LAX to SIN in Singapore Airlines Premium Economy

[SelectSys]

We have a cruise booked for early January, 2025 from Singapore.  We are going with another couple and are following their lead to book Premium Economy on the nonstop flight between LA and Singapore.  Does anyone have familiarity with this product and is it relatively comfortable for a 17 hour flight?  Thanks in advance for any information. 

[JM0115]

9 hours ago, SelectSys said:

We have a cruise booked for early January, 2025 from Singapore.  We are going with another couple and are following their lead to book Premium Economy on the nonstop flight between LA and Singapore.  Does anyone have familiarity with this product and is it relatively comfortable for a 17 hour flight?  Thanks in advance for any information. 

It differs depending on airline but I think it is worth it if you can get the 2 seat side. To me that is the big advantage as you don't have a stranger sitting next to you. A lot of posters have said that they won't pay more than $50 per hr more than economy. This would be an additional $850 on a 17 hr flight. 

[Gardyloo]

 

[ilovesalchows]

My family of 4 flew that same route in PE in November of 2019.  It was as comfortable as a 17 hour flight can be without being in business.  Not sure if the flight times are the same, but we chose the LAX departure instead of the Seattle flight because it left at night, meaning we would be tired enough to sleep.  I think I got about 6 hours, which is great for me.  We were in the middle 4 seats and it was fine since we are family and the kids were still small.  Food was great and so was the service. I would say it was the best PE experience I've ever had, but still not anywhere near business with a lie-flat seat.  (Not that you asked, but Condor was the worst PE)

 

I suggest you watch videos on YouTube so you can see what it is really like.  

[NMTraveller]

I thought that it was comfortable for a 17 hour flight.  We went over the Christmas holidays.  We were in just economy,  but the seats had 2 inches more of legroom.  Figure that you sleep for 5 or 6 hours.  I was rather impressed with Singapore Air.

[NMTraveller]

The messiest part of the trip was getting into and out of LAX.  It took us an hour and a half each way just to get in/out of the airport area ...

 

Once you have been to the Singapore airport and flying into LAX you will ask yourself the question why? Why are the airports on a different level?

Edited February 22 by NMTraveller

[FlyerTalker]

25 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

Why are the airports on a different level?

 

It starts first and foremost with politics.  If you ever look at how complicated and confusing any kind of public infrastructure, you will start to understand. Too many processes, too many approvals, too many fingers in the pie.

 

Plus, remember that airports do NOT have the passenger as their customer, but rather the retail outlets in the airport.  Note how at terminal 4 in NY, the moving walkways do NOT go in front of any retail outfit - passengers must walk past them.  At DFW, they actually tore out walkways because of complaints that people weren't spending at retail. And as a final example, at Heathrow there is a private bypass door that takes BA business and first class passengers straight to the lounge rather than have them walk through the duty-free shop.  BA pays over a million pounds a year, just for the privilege of having their customers avoid the shop.

 

 

[SelectSys]

Thanks to all for their input.  Well, I booked the trip - nonstop between LAX and SIN in premium economy.  It was about $2400 roundtrip/person for travel at the end of December before New Years and returning mid January. 

 

Was it a good deal?  I don't think it was horrible pricing but there is no sense looking backwards at this point.  I guess I can always shop again as the per ticket cost of cancellation is $200 if memory serves me correctly.  

 

On 2/21/2024 at 7:22 AM, JM0115 said:

you can get the 2 seat side

I booked those seats.  Singapore also has some seats that solo seats but those cost more money and didn't make sense travelling with someone else - at least to me.

 

On 2/21/2024 at 7:22 AM, JM0115 said:

posters have said that they won't pay more than $50 per hr more than economy

Well, using this metric I got a pretty good deal for 32 hours of scheduled flying.  $2400 - $1600 or $800 for a base ticket in economy.  Again, it's really hard to know what a good deal is but the deal is done so no use worrying about price further.  

 

On 2/21/2024 at 1:37 PM, ilovesalchows said:

It was as comfortable as a 17 hour flight can be without being in business.

That's nice to hear.  

