Review of Singapore Airlines flight from Singapore to Johannesburg in Economy

Recently, I did a 5 days sightseeing trip to Cape Town with my mum and sis over the Deepavali holidays + a few days of vacation leave. It is my second trip to Cape Town (I had loved the place on my previous trip 3+yrs ago) but my mum's and sis's first. And with the Rand having fallen rather significantly, it has became a very affordable destination to visit!
With SQ having a monopoly on flights from Singapore to South Africa, tickets on SQ there are definitely not cheap. Our tickets costs the same as SQ fares to Europe! Also, with the not-so-good catering I had on the SIN-CPT flight previously (and even feedbacked to SQ about it), I had mentally prepared myself for the flight, but did not expect that the catering standards in economy on the outbound flight had turned for the worse and really reached the pits! Not only comparing to SQ-standards, but any long-haul full-service carrier standards! I predict SQ's SIN-JNB-CPT route easily takes the award of the Worst Long-haul Economy Inflight Catering in the world! Now, please read on…
Performed online check-in prior to the flight and turned out that the flight would be half-empty. We snagged 6 seats for the 3 of us (I had a 3-seater bed!). Boarding passes printed at Terminal 2, which was very quiet in the evening, and bags were sent on the way.

Mainly LCC flight departing in the late evening, with only SQ flights to JED, CPT and DEL departing from T2 in the wee hours.

Plane-spotting is not too exciting, mainly with MIs and TRs retiring for the night, and the Scoots preparing for their midnight departures.

Our departure gate E12 right at the end of the pier. Security checks had just started shortly before, hence the queue. However, it moved fast.

Holding area before boarding.

Out the window, I could see that SVE would be operating the flight. I just flew on her less than a couple of months ago back from Istanbul!

21 October 2014
Singapore Airlines
SQ 478
Singapore (SIN) - Johannesburg (JNB) - Cape Town (CPT)
B777-200ER
9V-SVE
Economy Class
Boarding was announced on schedule and was orderly. Stepped onboard the retrofitted B772ER aircraft and proceeded towards the rear to my seat at 57H/J/K (all mine! Haha) while my mum and sis were seated at 56 H/J/K. This aircraft was retrofitted with a mega-galley right at the rear by removing 2 rows of 14 seats, while the mid-galley was removed to make room for the long-haul business class seats. An economy toilet was also removed for an additional 4 economy seats, thus making the capacity of the aircraft as 26/245, down from the previous 30/255. Seats were basically similar to the non-retrofitted aircraft, with the seat covers updated to the new colour scheme, IFE screens changed to bigger ones and IFE system slightly updated as well.
During boarding, crew were again on the aisles welcoming passengers, but they did not felt very warm. Unfortunately, that set the tone for the flight.
Large galley at the rear.

Boarding in progress.

Luckily, the retrofitted B772ERs retained its 34 pitch in economy, with 57A/K having 1-2 more due to the curvature of the cabin. Hence my choice of row 57!

It would be a long 10.5hrs flight to Johannesburg.

View out the window.

The seat pocket magazines.

After passengers had settled down, hot towels were distributed.

Due to a couple of missing passengers who could not be contacted, their bags had to be offloaded, resulting in a slight delay. During the wait, crew distributed headsets to be used with the IFE, which was already switched on. No more of the ridiculous headsets must not be used during takeoff/landing rules now.

Menus were also given out.

A look at the extensive beverage list, which rivals some carriers' business class offerings. Now, this was where the oomph ends… I will show the rest of the menu during the meal services of the flight.

Finally, after a delay of nearly 20min, doors were closed and we taxied to the runway for departure.

Took off from Rwy02C, bound for Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Flying along the coast of Singapore after taking off towards the north and making a turn back south-westerly.

After seatbelt signs were turned off, amenity kits consisting of socks and toothbrush were distributed.

IFE was not as extensive as on the newer aircraft, but still sufficient choices offered for the long-haul flight. I started with the Ape movie. However, the IFE system for the 3 seats in my row was cranky, with the films and sounds skipping every few seconds while watching, making it rather irritating. A reset of the system by the only friendly and warm crew in economy, an Indian stewardess, proved useless as the problem acted up again. So, grind my teeth and bear with it as I was not going to give up my 3-seater bed for a new seat, plus most passengers had already grabbed their beds as well.

