Avis du vol entre Singapore et Denpasar en classe Economique avec Saudia

NOTE: As this trip report concerns a Gulf airline, it’s only but proper to bear in mind the current volatile geopolitical situation in the Middle East in February–March 2026. Global giants like Emirates and Etihad mostly operated only repatriation flights in the first week of March 2026, while Qatar Airways was not able to operate any passenger flights at all until a very limited resumption on 7 March.

Saudia, the subject of this report, is no exception — but it was affected to a much smaller extent, with most of its Asian and European network operating as normal. If you are in any way affected by the current geopolitical strife, please remember to stay safe!

Introduction: New cabins, new screens, same (lovely) old Singapore

As you probably know if you’ve read my previous trip reports over the second half of 2025, I was based in Singapore for several years until returning permanently to India in June 2025. That’s because I was accepted into one of the country’s — and arguably the world’s — best business schools, IIM Bangalore, in the city of Bengaluru in the south where my family is now also based.

With the first few months being academically intense, it was only after October that I could think of small weekend breaks — including a brief return to Singapore for the first time since I left. (I did, however, go on a six-day trip across Abu Dhabi and Delhi during the 10-day term break in September 2025, as my previous report on Etihad’s A350-1000 shows.) An inter-college sports tournament named, very imaginatively, ‘Inter-IIM’ was scheduled for the middle of November. As I have no real interest in playing sports — much less in raucous cheering and sledging against players from other IIMs — I used that weekend break to escape to Singapore and Denpasar, without telling anyone (not even my family!).

There were two motivations for this. One, to reconnect with my office colleagues in Singapore, who treated me like family; and two — more pertinently to this website — to experience two new exciting cabin products. One was Saudia, which had launched a new 3x-weekly Jeddah–Singapore–Denpasar service (SV856/857) in March 2025 using the 787-10. In August, it converted the SIN–DPS leg into a fifth-freedom sector — meaning you don’t have to go all the way to or from JED to fly this service. (Also remember that Riyadh Air technically launched operations in October 2025 with London flights, but those are not bookable by the public. It will be some more months (as of March 2026) before Riyadh Air’s gamechanging product will be commercially available. When that happens, that will be another formidable force in the Middle East, adding competition to Saudia within its own country.)

In fact, the SIN–DPS–SIN flights are at almost exactly the same times as another such fifth-freedom service from SkyTeam partner KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. I flew KLM on the SIN–DPS sector in June 2023, on a 777-300ER in the SkyTeam livery (my first time on any SkyTeam airline!), and it was so all-around lovely that I considered it to be my favourite flight of 2023. With Saudia having implemented a slick, highly impressive rebrand in September 2023 — barely weeks after Air India did the same — with a retro-futuristic livery, I was more than excited to see what SV had in store on this route to Bali, especially on its latest and greatest 787-10s. I ended up getting HZ-AR33, the newest widebody in the entire fleet, with a sticker for ‘The Red Sea’ at the rear!

The other was Malaysia Airlines’ new A330neo, which is possibly the BEST new widebody in Southeast Asia at present in terms of how new the cabin is. MH’s A330-900neos — in the same 9M-MN registration series previously used by the now-retired A380s — were delivered starting from December 2024, and the airline has quickly ramped up deliveries of them in the year since. They mostly fly to Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland, as well as Tokyo (Narita), with Denpasar being the only regularly scheduled short-haul sector on the morning MH715/714 sector.

As a lifelong fan of Tintin, the iconic Belgian comic character, I try to fly as many Flight 714s as I can — so it was obvious that I should fly the MH A330neo on, well, ‘Flight 714’. I’d already flown that flight number on Singapore Airlines (SIN–BKK) and Cathay Pacific (SIN–HKG). Not to mention, MH has consistently been at the very top of the branding and typography rankings, in my book — along with the likes of Cathay Pacific and Etihad — and Saudia, too, has joined it at the top with its aesthetically pleasing fonts.

Soon enough the tickets were booked. First, late on the night of Thursday 13 November, Singapore Airlines’ SQ511 from Bengaluru to Singapore — operated by the regional A350 that I’ve reviewed here countless times — with a few hours’ layover. Then, on the evening of Friday 14 November, SV856 to Denpasar — the focus of this report — and a bit over 36 hours’ stay there. (This was my second time to Denpasar/Bali, the first, as above, being in June 2023 — with the return on two Garuda Indonesia A330-300s with special stickers and enchanting music.) Then the return on the afternoon of Sunday 16 November on Malaysia Airlines’ MH714 to Kuala Lumpur, and finally a humdrum Batik Air Malaysia 737-800 (OD241) back home to BLR. I won’t be reviewing the flights to and from BLR, since the focus is on MH’s and SV’s latest and greatest widebody cabins — plus what value can I add with yet another SQ A350 review, right?!

It also helped that a Singaporean colleague and friend of mine kindly arranged for a visa — required for Indian nationals — for me, a week before the travel. As a Singaporean national (of Indian descent) he could directly apply for one on my behalf — and, lo and behold, a visa was granted for two years with MULTIPLE entry! That’s not something that usually happens otherwise, so I was very lucky!

Pre-departure: Revisiting a good friend — and an office family

Friday, 14 November, afternoon: Tampines, eastern Singapore. How I ended up here, in the middle of a packed academic week, with just a few hours’ notice needs no more explaining than I’ve already done. All you need to know is that the previous evening I started out from the IIM Bangalore campus in the south of the city, trudged through the nearly two-hour journey to Kempegowda Airport, boarded a Singapore Airlines A350 and found myself at Changi Airport in Singapore — my home for seven years — the next morning.

