Was bumped off Qantas just after covid and given a seat on Singapore (Syd-LHR). Thought it was a good deal but ended up with the same experience. Perhaps Singapore are solely focused on the front end of the plane these days.

Good news for us in the North of England as Norse Atlantic have announced the return of the direct Manchester to BKK route for Dec 2026 to April 2027. Not only that but they will increase the service to 4 times a week. In addition to that they are also launching a new Gatwick to Phuket direct service as well.

I've only flown Singapore regionally but I would be pretty annoyned had I paid for a full service airline and got a crap experience. Thai fly the A350 between Sydney and Bangkok and I find economy to be more than bearable as someone around 178cm and 90(ish!) kgs. Pretty good food and service too, and while it's business class is not in the top tier it's pretty good especially when there are sale fares. Qantas and the Finnair wet-lease A330 is pretty terrible by comparison even though the price is comparable to Thai. Tighter seating, noisy cabin, and poor to average service and food. I'll only use Qantas/Finnair if I have points to burn. FYI - the Thai authorities have released the "Thim" app (Thai immigration bureau) where you can pre-fill your personal details, including a scan of your passport and then when you're ready to travel you can put in the dates against your profile for your travel declaration. It saves having to put in all the details for every trip on the website and is similar to the Singapore immigration app if you've used that before.  

Singapore Airlines is an Asian company. For an average Asian, a man 185cm tall is a giant. Even the best airlines today like Singapore Airlines try to squeeze the last penny out of the customers, therefore they add four or five additional ranges in economy, after which it becomes a real cattle class on an A380.

After arriving home just over a week ago, I was thinking about some of the high and low points Certainly meeting my latest crush was a high point, but as far as the low points, there thankfully few of them. Probably my best trip ever.  But there was one thing. Singapore Airlines. Now normally I find them to be in the top echelon of airlines. I had four legs with them. On two of them it was not a pleasant experience! The second leg, Singapore to London in an A380 was to put it mildly a pain in the ass. I had to sit on an angle as if I sat straight ahead, my knees were buried in the magazine pocket. Not good. I did call the flight attendant but there was nothing she could do. The plane was full. So the 11 hour flight was less than good. To cap it off, the guy who was to pick me up got his days mixed up, said take a taxi. Welcome to England. A 14 minute ride cost 55 pounds!!!!!. Not a typo. Flew Thai from London to BKK on the return. No problems. Then BKK to Brisbane via Singapore. Bingo!, the Singapore to Brisbane on a A350 I had the same issue. No idea what is going on except to suggest that they are putting extra seats in and reducing the pitch.  The woman next to me was all of 160 tall and was wondering what the fuss was about. I am all of 185cm so not overly tall by any means.  I have been a Singapore Airlines fan for years, but this took the edge off it. Oh one other thing. On my arrival in BKK and anxious to start my sordid activities I had forgotten to fill out the new arrival card. So before the climb up the slope to immigration I started to fill my card out along with about 15 others all scrambling over the paperwork. There was one question I was stumbling over and I looked up and saw a couple of guys with jackets on that said Ambassador. Ah just the right person, so over I went and started to explain my query. Before I had finished the guy held up his hand and said "sorry, we have had so many complaints about the form, that we have, (now get this), decided not to help anyone!". I thought about it for a second and then decided that it would not be good to start what only could develop into a heated discussion, so walked away and filled out the form as I thought appropriate. No problems after doing that. I wont draw conclusions or make insinuations, but just leave it there.