Singapore
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My very first time in Singapore Airlines business class!
For my recent Singapore trip, I deliberately routed through Taipei instead of flying direct from Incheon, just so I could try Singapore Airlines business class on the Taipei to Singapore leg. The Incheon-to-Taipei leg was on Asiana, which I’ve written about separately. Once we landed at Taipei Taoyuan, we had about four and a half hours before our Singapore Airlines flight, a fair stretch of layover to fill at the airport.
To break up the wait, we took our son to a small play area in the family lounge for a while, but the layover still felt long. He’d only eaten a banana at the Incheon lounge that morning, so once he was done with the play space, we headed to the SilverKris Lounge for an early lunch.
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SilverKris Lounge at Taoyuan Airport (Terminal 2)
Since Singapore Airlines is part of Star Alliance, I could choose between Star Alliance lounges or one of the contract lounges accessible via Priority Pass or The Lounge Members card. At Taoyuan Terminal 2, the Star Alliance options are EVA Air’s Infinity Lounge, EVA Air’s The Star Lounge, and Singapore Airlines’ SilverKris. The contract options are the Oriental Club Lounge and Plaza Premium Lounge.
I’d seen good reviews of both Oriental Club and Plaza Premium and was tempted to try one, but decided to save those for a future trip to Taipei and stick with a Star Alliance option this time. The default move would probably have been EVA Air’s lounge since EVA is the local FSC, but I’d been at SilverKris in Incheon earlier that morning and was curious to see how the Taoyuan version compared.
The Taoyuan SilverKris is a bit smaller than the one at Incheon, and when I arrived in the afternoon it was almost completely full. We had to start with seats near the entrance because nothing else was available, and only later, once the crowd thinned out, did we move further in.
The space isn’t large, but one wall is essentially floor-to-ceiling glass with a clear view of the apron and the planes parked outside, which keeps the room from feeling closed-in. The lounge itself is well maintained. There’s a substantial food menu, leaning heavily Taiwanese, and the most popular item was the one labeled “Taiwanese Speciality” on the buffet sign: Taiwanese Braised Pork. The dish must be a national favorite. The same name showed up on our Singapore Airlines TPE-SIN flight as an in-flight meal, and again at the EVA Infinity Lounge on our return.
Since our son hadn’t eaten breakfast or his in-flight meal, I gave him rice with the braised pork. He didn’t eat a huge portion, but he ate more than I’d expected, and then made up for the rest with watermelon, yogurt, and other desserts. The fruit was a set of one piece each of watermelon, melon, and pineapple, but he refused to eat anything except the watermelon, so my husband and I ended up working through the melon and pineapple ourselves.
I wasn’t particularly hungry, so I just sampled things. One of the samples turned out to be my first-ever bowl of bak kut teh, which I had at a Taipei airport lounge, of all places, en route to Singapore. These slow-cooked broth dishes tend to taste fairly similar across regions. This one reminded me of bebalung, a soup I’d had on Gili Trawangan in Indonesia, and even a little of Korean galbitang. The difference is mostly in the spices used to flavor the broth.
The one thing I missed at the Taoyuan SilverKris was draft beer โ it wasn’t on offer. Other than that, the food variety was good, the quality was solid, and the lounge was well-managed.
Since our 4 p.m. flight to Singapore would put us in Changi quite late, and once you factor in baggage, immigration, and the hotel transfer it was going to be a late arrival, I decided to give our son a shower at the lounge about an hour before boarding to make bedtime smoother. The shower facilities at Taoyuan SilverKris were generous and clean. Bathing him and getting him changed was easy. There are only two shower rooms, so I’d expect a wait at peak times, but during my visit I didn’t see anyone else using them.
Singapore Airlines operates SilverKris lounges at ten airports outside of Singapore: Bangkok, Brisbane, Hong Kong, London, Manila, Melbourne, Perth, Seoul (Incheon), Sydney, and Taipei. I’ve now used two of them, and in both cases the SilverKris was actually better than the local FSC’s own business lounge. It’s made me curious to try the others.
A year ago in Bangkok, I’d defaulted to the Thai Airways Royal Silk Lounge on the way home, assuming the home carrier’s lounge would be the obvious choice. It felt a bit dated, and I left mildly disappointed. Next time I’m in Bangkok, I’ll head to the SilverKris there instead.