It was simply surreal, returning to the island, city and country I’d started my education and career in… before leaving it behind to come back home to India and start afresh. I had a mission, though: I had to meet a friend and colleague (let’s call him V) — the same one who helped apply for a visa for me above. When I’d moved everything to India in June, I’d left behind a suitcase with him, and now I was here to collect it.

V lives in Tampines, in the eastern side of Singapore (close to Changi Airport), where I also worked briefly in 2023. So that’s where I went in the morning, relaxing for a bit and buying a few things that I wouldn’t get back in India — like Stabilo highlighter pens, a favourite of mine! (Also, it seems that the new Butterbear craze from Thailand had started to take root here as well, which I hadn’t noticed earlier.)

Our Tampines Hub is the same place — one of my favourite hangout spots in Singapore — where I’d attended a Korean tourism fair two-and-a-half years before, in May 2023. That was the genesis of my Japan trip in May 2025, including two legs on Asiana’s A350 and A380 (upper deck) via Seoul to Tokyo.

This done, after chatting a bit with V’s family members (who knew me a fair bit), I started from V’s house and proceeded to the famous Little India district for lunch with my old colleagues.

En route, as always, I tracked my inbound plane on Flightradar24. SV856 was being operated by HZ-AR33, the airline’s newest 787-10 — and indeed its newest widebody, since all deliveries since then have been A321neos. There were also a few interesting planes to and from Thailand — an Air Astana 767-300ER from Phuket, and TWO El Al 777-200ERs to Bangkok! (I didn’t know that the Israeli flag carrier operates twice daily to Bangkok, in addition to once daily to Phuket…)

On reaching Little India, I headed straight to the Heritage One restaurant and bar, where I’d had good times with my colleagues on several occasions. There I indulged in their famous ‘Japan chicken’ — a misnomer, since this dish has nothing to do with Japan, but a creamy, rich delight all the same. They were more than delighted to see me again, and were looking forward to my escapades!

After filling them in on what I’d been doing at IIMB all these months, while catching up on their recent developments at work, I tucked in to the rich Indian dishes on offer. Chicken biryani, gobi (cauliflower) manchurian, satti soru (a rice dish from Tamil Nadu in southern India)… I had it all! We posed for pictures and I left for Changi, mind and tummy full.

As the Renault Grand Scénic — my third (!) for the day, all of them Gojek taxis — sped down the Bugis business district in the heart of Singapore, I had a fond look at all the skyscrapers I used to see at least three times a week on my way to and from work barely a few months before.

These then gave way to the Singapore Flyer, and soon enough I was hurtling down the East Coast Parkway expressway. That’s the same route that the 36 and 48 buses take, both of which I took countless times between the city centre and my home on the East Coast. In fact, the 36 continues all the way to Changi Airport, and that’s how I sometimes travelled there if I was light on luggage!

I could not help but express my awe through these picture captions — and pinched myself for having returned to Singapore after all these months. Through it all, V and so many other office colleagues had continued to maintain contact with me over WhatsApp, and still do.

Singapore, being Singapore, doesn’t really have a lot of traffic jams. You can easily breeze from one end of the island to the other in half an hour or so, though it isn’t exactly cheap. This whizzing to Changi was in stark contrast to the arduous two-hour climb to Kempegowda Airport the previous evening, which easily takes two hours or more during rush hour!

At length, the familiar Changi entry sign came into view. There isn’t an airport in the world that feels so much at home than this one did — and still does, even after leaving Singapore. That it happens to be the best in the world (apart from those years where Doha’s Hamad Airport tops the Skytrax rankings) doesn’t hurt either!

With it being the middle of November, Season’s Greetings decorations were placed at the entry road to Terminal 3, and before long the Renault whooshed into the familiar drop-off driveway.

Most SkyTeam carriers at Changi use Terminal 3, and Saudia is no exception, with the others being Vietnam Airlines, Garuda Indonesia and China (Eastern) Airlines. However, Korean Air uses the physically isolated Terminal 4. As for Air France and KLM, they use the Oneworld-dominated Terminal 1, thanks to their partnership with Qantas. (Xiamen Air uses that terminal, too, inexplicably.)

In contrast, despite Singapore Airlines having such a huge operation at Terminal 3, only three other Star Alliance carriers use the terminal: Air New Zealand, Asiana Airlines — as I flew out of here in May 2025 en route to Tokyo — and EVA Air. Most Star members are based at Terminal 2, SQ’s other main hub, while some like Turkish Airlines and Air China use Terminal 1 instead.

To my dismay, there was not a single sign for Saudia to be found anywhere in the Terminal 3 departure hall! There were signs for other SkyTeam members from East Asia — most prominently China Eastern Airlines and its subsidiary Shanghai Airlines — and Vietnam Airlines. I didn’t see any for Garuda, though, as it was at the other (left) end of the terminal.

Presumably, few people outside Jeddah faithfuls even knew that SV now operates to Changi — let alone has a fifth-freedom flight to Denpasar. It was only after going all the way into the check-in counters for SV856 that I saw any of Saudia’s branding for the first time. And what pretty branding it was, indeed, with all the green-and-blue checkered patterns that mark a fresh departure from the airline’s historical desert-sand colour. Immediately, I was a fan!

I checked in the heavy suitcase retrieved from V’s house — its handle was broken and couldn’t be pushed in. The boarding pass that I received, expectedly, was plain; there aren’t that many airlines that have colourful boarding passes any more. (Air India is a notable exception in this regard.) The cabin-baggage tag, however, was colourful: prettily patterned to reflect Saudia’s new spirit and brand!

