Upon just 2 weeks notice, I booked to fly to Phuket via Singapore with Singapore Airlines, in First Class, for £8494, one way for two pax.  Singapore Airlines only has what it calls “First Class” on its B777-300ER aircraft. It’s (currently grounded) A380s have a ‘super First Class’, called “Suites”, and the airline’s other jets top out at Business Class.  I purchased the tickets as a special treat after enduring 18 months of Covid restrictions and a worsening cancer situation, and I used miles for our return flights.  There is a whole series of covid-related procedures to get through before being allowed to board a flight in these pandemic days and Singapore Airlines provides sufficient guidance on what you need to do.

Mr A and I checked in at Heathrow (“LHR”) Terminal 2 some two and a half hours before our scheduled departure time of 11:25. You’re advised to check in earlier than usual because of the time it takes the check in agent to check through all the documents needed to travel. There wasn’t a queue at the First Class counter, but the whole process lasted close to 15 minutes. But equally there wasn’t a queue for the economy class counters – I later learnt that there were only 30 pax on the whole flight, and we were the sole occupants of the First cabin!

During the pandemic Singapore Airlines has closed its premium lounges at LHR, so we were invited to use their Star Alliance partner Lufthansa’s lounge instead.  But it turned out that Lufthansa had closed its First Class section, so we just sat in the main area with their business class pax. The food and beverage offering has been reduced, so I made do with a coffee and a bucks fizz, instead of the eggs Benedict I’d been looking forward to in the Singapore Airlines First lounge.  Coming from Britain, where mask wearing is pretty lax, it didn’t strike me at the time, but looking back at the photo above I see that mask wearing was not enforced in the Lufthansa lounge (despite it being mandatory).

Pre-pandemic Singapore Airlines ferried First class passengers  along the long tunnel to its gates in electric buggies, but this time round I had to pre-book mobility assistance from LHR staff, which involved a wheelchair to tunnel level, and then a buggy to the boarding gate.

On this day flight SQ317 to Singapore (“SIN”) was operated by a 14 year old Boeing 777-300ER, registered 9V-SWG. From the gate we saw a lot of cargo being loaded into its belly – some financial compensation for the very low pax load.  We boarded at 10:45 and I was shown to my seat, 1A, a window seat on the port side.  The First cabin has only one row of seats in a 1-2-1 layout, and Mr A was on the starboard window seat, and as you can see in the photo below, there was space behind the centre seats for us to walk to each other, without going through the galley.

The cabin crew made the two centre seats into our beds for the flight, which made us feel like we were in our own private jet, but one disappointing aspect of this First seat is that Mr A and I could not sit or dine face to face within our suites, because the table tray pulls out from under the TV screen, rather than popping up from the side wall.  But we could actually sit side by side in each suite, so wide were the seats; roughly a metre of stitched and padded leather!

Just after boarding I discovered that all pax had to wear a face mask throughout the flight, apart from when eating or drinking.  Although I support the use of face masks, I am actually medically exempt from their prolonged use, but my NHS-issued exemption card meant nothing to the Singapore staff. I was told that to have exemption on board I needed a doctor’s letter to be pre-approved by Singapore’s head office.  The fact that we were the only pax in the cabin, and everyone on board had been vaccinated counted for nothing either.  I was told that if I thought I was going to have health issues as a result of wearing the mask for the whole flight I would be deemed unfit too fly and offloaded.

In First Class, Singapore offers two excellent Champagnes:  Krug Grande Cuvee and Dom Perignon 2009 were the two on this flight.  When I was offered a pre-departure drink I asked if I could do a blind tasting of both Champagnes and the crew obliged.  I did not correctly identify them because (to me) the Krug tasted more like a vintage than the DP did.  It was noteworthy that the aperitif did not come with nuts; probably a covid thing.

Doors closed ten minutes early at 11:15, push back was at 11:23 and at 11:42 we were airborne from runway 09R towards central London, and once we were into our cruise, lunch was served.  The meal service appeared automatic rather than at a time I’d requested, but it came when I had wanted it, because the lounge breakfast issue and my early morning start had left me very hungry.  But after three flights in First with Singapore in the last 2 years I’m still very uncertain whether or not they offer “dining on demand”; they claim they do, but I haven’t witnessed it.

Pre pandemic each lunch course would have been served individually, but now we were given a tray carrying the traditional canapé of chicken satay, the appetiser caviar course, plus an artichoke soup and a beetroot cured salmon dish – all together!  This first tray gave me good-tasting food, but textures weren’t at their best. This was undoubtedly because Singapore Airlines return caters its flights out of Singapore, so all of this food had been loaded onto the aircraft some 18 hours earlier.

The course I most look forward to in First Class is the caviar.  But this portion was a little smaller than usual and it wasn’t properly chilled, so it wasn’t as enjoyable as it should have been.

The second tray service carried my main course of “Fried seabass in sweet vinegar sauce” with Chinese vegetables and egg fried rice.  This was what a Brit would call “sweet and sour seabass” and it was very tasty indeed. Also on the tray was a small selection of cheeses and a small bowl of fruit (I had declined other sweet desserts).

After my lunch I decided to try to sleep, largely because I thought I could sneakily expose the very end of my nose in between my face mask and my eye mask, to help me breath, as I was having some difficulty doing so. The Boeing 777 is pressurised to an altitude of 8,000 feet in flight and at that level air contains much less oxygen and water vapour than at sea level.  Having started out as a very wide seat, the suite became a very wide and very comfortable (but firm) bed – the widest I’ve experienced on a plane.  I was able to sleep in whatever position I fancied, so I had a very good rest indeed, in spite of the fact that there was turbulence for more than half the flight.  (I actually love turbulence and I find it rocks me to sleep.)  I wore the Lalique-branded black PJs which had been handed out earlier, with a usefully stocked Lalique amenity bag, slippers and socks.

Two hours before Singapore I woke for breakfast, which, like lunch, was served on two separate trays.  I began with some fresh fruits and a bowl of cornflakes. Then there was a birchermuesli and a tub of organic yogurt.  I also had good freshly squeezed OJ and a cappuccino.

For my breakfast ‘main course’ I had chosen “Smoked duck hash”, described as “shredded smoked duck, vegetables and potato hash toped with poached eggs, Hollandaise sauce and arugula leaves” which sounded better than it looked or tasted.  Singapore Airlines ‘usually’ offers a famous “Book The Cook” option for premium pax to pre-order special dishes from an extensive international menu. But this has been heavily scaled back in the pandemic, so I just ran with what was on the onboard menus for this flight.

I changed back into ‘normal’ clothes in the lav.  There are 2 lavs for the maximum 4 First pax at the pointy end, but one of them had been blocked off for crew use on this flight.  Lavs are not as spacious as on Singapore’s A380s, but crew keep them spotlessly clean and tidy.  I also noticed that the first Business Class cabin, behind First, had been blocked off for crew rest during the flight.

After a couple more cappuccini we landed into Singapore Changi airport at 07:01 just as dawn was breaking, on runway 20R, and we were on stand A11 in Terminal 3 twenty-five minutes early at 07:05.  It had been a very comfortable and enjoyable flight, but covid protocols including the lack of the First Class lounge and ‘day old’ food from Singapore lead me to score it 9/10.  BTW crew wore masks throughout, but not the full PPE which some airlines have adopted. All pax received a safety pack contains an antiseptic wipe, a face mask and some hand sanitiser.  I felt very safe.

We were met by a buggy and taken directly to the gate for the departure of our connecting flight to Phuket.