TPE-SIN on Singapore Airlines Business Class (SQ881)
After enough lounge time, and a freshly showered toddler, we headed to the boarding gate. At Incheon, the lounges are spread out along the length of the terminal โ east, central, and west โ so you can usually pick the one closest to your gate. At Taoyuan, almost all the lounges and restaurants are clustered together on Level 4 in the middle of the terminal, so we had a long walk to the gate.
This was my first time on Singapore Airlines. SQ881, TPE-SIN, was operated by a two-year-old A350-900. Looking at the business class seats for the first time, the calm color palette, the embroidered cushions, and the overall finish gave the cabin a noticeably premium feel.
What surprised me was that the seats weren’t full flat. They were angled lie-flat, meaning the seat reclines back but not to a full 180 degrees, and the ottoman section to the side of each seat is shaped in a way that doesn’t actually let you slide your feet in once you’ve reclined. Even at full recline, the seat is just an angled position with no proper space to stretch your legs forward. A slightly awkward design.
For a flight under five hours, it wasn’t really a comfort problem. The seat itself was very comfortable, and the medium-haul time meant I didn’t need to fully lie down. But after assuming Singapore Airlines business would default to full-flat seats, the angled lie-flat was a small letdown for my first SQ experience.
Our son fell asleep during taxiing again. Once the seatbelt sign came off, a flight attendant came over, reclined his seat for him, and then checked his name against the manifest. The other airlines I’ve flown business with โ Asiana and Thai Airways โ addressed me as the generic “ma’am” or “Mrs.” Singapore Airlines knows your name and uses it. It’s a small detail, but the kind of thing that adds up to a more attentive overall experience.
I’ve found Asiana to be reliably friendly even as the rest of the in-flight product has slipped, and Thai Airways genuinely warm in how they handle passengers. I’d always been curious about what extra dimension a perennial top-of-the-rankings airline like Singapore Airlines actually offers, beyond friendliness. The answer, for me, was a sense of professionalism. The crew didn’t just feel friendly, they felt very polished and well-trained. Whether that’s the uniforms, the atmosphere of the cabin, or the way they carry themselves, the overall effect is that they seem genuinely good at what they do.
Other nice touches: in-flight Wi-Fi is free for business passengers throughout the flight, and the welcome service came with champagne and a hot towel โ a small detail many airlines have quietly cut. Cabin amenities such as a hairbrush, earplugs, eye mask, socks, and slippers are available on request, though the actual amenity kit is reserved for flights longer than six hours.
There are a number of standout features of Singapore Airlines business class, but for me the biggest one is probably the food. The meal service came not long after takeoff. With Singapore Airlines business, you can either pick from the standard on-board menu or pre-order from the Book the Cook program, which has a separate menu and is worth looking at in advance.
Book the Cook options vary by departure airport. From Taipei, none of the Book the Cook items really jumped out at me, and the on-board menu had a Taiwanese Soy Sauce Braised Pork Belly I really wanted to try, so I skipped the pre-order.
That turned out to be a mistake. I was in the very last row of the business cabin, and by the time the cart reached me, two of the four on-board options โ the Taiwanese Soy Sauce Braised Pork Belly and the Seafood Guanmiano Noodle Soup โ were already sold out. The remaining options were beef and chicken. I picked the beef. If I’d known, I would have ordered through Book the Cook.
The smoked duck breast appetizer was excellent. Duck is hard to mess up, and the texture was nicely tender. Among the bread options, the garlic bread looked the way garlic bread is supposed to look, so I tried it and ended up finishing the whole thing despite already being full.
The beef main was closer to well-done than I usually like, so the meat itself was a touch overcooked for me, but the flavor was fine. What surprised me was the side vegetables. The bell peppers and broccoli were good, and the potatoes were genuinely excellent. I rarely think a side of vegetables on a plane is genuinely good. Singapore Airlines’ reputation for in-flight food is well-deserved. Dessert was a choice of fruit, cheese, or ice cream. I went with the fruit, which was just fruit. My husband had the strawberry cheesecake ice cream, and a single taste made me regret not getting it myself. Ice cream is rarely a wrong answer.