Some distance away, check-in for Air New Zealand’s daily NZ283 to Auckland was taking place. Again, this is one of only three Star Alliance members (aside from SQ) that remain in Terminal 3 and did not join its alliance partners at T2, along with Asiana Airlines (as I flew from here in May 2025) and EVA Air.

Did you know that Singapore Airlines and Air New Zealand have very similar numbers for their Auckland flights? Singapore Airlines has SQ281 departing Changi in the morning, Air New Zealand has NZ283 in the early evening and Singapore Airlines has SQ285 in the late evening.

Also, now that United has relaunched its Bangkok flights (via Hong Kong) — I flew its BKK–HKG leg in January 2026 — Air New Zealand is the only Star Alliance member to serve Singapore but not Bangkok. Far more airlines serve BKK but not SIN than the other way round, like Austrian Airlines. However, Air New Zealand thrives much more on Singapore’s premium demand than Bangkok’s leisure traffic.

All of a sudden, I spotted a small child walking across the terminal floor in the footsteps of his mother and brother. He was so adorable and tiny, with his little feet pitter-pattering about the place, that I could not help but watch him toddle along. His mother was hijab-clad and fresh-faced, and his brother was ony a year or two older. 🥰 Few sights give me greater joy than little children like him.

Afterwards, a Sri Lankan man asked where the check-in for his flag carrier’s daily evening flight, UL309 (as I flew in November 2023 — my only time so far on SriLankan’s A330-300, with a special cake!), would take place. I told him that he would have to wait!

You don’t need Disney to create magic at Changi

For the past few weeks, Changi had been running a promotional campaign with Disney Cruise Line’s Adventure cruise ship, which sets sail from Singapore starting from March 2026. There is nary a time when I leave from Changi Terminal 3 and don’t see this sort of promotional setup. But I don’t need Disney to make an airport experience magic — not if the airline and destination are as exotic as this…

I breezed past the immigration counters, where my biometric data was already saved (despite no longer being a long-term resident of Singapore) and hence I didn’t even need to swipe my passport. The Louis Vuitton store was decidedly less whimsy-looking than I’ve seen before, with the usual aquarium-themed display instead of the anime-like cartoons it’s shown before.

As ever, Terminal 3 offers countless spaces for lounging and relaxing, but I preferred to do so at the gate. I turned right towards the B gates: not my favourites at Changi owing to their high ceilings, which I don’t like. Only a few B gates at the very end of Terminal 3 are low-ceilinged, unlike Terminals 1 and 2, where the low ceilings feel welcoming in nature.

A whole row of relaxing chairs, with plenty of power outlets and pretty potted plants, was mostly occupied. I watched a Cathay A350 and an Emirates 777 land in quick succession, and…

…then briefly took an upstairs detour (I can’t say I’ve been here a lot), which consisted of the free movie theatre and the Ambassador Transit Hotel.

In due time, I spotted the gorgeous, sexy 78X — shorthand for 787-10 Dreamliner — that would carry me to Denpasar. HZ-AR33 sports a sticker for The Red Sea at the back, and with that classic-meets-modern green-and-blue cheatline gracing the fuselage, the new Saudia livery is one heck of a stunner in my book! (I do wish the English titles were equally big on the left and right side of the aircraft — the right side has Arabic much bigger instead…)

A few travellator rides later, with the familiar sight of the Crowne Plaza and commonplace ads for Standard Chartered on the right, I made it — once again in my travelling history — to Gate B7.

OOOOHHH, ISN’T SHE ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BIRD?!?!

’Nuff said!

Unfortunately, KL835 from Amsterdam — which would now also operate the exact same SIN–DPS sector as my SV856 — landed at exactly the moment that my phone had gone for the at-gate security screening, so there was no way to take a picture of it despite being so tantalisingly in sight. As I often see at Changi, the security staff were a chatty bunch, and they noted that Saudia Arabia has historically been symbolised by its double-sword and palm tree — in other words, Saudia’s logo. I told them that, in a couple of years’ time, Riyadh Air — which has been flying since October 2025, but still hasn’t opened commercial flight bookings in early 2026 — will be the talk of the town!

At first I thought there weren’t that many passengers who were travelling to Denpasar, as I imagined most of those originating in Jeddah were terminating their travels in Singapore. Most of these were Arabs, and not Africans or other nationalities — though I did see more nationalities on board. However, I was almost certainly one of the only passengers who was taking the fifth-freedom route instead of flying in all the way from JED.

If you’re only flying from Singapore to Bali, there seemingly isn’t much reason to choose Saudia, which has a lower brand recognition than SQ — or even its SkyTeam partners Garuda Indonesia or KLM. All the more so since SV is a dry airline, meaning no alcohol is served under any circumstances. Not that I care — I’m a teetotaller, and SV has an excellent selection of juices and mocktails in premium cabins!

As it stands, I was way too early to reach the gate (which I did at 4:10), and before long I’d settled into a slumber. For 45(!) good minutes I pretended that I was anywhere other than Changi Airport Terminal 3’s high-ceilinged gates with stairs going up.

When I woke up, it was past five in the evening, and drizzling — and some non-Arab passengers had joined me at the gate, including a young Indian woman talking on the phone. She was telling someone — family? colleague? — about how she wound up on a Saudia flight to Denpasar. As I said, few people know that a Saudia flight on this competitive sector even exists, let alone knowingly book it… but those that do are in for a pleasant surprise.