 

On 2/21/2024 at 1:37 PM, ilovesalchows said:

LAX departure instead of the Seattle flight because it left at night

That's the flight.

 

On 2/21/2024 at 1:37 PM, ilovesalchows said:

but still not anywhere near business with a lie-flat seat

Of course, that is a given.  I am just hoping it's better than PE on airlines like BA or AA.  

 

18 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

Figure that you sleep for 5 or 6 hours.

I am hoping to beat that goal as we will arrive on New Year's Eve. 

[NMTraveller]

14 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

It starts first and foremost with politics.  If you ever look at how complicated and confusing any kind of public infrastructure, you will start to understand. Too many processes, too many approvals, too many fingers in the pie.

 

Plus, remember that airports do NOT have the passenger as their customer, but rather the retail outlets in the airport.  Note how at terminal 4 in NY, the moving walkways do NOT go in front of any retail outfit - passengers must walk past them.  At DFW, they actually tore out walkways because of complaints that people weren't spending at retail. And as a final example, at Heathrow there is a private bypass door that takes BA business and first class passengers straight to the lounge rather than have them walk through the duty-free shop.  BA pays over a million pounds a year, just for the privilege of having their customers avoid the shop.

 

 

Well first of all the Singapore airport is very clean.  LAX is the opposite.

 

There are some very nice shops in the Singapore airport.

 

Singapore is the Disneyland of airports.  LAX on a good day is Walmart.

 

Singapore wants to be/ is the air travel hub of the region.  No one can figure out what LA wants.

 

Even the Bali airport was quite a step above LAX.

 

Airports are the gateway to the country.  

Edited February 23 by NMTraveller

[SelectSys]

30 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

Well first of all the Singapore airport is very clean.  LAX is the opposite.

 

There are some very nice shops in the Singapore airport.

 

Singapore is the Disneyland of airports.  LAX on a good day is Walmart.

 

Singapore wants to be/ is the air travel hub of the region.  No one can figure out what LA wants.

 

Even the Bali airport was quite a step above LAX.

 

Airports are the gateway to the country.  

 

I think you are a bit too harsh on LAX.  The airport doesn't need to be a Disneyland, it just needs to support the movement of people and aircraft.  This LAX does well having 4 runways that allow large numbers of flight operations. I also don't find the airport excessively dirty in relation to other US airports.

 

LAX provides really great connectivity for one of the largest metropolitan areas in North America.  LAX provides great connectivity to the world which is I guess what LA wants.  In addition, LAX is not dominated by any single airline and thus usually has competitive pricing on flights.

 

Where LAX falls down for me is in terms of access by car.  The terminal access roads aren't great and the traffic in and out of the airport backs up.  This gets compounded by the fact that the freeways in LA are all over capacity.  However, the roads are more a function of the state and local governments policy decisions than that of the airport itself.

[NMTraveller]

9 hours ago, SelectSys said:

 

I think you are a bit too harsh on LAX.  The airport doesn't need to be a Disneyland, it just needs to support the movement of people and aircraft.  This LAX does well having 4 runways that allow large numbers of flight operations. I also don't find the airport excessively dirty in relation to other US airports.

 

LAX provides really great connectivity for one of the largest metropolitan areas in North America.  LAX provides great connectivity to the world which is I guess what LA wants.  In addition, LAX is not dominated by any single airline and thus usually has competitive pricing on flights.

 

Where LAX falls down for me is in terms of access by car.  The terminal access roads aren't great and the traffic in and out of the airport backs up.  This gets compounded by the fact that the freeways in LA are all over capacity.  However, the roads are more a function of the state and local governments policy decisions than that of the airport itself.

The harshness on LAX is well deserved.

 

We did not have any problems getting to the rental car return and shuttle.  The bottleneck at LAX IS the terminal.  It took us 1.5 hours in on the shuttle and 1.5 hours out to the rental car shuttle.  We shaved off 30 minutes of this time by getting off at an earlier gate and walking.  Trip before this trip it took over an hour to get the inter terminal shuttle and I missed my flight.