While I was eating, our son woke up from his nap, so I ordered a kids’ meal for him. It came with a main, fruit, and a snack. He ate only the fruit, refused to look at the chicken and rice, and started demanding the snack. He didn’t touch the main meal at all. I keep wondering when the day will come that he actually eats his in-flight meal.
After we finished, I ordered a Singapore Sling, Singapore’s signature cocktail and one I’d been curious to try. There’s a story that the bottled Singapore Sling served by Raffles Singapore (the cocktail’s birthplace) is the same drink served on Singapore Airlines flights. Looking back, the version on the plane did taste similar to the one I later had at Raffles’ Long Bar in person โ though it could just as easily have been a placebo effect from knowing the story.
With my Sling, I browsed the in-flight entertainment for a while. Since my son was born I’ve barely been on a long flight, and my usual Asiana flights have such limited IFE that I’d mostly given up on watching anything in-flight, defaulting to the flight tracker or writing blog drafts. Singapore Airlines’ IFE was overwhelming in a good way. Movies from many countries, TV shows, a huge content library. I spent a while browsing before settling on Barbie. Korean subtitles aren’t a given on in-flight movies, but Singapore Airlines has many films that do include them, which made the flight a lot more enjoyable for me.
Our son watched two Pinkfong movies back to back. The funny part was that he refused to wear the headphones (he claims they’re scary), so he watched them entirely on mute, and still found something hysterical, giggling through the entire flight without bothering anyone.
Between the meal and one movie, the five hours to Singapore went by quickly. I’d barely slept the night before and was on what was basically a whole-day journey, but by the end I didn’t feel exhausted. The seat wasn’t full flat, but it’s still business class.
Arriving at Singapore Changi, I got my first taste of how streamlined the immigration process is. I’d filled out the SG Arrival Card in advance, and the automated gate process for adults was essentially instant. Our son required a brief manual check because of his age, but the whole thing was over in about a minute. Changi’s reputation for technology really lives up to itself.
Immigration moved so fast that I had to wait a while for our checked bag to come out. Once we’d collected it, it was around 10 p.m. We grabbed a Grab from the airport taxi stand and headed to the hotel.
We’d left home at 5 a.m. and arrived in Singapore at 10 p.m. โ roughly 17 hours of travel for a destination that’s a 6-hour direct flight from Incheon. Adding 11 hours to a travel day just for an aircraft type is mildly absurd, but it was actually a fun day overall. I’d been worried our son would struggle with the long travel time, but he handled it well, and we started the trip in reasonably good shape.
A Failed Pre-Flight Visit to Jewel Changi
On our return day, our flight out was at 10 a.m., so we left the hotel around 6 and aimed to be at the airport three hours early. The trip had been 5 nights and 6 days, but because of the late arrival on day 1 and the early departure on day 6, we’d really only had 4 full days of sightseeing. It felt much too short.
The reason we’d left so early โ three hours is a lot for Changi, which is famously efficient at immigration and check-in โ was that I wanted time to see Jewel Changi before our flight.
I’d assumed Jewel was inside the airport. The kind of thing you’d visit after check-in, between security and the gate. Turns out, no. Jewel is a connected mall on the landside, not airside. Once you’ve checked in and gone through immigration, you can’t go back. If you want to see Jewel before flying out, you need to drop your bag, visit Jewel first, then go through immigration. My plan to check in, hit the lounge for breakfast, and then see Jewel didn’t work.
Jewel’s signature jungle dome and indoor waterfall were what I’d most wanted to see at Changi, so missing them was a real disappointment. The silver lining was that I had a five-hour layover in Singapore planned for September on the way to the Maldives. I’d see Jewel then. I packed up the disappointment and headed for the lounge.
SilverKris Lounge at Changi Terminal 3
Singapore again. Immigration was, again, more or less instant โ about a one-minute wait. I love this part of flying through Changi.
Because the Jewel plan had fallen through, my lounge time was going to be much longer than I’d originally planned. SilverKris has locations in each Changi terminal, but apparently the Terminal 3 location is the newest and the largest.
The Terminal 3 SilverKris is split between a business lounge and a first class lounge. I went to the business side. The space inside splits into a left area and a right area. The left side has more food, far more seating, and a much bigger crowd. The right side is smaller, has less food, and is correspondingly quieter โ the kind of place people go when they want a calm space to rest in. For breakfast, I claimed a spot on the busier side.