Soon enough, I would find out for myself: as boarding was called, I practically ran inside the jetbridge to snap whatever I could of the plane through the rainy glass panes. At the door, a cheery flight attendant wished me Ahlan Wasahlan… I tell a lie, I was the one who wished him instead. I was so excited — flying a fifth-freedom route for the umpteenth time, and on a historically underrated, unheralded airline that has put in so much effort to reinvent itself from head to toe… Who would’ve thought?!

The flight: Boarding and departure

Flight: Saudia Airlines SV856/SVA856
Date: Friday, 14 November 2025
Route: Singapore Changi (WSSS/SIN) to Denpasar–I Gusti Ngurah Rai (WADD/DPS)
Aircraft: HZ-AR33, Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner (The Red Sea sticker)
Age: 2 years 3 months at the time (built: 13 August 2023, delivered: 18 September 2023)
Seat: 67L (starboard side, window)
Boarding: 5:50pm SGT/WITA, UTC +8
Departure: 6:10pm SGT/WITA
Arrival: 8:30pm SGT/WITA
Duration: 2 hours 10 minutes

Notes:
• Fifth Gulf airline flown, after Emirates Airline — four occasions: twice each in June 2022 and July 2024 — and Gulf Air, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways, all on one occasion each. Also the third fifth-freedom flight on a Gulf airline in Southeast Asia, after GF166 (BKK–SIN, now discontinued) in November 2023 and QR971 (PNH*–SGN) in November 2024. (Etihad doesn’t have any fifth-freedom flights — neither in Asia nor otherwise.)
*Phnom Penh’s GLAMOROUS new Techo airport (code: KTI) opened in September 2025. But my flight to Ho Chi Minh City — which involved plenty of drama! — was from the old, now-closed PNH airport.

• HZ-AR33 is the airline’s newest widebody aircraft at the time of publication, and all deliveries since then have been A321neos in the HZ-ASA and now the HZ-ASB series. Somehow, there are no new widebodies scheduled for delivery at SV in the immediate future — especially as it will not operate the 777X or A350 — so I lucked out with this aircraft, especially with the special sticker. (No holding a candle to KL835 in June 2023, though, on the same sector: that KLM 777 literally had the SkyTeam livery!)

• Fifth SkyTeam airline flown after KLM, Garuda, Vietnam Airlines and China Airlines. Second and final flight on a SkyTeam airline in 2025, the first being China Airlines’ late-night CI709 — see spoiler below — from Taipei to Manila on the A321neo on 24 May. In 2023 and 2024 I had several flights on KLM, Garuda Indonesia and Vietnam Airlines, but in 2025 SkyTeam flights were kept to a minimum.
While the value of this alliance to me has never been huge as a frequent flyer — compared to scores and scores of flights on Oneworld and Star Alliance airlines — it was still nice that I could fly on two new members of SkyTeam in 2025, in which I flew a personal record-shattering 45 flights!

How many airlines have a huge-as-f*** TV at the aircraft entrance?!

I knew that Saudia, especially after its big rebrand in 2023, was going to be different from most other airlines — in a good way. How different? (And no, I’m not talking about the lack of alcohol — it might as well not exist on a commercial aircraft for all I care.)

For starters, at the very entrance to the 787 was a huge 43” TV — I swear I haven’t seen this before — which showcased the airline’s destinations across North America, Europe, Africa, Asia and its home of the Middle East. Then the cabin was bathed in a cool bluish-purple hue (no, this isn’t the violet of Thai Airways) and neatly upholstered in warm beige tones.

Waiting for me at window seat 67L — no points for guessing that I love to fly in row number 66 and above, wherever possible — was perhaps the most innovative welcome screen I’ve seen in quite some time. Against the backdrop of picturesque Saudi landscapes was the Arabic word ahlan, alternating with the word welcome in a bunch of languages, with Saudia BEYOND branding below. No, that wasn’t the innovative part: what was innovative was the little i button to the left, which opened up the photo’s description in 16 languages! This attention to detail was enough to tell me that Saudia took its new entertainment system as seriously as its new corporate brand, and left me with a very positive initial impression of the airline.

As you’ll see, the green slash (from the N in BEYOND) is a big part of Saudia’s new BEYOND entertainment system, as this brand identity page describes. The thoughtfully designed IFE alone was enough to sweep me off my feet — save for one minor flaw, as I’ll get to below.

It’s not often that I fly an aircraft with the window seats labelled L instead of K, with Ethiopian’s 787s being a past example. (In January 2026, I flew two 787-9s on the fifth-freedom route between BKK and HKG, on airlines that both have L-seats: United Airlines’ UA821 from BKK to HKG, and Ethiopian’s ET609 on the return just two hours later.)

Waiting for me in the seat pocket were a tastefully designed safety card, and a somewhat plain airsickness bag and earphone packet. It was too far-fetched to expect an inflight magazine, since all but one airline in the Gulf has eliminated it. That lone man standing is Etihad, as I’d flown just two months before on its A350-1000 to Mumbai — and its magazine is now called Beyond, the very same name as Saudia’s IFE system! (The renaming — it was previously called Atlas — was done as part of the new Beyond Borders brand identity, introduced in the middle of 2025.)

As you see above, right across the aisle from my seat was a feature you can only reasonably expect on Saudia: the prayer room. Well, not so much a room as an enclosure protected by curtains (and featuring prayer rugs), where the Islamic faithful may commune with Allah at any time of their choosing — provided it’s safe, of course, and not during turbulence.

For some weird reason, the seats on the right side of the plane, where I was sitting, didn’t play the destination video, so I had to zoom in on the seats in the centre. Goodness, I must say it was very beautiful indeed, with two ‘arrows’ zooming out to reveal the name of the city.