There were 6 crew members serving in economy on this flight. With the economy section being barely half-filled, it should be a very easy flight for them but generally the service was nothing exceptional and most of the crew (with the exception of the Indian FSS) seemed to lack morale and gave the just-get-the-job-done feeling to me. There were even instances of unprofessionalism in service by a particular senior crew, which I would not highlight here, but it definitely left a very bitter taste.
A round of water and juices were offered on trays but unlike my CPT flight 3 years ago, no peanuts were offered. No worries as I heard that this is a new procedure for Supper flights to allow faster service.
Immediately after, refreshments were served. Take a look at what is offered.

I had expected that at least a hot wrap/sandwich similar to my previous CPT flight would be served to us. Thus, to my horror when I was presented with this!

The Tandoori chicken tortilla wrap was served very cold. Not only was it cold, portion was very small (I could not even taste any chicken pieces, just a mush in the wrap) and it tasted disgusting!! And to reiterate, I am normally not a picky eater and if I say it is bad, it is definitely very bad!

The other choice was the ham and cheese croissant (see the size of it compared to my hands and I have small hands) which my mum and sis had. Also, my mum complained that it was served too cold and was also tasteless. She had to struggle to finish it. I was even impressed that the crew can serve such food with a straight face….

Talking about consistency, this is definitely not consistent with SQ's other long-haul routes departing at a similar time. You will definitely not see such awful cold food served on Europe flights of similar length, such as IST or DME. There would always be a hot supper served after takeoff on these flights. With a more than 10hrs flight time, there is definitely ample time for 2 hot meal services and sufficient rest for passengers. Even mid-haul flights to Australia might have better catering! Very, very disappointed with SQ for giving such special treatment to us South Africa bound passengers. Even if SQ had wanted to serve a cold meal (I have nothing against cold meals), portions could be made bigger and could come with cold starters or desserts, such as the ones TK serve on their very short domestic hops (really impressed with TK's cold snackboxes) or even CX's snackbox on their red-eyes. What SQ served to us just spelled CHEAP!
After such an unsatisfying and unappetising snack, I could only console myself with a cup of rooibos tea, only available on South Africa bound flights. Cabin lights were also quickly turned off, all barely an hour after takeoff.

After I finished my first movie, we were somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean. There were bouts of quite heavy turbulence, but nothing too bad.

Lavatory, where all the amenities are still available.

I then rested for the night on my bed, grabbing almost 4hrs of sleep.
When I woke up, it was still more than 3hrs to landing. Being not fed well earlier plus missing the snack service as I was asleep, my tummy had started rumbling and thus I went to the galley at the rear to request for some sandwiches. This was what supposedly to be available for snacks.

Ok, so I requested for a sandwich from one of the two stewardesses in the galley, and she just seemed disturbed by me and replied Oh, we ran out of sandwiches. But we will be serving breakfast soon.. All these without checking or offering other snacks. Well, not being a difficult passenger, I chose to believe her and the soon eventually was more than 30min later… This further worsened my impression of the flight. Well, I hope that this is a case of insufficient catering and not of the crew not bothering to offer some snacks, but I highly doubt so…
And so I started on my second movie, a Korean comedy.

Cabin lights were turned on 2.5hrs before landing and hot towels were offered again. Breakfast was served. Lets see what is on the menu.

Breakfast service in progress.

Huge but sparse breakfast tray was delivered. Note that it lacked the usual yoghurt/cereal and muffin found on other long-haul flights? Yes, it is a South African flight thingy. Yeah, SQ might have though that passengers to South Africa are all on diet and do not need to eat much…

Usual fruit starter out of SIN.

I had the pork noodles, and it actually looked better than it tasted. Can't explain, but it just tasted funny… Frankly, my catering expectations was already adjusted very low for the flight, and this did not even meet my already low expectations.

The frittata choice, according to my mum, was not much better.

With the low passenger load, meal service was completed swiftly and we still had almost 1.5hrs to go. Sun was rising now.

Reaching the soils of South Africa soon.

Making landfall

My bed for the flight.

On to my third movie (no prizes for guessing).

Dry African landscape.

We soon started our descent into Jo'burg.

Nearing Jo'burg.

Outskirts of Jo'burg.

Approaching into Johannesburg from the south.

Watch the video of the approach here.

And landing into O.R. Tambo International Rwy03R.

Exiting the runway.

Quite a long taxi to the gate.

Welcome to SAA land! SAA A340 parked at the remote stand.

Parked beside another SAA A340.