It was clearly peak breakfast time. The lounge is enormous, with a lot of seating, but there were almost no free spots, and it took me a while to find one.
The menu has the basics โ yogurt, bread, ham, potatoes, laksa, dim sum, hard-boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, several hot dishes, fruit. Our son ate his usual rotation of hard-boiled egg and yogurt. I tried the laksa, which I’d been wanting to.
There’s a noodle station where you pick your noodles and toppings and they assemble it. The laksa was actually more substantial than I expected, with a thicker, richer broth than the one I’d had at Lau Pa Sat. The spice level was very mild, so I added one of the chilies from the topping selection, but it turned out to be a milder green chili that didn’t really change the flavor.
The rest of the food was solid across the board. The scrambled eggs in particular looked so good I couldn’t walk past them without trying some. After breakfast, we moved over to the quieter right-side space for the rest of our time.
The right-side space has its own smaller selection of food, including some dishes you don’t see on the main side โ shakshuka, congee, things like that. The space is more compact and there’s less seating, but the seats are more widely spaced and there’s a window view of the planes, so it feels brighter and more open. There’s also a bar with staff. At the time of my visit, cocktails and alcohol were only served in the evening, but apparently that’s been expanded recently to 24/7. Next time, I’ll definitely have a cocktail there, the way I did at Incheon.
We spent the rest of the morning here โ our son ate watermelon, my husband and I had a glass of wine each โ and headed to the gate just as our son’s patience was running out. My first visit to the Terminal 3 SilverKris Business Lounge was a really good one.
SIN-TPE on Singapore Airlines Business Class (SQ872)
SQ872 from Singapore to Taipei was on the same A350-900 as the outbound, but on an older aircraft โ eight years old this time, versus two. I’d even been assigned the same back-row business seat in the same layout, so the cabin felt very familiar.
After boarding I got my welcome champagne, and again, no amenity kit since the flight was under six hours โ but slippers were already at the seat without needing to be requested. We were also given a small Mickey Mouse build-it toy as a kids’ gift. Our son had zero interest. He went straight for the IFE. I built the toy.
After takeoff, I got another champagne and a small bowl of nuts, and then it was straight into the meal service. Having been caught last time by the “back row + sold-out menu” problem, I’d pre-ordered through Book the Cook this time. From Singapore there are far more Book the Cook options than from Taipei, and choosing was hard. I ended up picking the Singapore-style prawn noodle soup. My husband chose the gyu yakiniku. Our son had the kids’ meal.
For bread, the garlic bread had been so good last time that I went with it again. The flight attendant also recommended a thin, dark, cracker-like bread topped with a subtle layer of cheddar, which turned out to be excellent โ almost like something you’d serve as an appetizer with wine. The bread on Singapore Airlines is consistently good.
The shrimp salad came next, with the dressing applied at the seat. It had a noticeable cilantro note, so it might be a love-it-or-hate-it for some.
Then my main course: the prawn noodle soup. It was, simply, very good. The bowl came with shrimp and big pieces of pork โ the kind of cut you’d find in bak kut teh โ and while the pork was a bit chewy, I finished essentially everything, broth included. This was the best in-flight meal I’ve ever had. It tasted a little like a Korean instant noodle called Saewootangmyeon, with a slightly fiery, savory broth. I love noodles, and the heat level was just right. My husband’s gyu yakiniku was apparently just as good, which means we both came away very satisfied. If you fly Singapore Airlines business and have the option, pre-order through Book the Cook.
Dessert was a slight letdown. I’ve noticed this on Singapore Airlines before โ dessert is the weakest part of the meal program. Book the Cook does have some dessert-forward options that I’d love to try sometime.
After the meal, I watched Moana 2 on the IFE, and we were at Taoyuan before I knew it.
For a 6-hour direct flight that could have been simple, I deliberately routed through Taipei just to try Singapore Airlines business class. From the SilverKris lounges to the actual flights, none of the extra time or expense felt wasted. My first
Singapore Airlines business class experience was only four hours each way, but it was enough to convince me I want to try a long-haul flight with them next.