The onboard music was similar to the below video that I’d played on loop so many times during the COVID-19 lockdown five years before, in 2020. However, all the animations were so much better this time. Needless to say, I’m a big fan of these blue-and-green patterns — and they play the same role in elevating Saudia’s brand that the red, gold and purple arch-like motifs and patterns did for Air India’s big rebrand at a similar time in 2023.

Here’s a newer version of SV’s brand music, which brings out Saudi traditions in a beautiful instrumental manner. However, I still think Etihad’s onboard music ranks better — I’d even say it’s perhaps the best in the world. That’s followed closely by Qatar Airways’ compositions by Dana Al Fardan, though it now has music by the legendary Hans Zimmer instead…

Presently the captain made his welcome announcement in Arabic, followed by the (female) lead flight attendant in English. She thanked AlFursan and SkyTeam elite passengers for their loyalty and stated a flying time of 2 hours 15 minutes. She was most likely Filipino — as is usual for many Middle Eastern airlines, given the high diaspora of Philippine workers in the Gulf.

Now the safety video played, and it was a simple, standard production without any bells and whistles like the Louvre Abu Dhabi on Etihad or Pokémon on ANA. I appreciate that Saudia was not out to reinvent the wheel with its safety video, and stuck to a predictable script like Emirates also did. The ‘boring’ safety video did not negatively affect my perception of the airline in any way — there was much more in store that impressed me!

After this, a brief prayer seeking Allah’s guidance on these travels was screened — this is Saudia, after all! This was followed by an ad for the massive King Salman Gate, a project in Makkah (or Mecca) that was launched by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in October 2025. A couple of Arabic-language ads for SNB (Saudi National Bank) and Bupa insurance later, we were good to go.

Shortly before departure, a couple of brief promos were screened, including the coveted Best Cabin Crew in the World award by Business Traveller. That’s no mean feat! In any case, those awards skewed heavily towards Gulf airlines, and Qatar Airways in particular — but the fact that Saudia is even mentioned in the same breath as the more illustrious Emirates, Etihad and Qatar is itself remarkable and noteworthy.

This was followed by an extensive promo for Saudia’s BEYOND entertainment system — with lots of recent movies and shows — showing SV’s seriousness in taking on the aforementioned big boys. 

Now that the BEYOND system was ready for me to explore, I went straight to (you guessed it!) the 3D moving map. This being a lowly 787 with no winglets, no tail cameras and no proper window shades like A350s — I hope you understand my sarcasm here; this was a very highly advanced and cutting-edge plane otherwise — the moving map was the best I could do.

Having displayed a welcome-aboard message on the screen, HZ-AR33 pulled out of the gate and started hurtling towards the runway. Unfortunately, the rain-streaked windows made for very limited tarmac viewing.

As I see it, Saudia’s BEYOND system has been painstakingly crafted with an extremely high level of attention to detail. There’s just one little problem, though: the new Saudia Sans corporate font is hardly ever used! Instead you get two very common and overused Google Fonts: Lato and Libre Baskerville. That’s not to take away anything from the sheer well-roundedness and competentness of the IFE otherwise, but it would’ve been SO MUCH more attractive if it used Saudia Sans instead.

This is even more true since the rest of Saudia’s brand identity avoided the big mistake that Air India’s rebrand around the same time (mid-2023) did. AI roped in Nunito, a very clichéd and free Google Font, to support the bespoke Air India Sans — something I feel Air India should not have done. In contrast, Saudia’s website, menu, ads, social media and other branding assets use only Saudia Sans without any other font — an approach that I far prefer. If only the BEYOND entertainment system stuck to Saudia Sans too!

The moving map was the same familiar Panasonic Voyager3D system that I’d seen on other airlines like Singapore Airlines, though with a few green tweaks to reflect Saudia’s brand colours, plus the Libre Baskerville serif font used in the rest of the IFE.

Curiously, though, place names in the moving map used Saudia’s old (also custom) font instead of the standard system defaults! I wonder why? Nevertheless, the real delight was not here but in the numerous destination overviews — which I’ll get to in some time.

Meanwhile a Turkish 777-300ER landed as TK54, followed in quick succession by a Qantas A330-300 from Brisbane and a Lufthansa A350-900 from Munich. This was a good time to enjoy widebodies from across the world land and take off at Changi, as both KL835 and my own SV856 prepared to take off almost simultaneously for Indonesia’s biggest tourist hotspot.

Time to soar: above the rain, above the sea, above the clouds

As the rain continued to pelt the windows, Air New Zealand’s all-black 777-300ER (ZK-OKQ) — as alluded to earlier — touched down after an 11-hour haul as NZ284 from Auckland. Another Air New Zealand plane, a 787-9, was parked at the ST Engineering hangar, along with another 787-9 from All Nippon Airways — as I flew half a year before, in May 2025.

These two Star Alliance airlines were the launch customers for two 787 variants — ANA for the 787-8, NZ for the 787-9 — with a third Star Alliance airline, none other than the local hero Singapore Airlines itself, being the launch customer for the stretched but shorter-range 787-10 that I was flying right now.

As ever so often, we strolled over the overhead bridge with cars passing below us — something I’ve seen many times from the road with a plane passing overhead. Then it moved into Terminal 4 territory, where Cathay Pacific and Korean Air are the only big full-service airlines (other than Mainland Chinese ones) and the rest are mostly LCCs like AirAsia and VietJetAir. It had been a few months since the local Jetstar Asia ceased operations — as I wrote a tribute to before its closure — and the absence of its silver A320s at Terminal 4 was starting to hit.

