later) that would've missed it due to their inbound being late, hence freeing seats on SQ217 for us SQ207 pax to jump on over into?
That makes sense.
Sadly, no other delays occurred that could've made this a possibility, so SQ217 remained full.

The whole trip was in Y (booked as a cash fare not award redemption), so we were just happy to have a seat - any seat!
Even if we were booked in J, would've happily given it up to fly in Y. As I said before, I was willing to do anything to land back in MEL on time to be at work on the Monday morning.

Everyone I've spoken to reckons I'm insane.

SQ was giving a free hotel stay at the York for 3 nights, could've explored Singapore and had amazing hawker food and just generally relaxed.

Instead, I did all this work, bent all laws of physics, to not piss work off. I hope they appreciated it.

Absolutely you did the right thing to be proactive and find alternative seats! Not questioning that. It’s just if that fails, waiting on ‘standby’ often yields results… it might not be a misconnect that frees up seats, but it might be that a passenger is delayed getting to the airport and misses their flight. And it might not be the very next flight, it could be the one after. And when there are multiple daily departures to various cities, the chances of one seat a usually good!

I was faced with a BA cancellation last year and and my 0800 AMS-LHR flight turned in to 1730… not a single seat available in between on either BA or KLM… so I went out to the airport and waited by the check-in desks. I ended up with a seat on the 1000 service to LCY as someone didn’t turn up. Mad scramble to get through Schipol with just 30 mins until door closed!

 

[JackMiles]

"Losing my job" was a bit of a hyperbole

I hope that makes sense?

Gotcha. Yeah, I did think maybe it was hyperbole but that tone did not seem to fit with the rest of your post. Anyway! Thanks for replying and clarifying.

 

[mel-world]

Yes, I've not seen anything like it this year (other than 2020/21 of course), and I have been regularly travelling between SIN & MEL since I moved to SIN (from MEL) in 2009. At the start of the school holidays, I came back from BNE because seats out of MEL were impossible (or expensive, even Scoot was charging about $1100 one way in economy, no luggage or meals...) . I think one contributing factor could be Emirates removing their fifth freedom flight that stopped in SIN enroute from DXB to MEL. That had 360 seats, so removing it probably took 120-180 seats out a day of the route depending on how many through passengers (DXB-MEL) there were.

The Melbourne papers are saying that there could be 45,000 POMS out for the Lions Test at the MCG on Saturday. They had to have got here somehow. On top of the Australian school holidays and the usual northern summer travel.

 

[BCons]

The Melbourne papers are saying that there could be 45,000 POMS out for the Lions Test at the MCG on Saturday. They had to have got here somehow. On top of the Australian school holidays and the usual northern summer travel.

Many of them hv been here for weeks - Lions tour started in Perth almost a month ago, first test was Brisb last Sat (and we're going this Sat night to an apparently sold-out MCG for 2nd test).

This seat squeeze has been a confluence of effects - Aussies out for winter, school hols, Poms in..