No sooner did we pass by a parked SQ A350 than HZ-AR33’s GEnx engines whirred to life, hurtling at full throttle and eventually lifting me so high that the rain on the windows ceased to be a problem.

All I was left with was some magnificent views of a setting sun and a sparkling sea, as I ended a twelve-hour transit on the island I, until not too long ago, used to call home. If KL835 in June 2023 on the same sector made me dance and sing deep within, this departure was more a reminder of all the time that had gone by. Don’t blame me for being wistful!

Moments after takeoff, I was treated to majestic views of Indonesia’s Batam island and city, an hour’s ferry journey away from Singapore — as I visited once in 2023. The golden fade of the setting sun, the grey misty skies, the thunderclouds above, all combined to create a view that was at once mysterious, mystical (mistical?) and magical.

So much so that even the passenger in the window seat in front was recording the views as the 787 turned right to commence its journey over the world’s largest island country, not counting Australia.

Words cannot describe what I was seeing: the smooth clouds, their graceful motion as they floated above the land and the sea… It was simply mystical. Instead of trying to write anything, I decided to simply watch the world (and the ocean) go by…

…while this song played through my AirPods. It was so addictive and melodious that I did not have the heart to turn towards the rest of the IFE for the first half-hour after departure.

In the past couple of years, two singles called Sahiba have been released: one (this one) a mellow, moody ballad by Aditya Rithari, and the other a brilliant, soulful ode to love by Jasleen Royal, one of India’s most well-known newer singers. The latter song formed the background track to my subsequent review trip in January 2026, involving United and Ethiopian 787-9s between Bangkok and Hong Kong, and a Thai Airways A350 in Business Class — that too in Star Alliance livery!!! (HS-THQ) — from Bangkok to Jakarta.

Together, both songs are among the most beautiful I’ve heard from Hindi indie music recently, and made my travels that much more memorable.

Both Sahibas are brilliant — you can listen to them below if you please!

This finally done, I turned towards what the BEYOND system had to offer. For starters, since I was already listening to that soulful Hindi song, I looked at the Indian audio selection on offer… and my word was I impressed by the customisation efforts Saudia had made with its album covers! Bollywood Lo-fi Chill, Hindi 90’s, Indian Party Favourites, Tanishk Bagchi All-time Hits… and so on. (A few, though, like Arijit Singh Heartbreak Hits, I’d already seen on the preceding flight on Singapore Airlines — SQ511 the previous night — which were from external music agencies, in this case Sony Music India.)

Regardless, there was quite the extensive selection of music — but the selection interface bowled me over even more. Three panels were shown at the time, and the name of the central one was written in a beautiful Arabic calligraphic script that wouldn’t be out of place in a cultural setting. It was heartening to see how much Saudia was celebrating its Arabic heritage in the littlest of ways.

The light from the windows was slowly starting to fade, and my iPhone’s featured photo widget showed me where I’d flown throughout the year 2025. That included a quick weekend trip to Bangkok in March, specifically to fly Cathay Pacific’s fifth-freedom Singapore to Bangkok route, which was discontinued later that month after only a year of operation!

At that time I’d spotted a similar Saudia 787-9 during landing, and I’d written that Saudia — like El Al, Royal Jordanian and Condor — were only to be found at BKK in East Asia, and never at Changi. How wrong I was proven (happily) in the case of Saudia, thanks to this cool, exotic new fifth-freedom route from Singapore to Denpasar!

An airline that’s going above and BEYOND — especially with IFE and city overviews

Now it was time for the cabin crew to roll — pun intended — out the meal service. The previous time I flew a Gulf airline’s fifth-freedom 787 in Southeast Asia was almost exactly two years ago to the day: Gulf Air’s now-discontinued Bangkok–Singapore service in November 2023, on an equally snazzy 787-9 with slick IFE. However, the catering left a lot to be desired, and was only a dry, measly snack. How would Saudia be different, and in what ways, I wondered.

I’ll spoil it for you: the meal was very delicious indeed! As with KLM in June 2023 on the same route, the main course was an Indian dish: chicken dum biryani. Believe you me, while it wasn’t one of the best meals I’ve ever had on a plane — Etihad had spoiled me with its A350-1000 catering two months before — it was still pretty darn good. The spice (low), the flavour (high), the pickled-cucumber salad (crunchy) and ABOVE ALL the square slab of strawberry glaze cake on a bed of mango dressing… Yum, yum, yum!!!

Full marks for presentation, too — especially the strawberry pastry. Rounding off the meal was a cup of hot black tea served at the end, with sugar and creamer served alongside. The one thing I’d rather not have was the bread roll, as it adds only carbohydrates without any taste… which explains the ‘roll’ pun in the previous-previous paragraph.

The meal done, I now moved to the information section of the IFE. In the News & Weather section, the weather was not working, and I didn’t have much interest for the latest news, but what did stoke me was the Saudia ads above the tiles. Among them was its Best Airline Staff Service 2025 award, by Skytrax this time, complementing its Best Cabin Crew 2025 award by Business Traveller, mentioned above.

And now I chose what turned out to be the most fascinating section of the IFE: the destination overviews for dozens and dozens of places.

Before that, however, I will mention that there still seems to be a small lacuna in terms of the quality of English in Saudia’s ads. This was seen in an ad that promoted the Chinese capital, which said: Enjoy your vacation in Beijing, enjoy ancient & breathtacking [sic] nature. It is simply unacceptable for such a rapidly globalising airline to commit rookie blunders like this.

Such English much more closely resembles what airlines based in Beijing or Shanghai might do, with Mainland China’s atrocious command of English, and not an airline that has been going all-out with its onboard service and products to take the fight to Emirates, Etihad and Qatar, which have long dominated traffic through the Gulf.

This is similar to what SkyTeam partner Vietnam Airlines did when I flew them at the end of 2023. Despite the sincerity and dedication towards providing comfortable, professional service, VN committed a gaffe in the description of one of its (no doubt heartwarming!) corporate videos. (See spoiler below.) Regardless, Vietnam Airlines has a much longer way to go in terms of Westernising itself than Saudia, which is already more than halfway there, having taken giant strides with its big 2023 rebrand.

Any lingering doubts as to Saudia’s branding professionalism were quickly banished by the absolutely scintillating destination overviews. I do not use that word lightly. SV may not have the best quality of English ads, but its IFE designers spared absolutely no expense in making it as thoughtful and aesthetic as possible. Just look at this mockup of what Future Provenance, the firm that designed the BEYOND entertainment system, came up with. What they’ve done despite using two commonplace, even clichéd, Google Fonts is simply incredible.

In spite of not using its corporate font, Saudia Sans, in its IFE the way an Etihad, a United or a Cathay Pacific would, I must hand it to Saudia for coming up with what might just be the most comprehensive and enjoyable destination overviews I’ve seen in all my years of flying. It looked less like an airline menu screen, and more like a sleek travel website like Lonely Planet. From the Did you know? factoid snippets to the Eat/Try/Go specials at the end, coupled with the high-def pictures, it beat even Panasonic’s Arc system, one of my favourites, in terms of just how fantastic it was.

Despite my knowing so much about the Indian cities I’ve visited (or haven’t) — Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, even the smaller, artsy Kochi — there was still a lot I learned from Saudia’s city guides. Again, it was less an airline and more a breathtaking tourism portal, which was further reinforced by the way two old, humdrum non-Indian cities in South Asia — Dhaka and Lahore — were painted with such vibrant, manic energy. And that’s saying nothing of two of Southeast Asia’s most lively metropolises, Bangkok and Jakarta…

TL;DR: This is perhaps the BEST part of Saudia’s BEYOND system. You better take my word for it!

Moving outside Asia, to Europe — especially Italy, where my parents had been the previous month (October 2025) — I was no less wowed by the sheer creativity and splendour of it all. Who wouldn’t fall in love with a description of Rome that says ‘The Eternal City weaves her timeless magic’? Or one of Amsterdam that states ‘Canals, culture and all things cool’?

Just for the record, my parents, who are retired, finally accomplished their lifelong dream of travelling to Europe in 2025 — not once but twice. In April–May they visited the Netherlands, France and Switzerland, starting with Amsterdam and ending with Zürich — and in October, they visited Italy, entering through Rome and exiting through Milan. All four of these mentioned cities (FCO, MXP, ZRH, AMS) are featured in the below pictures.

Any guesses as to which airline they flew across all these journeys? Why, Emirates, of course!

I could have gone on reading more about these fascinating travel guides, but I wasn’t flying to one of those far-flung cities. Instead we were quickly approaching Denpasar, which didn’t have its own travel guide, being a new destination for the airline. I had to check out other parts of the IFE, like the amenities — including Saudia’s signature prayer room (as I noted above) — and, yes, mundane stuff like help videos and feedback. Yet even those help videos were very helpfully (ha!) illustrated, another sign of the great care that went into crafting BEYOND.

Then I had a look at the audio playlists and reading materials, and even these went well beyond the Islamic- and Hajj-focused. There might not have been a huge selection to pick from, but there certainly were a number of magazines from across genres. They came under headings like ‘Expand your imagination’, ‘Enter the world of business’ and ‘Tales from Saudi Arabia’. There was even, would you believe it, a Sherlock Holmes collection — onboard an aircraft!!!

The next thing I did — which I’ve featured in many previous trip reports of mine — was something I try to do for every flight I take: my journal entry. Sometimes in the air, sometimes on the ground, but always with a bunch of colourful pink, purple and/or orange highlighters. Except this time I also brought out my green highlighter, and added the neon-green electric energy that the BEYOND system had injected into this flight with its personality.

With only a few minutes left before landing into Denpasar, I went through a bit of the movie and TV selection on offer. There were some very prominent tiles of global streamers: HBO Max, Apple TV+, Paramount+, plus another for the BBC (presumably not BBC News!), as you might expect from a rapidly globalising airline.

And then I moved to the moving map, and would have watched it throughout the descent — there of course being no tail cameras on a Dreamliner…

…if not for a suddent stinging pain above my left eye as the plane descended! Goodness, it felt horrible, what with both my ears blocked, and babies crying on descent. The crying in and of itself might not be so remarkable, but there was something certainly wrong about the pressurisation of this aircraft. That (and perhaps the lack of an inflight magazine) might be my only real complaint with this flight.

Same same but different: Hot on KLM’s tail for a Denpasar night landing

Shortly after half-past eight in the evening, HZ-AR33 swooped down over I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport’s bright necklace-like lights. This was in the exact same way that my previous — and first — visit to DPS (and my first time to Indonesia as a whole!) took place, that too at exactly the same time of day… on KLM’s SkyTeam-liveried 777-300ER in June 2023.

Before I knew it, the 787 coasted onto the runway, and with it ended one of the most offbeat flights I’d taken in 2025. For a year in which I flew a personal record-doubling 45 flights, this was no mean feat!

A QR code for submitting feedback followed by a big thank-you message were screened. Between the bright green-and-blue patterns and the slash motif, I couldn’t help but marvel at just how well-built this entertainment system was, in spite of my initial reservations on not using Saudia’s corporate font within the interface.

I was BEYOND generous (pun intended) when it came to my compliments of the entertainment system!

During disembarkation, the same destination-overview video as before was screened. This time, there was no problem in screening it in my section of the plane — unlike boarding, where it was only screened in the seats in the central and left sections, not the right. This allowed me to click the clear pictures of these destinations that you see below, showing them off in full HD glory.

As I collected my belongings and made towards the exit door, I spotted the nearest cabin crew, a local Indonesian named Mustikowati YC, and complimented her airline’s turnaround with a globally competitive brand identity. This is what I said:

Me: I’m very very impressed by the way with which Saudia has been transforming itself, even before the arrival of Riyadh Air, as a major global airline. It really reflects in your brand identity.
Mustikowati: Thank you! I always also wish that you enjoy your flight with us, okay! So enjoy Bali now. You’re most welcome!

So saying, I thanked the cabin crew and stepped onto the jetbridge at DPS for the second time in my life — both times on a SkyTeam airline that was not the local Garuda Indonesia, both times on a special-liveried Boeing, both times coming from Singapore at the exact same time of the day. The difference was that this did not carry the full SkyTeam livery that that KLM 777 did, but only a small sticker at the back — but that was still enough to qualify as a special livery. Not only a special livery, but a special flight! It was at once exciting to fly on a new fifth-freedom airline and heartening to see what SV had achieved by transforming itself.

This time around the DPS arrivals hall wasn’t filled with the sweet smell of agarbatti (incense) sticks, but that didn’t matter: I got in my clicks of the special sticker and turned left, where a 45-minute wait in the immigration queue was lying in store for me!

For the record, these were the planes on the ground at the time. KLM and my Saudia from Singapore, Turkish with two back-to-back arrivals from Istanbul as TK66 and TK310 — these were the only true longhaul arrivals — and a Qantas A330 from Sydney were the widebodies, aside from a Garuda A330-300 that had arrived on a presumably unscheduled flight from Jakarta as GA4182. (I flew that exact registration, PK-GPU, on the way back home to Singapore from my previous Denpasar trip in June 2023.)

An SQ 737 MAX from Singapore and a couple of Jetstar A321LRs were the other international aircraft, and the rest of the narrowbodies were PK-registered domestic planes.

Want to land at Denpasar in the evening? You’ll need to wait for it…

Now I did not need to splurge for an overpriced Telkomsel SIM card — with its stalls placed in the long walkway — like I did the last time I came here. I’d done the sensible thing and installed an eSIM well before my arrival. However, that did not work towards lessening my wait in the pretty, imposing arrivals hall…

…as a seemingly unending line snaked on and on, filled with Australian passengers plus those from my flight and the KLM, SQ and Turkish flights. Suffice it to say that DPS’ queue handling at immigration remains terrible, despite implementing an e-Visa on Arrival scheme for many nationalities, which I’d availed of!

It was only after no less than 45 good minutes of scrolling through my phone that I was able to come out on the other side, with people’s luggage from my flight neatly bunched and kept to a side. After that it was a matter of moving deftly and skilfully past the money changers (Mandiri/BNI/BRI) and the telecom stores (XL, Telkomsel, Indosat/3) — steering clear of the cheerful salespeople there — and a lone Indian restaurant called Ganesha Ek Sanskriti, which I didn’t recollect having seen last time.

In the first two pictures below, a young woman was holding a placard with ‘MY DAD’ written on it. She had packed the sum total of all the possessions she was carrying into a rucksack and a big TV-sized carton. When I turned to face the terminal, I saw people celebrating the Friday-evening cheer in the myriad Burger Kings and Coffee Clubs and other eateries.

It felt so good to get away from the hustle and grind of Bengaluru — what with an inter-college sports tournament taking place on campus, as I said at the start of this report… though the roads of Bali are a different sort of grind altogether! And to get there, I now needed to fire up Gojek, Indonesia’s all-in-one superapp that also operates in Singapore… but, sadly, not anywhere else. (It exited Vietnam in 2024.) As I’ve said in previous reports, I have a strong preference for Gojek over Grab, its much bigger Singapore-based rival that operates in 8 Southeast Asian countries — including Cambodia, as I visited in November 2024. Gojek’s lovely illustrations are a major reason behind my choice.

I headed to the Gojek waiting lounge, where some Western travellers were already stretching their tired legs, and waited till my name was called.

Presently a specimen of that most Indonesian of cars, the Toyota Avanza, turned up and I bundled into it, bag and baggage. I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport is located not on a sprawling expressway — there aren’t many of those in Bali — like Jakarta’s Soekarno–Hatta International Airport or Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, but on a comparatively narrow arterial road with traditional Balinese architecture making up its façade. Soon enough I passed by a sign for XL Axiata, one of the country’s largest telecom operators, which had recently merged with competitor Smartfren and introduced the slogan #wearemore.

Before very long I reached my destination, the stylish and affordable Episode Kuta hotel — located right next door to Mal Bali Galeria, one of the oldest and most popular shopping centres on the island.

To show you how heartwarmingly designed and lovely Gojek’s app illustrations are, I’ll leave you with the faces it showed when asking me to tip. When I paid the tip, it left me with a beautiful parting message: May kindness always be with you, which was vaguely reminiscent of the God bless you that Saudia writes at the nose of all of its aircraft. It will probably bring tears of joy to your eyes — like writing about this flight did!