 

Comparing a dirty airport to other dirty airports in NY is not helpful.  Anyways coming back from Singapore, it will be apparent to you the gigantic differences.  I could have taken pictures of LAX,  but I was on vacation and not taking gross pictures...  

 

At times I consider flying out of San Francisco even though it is longer flight times.

 

Ever hear anybody say I want to fly into LAX?  Probably not.  You can put me down as saying I want to fly into Singapore if possible.  It is a nice experience and airport.  I could spend some time there just looking around.

 

My recommendation for anyone using LAX if there is a bottle neck at the terminal is to get out at Terminal 1 and walk to your terminal.  The same for the terminal shuttles.  

 

 

Edited February 23 by NMTraveller

[SelectSys]

1 hour ago, NMTraveller said:

The harshness on LAX is well deserved.

We can agree to disagree and you are most free to avoid the airport as you see fit.  

 

1 hour ago, NMTraveller said:

It took us 1.5 hours in on the shuttle and 1.5 hours out to the rental car shuttle.

I suppose this could happen, but you must be an incredibly unlucky person.  I rent cars at LAX occasionally to avoid parking at the airport for long periods of time and I have never waited anything like that for a shuttle. 

 

The good news is that a new, consolidated rental car facility is under construction which will be connected by an automated train system to make things much, much better.

https://www.lawa.org/transforminglax/projects/underway/conrac

https://www.lawa.org/transforminglax/projects/underway/apm

 

1 hour ago, NMTraveller said:

My recommendation for anyone using LAX if there is a bottle neck at the terminal is to get out at Terminal 1 and walk to your terminal.  The same for the terminal shuttles. 

When were you last at LAX?  There are dedicated lanes on the inside for terminal shuttles that help avoid most of the general traffic.   

 

1 hour ago, NMTraveller said:

Comparing a dirty airport to other dirty airports in NY is not helpful

It's not that dirty to me.  I was just in TBIT for a flight and the terminal seemed fine.

 

1 hour ago, NMTraveller said:

At times I consider flying out of San Francisco even though it is longer flight times.

That's your answer? SFO is way worse than LAX with its crossing runways that are too close together such that operations at the airport are frequently impacted by weather.  No thanks.

[NMTraveller]

5 hours ago, SelectSys said:

When were you last at LAX?  There are dedicated lanes on the inside for terminal shuttles that help avoid most of the general traffic.   

 

It's not that dirty to me.  I was just in TBIT for a flight and the terminal seemed fine.

 

That's your answer? SFO is way worse than LAX with its crossing runways that are too close together such that operations at the airport are frequently impacted by weather.  No thanks.

I was last at LAX two months ago.  The dedicated lanes for the shuttles were bumper to bumper.  There was little traffic avoided...    Note that I did not travel to LAX during rush hour.  That would have added another hour or two to the travel time.  For business travel we do avoid LAX all of the time as often travel during rush hour cannot be avoided.

 

If they get trains from the rental car facility to LAX that would be an immense help.  Still an issue with LA traffic during rush hours.

 

Regarding SFO I can at least get to the airport in a reasonable amount of time...  The international flights I take are normally later in the evening and not subject to large air traffic numbers.  I will be there in July for a flight.

Edited February 23 by NMTraveller

[SelectSys]

51 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

Note that I did not travel to LAX during rush hour.  That would have added another hour or two to the travel time. 

Maybe your dislike of the airport is effecting your LAX karma.🙂  Regardless, all personal experience - yours and mine - is anecdotal.  

 

51 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

If they get trains from the rental car facility to LAX that would be an immense help.

It's not a question of if but rather when.  Next time your are at LAX, look to the the east and you will see the elevated train bed under construction.

 

 

51 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

Still an issue with LA traffic during rush hours.

Yes, the politicians controlling CA don't believe in building roads.  In certain cases they are actually eliminating roads in parts of LA and converting them to bike lanes.  I agree 100% that traffic in Southern California is horrible.

 

51 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

Regarding SFO I can at least get to the airport in a reasonable amount of time.

This is usually true if you are coming from the city proper.  Traffic at times can be really bad from the South and East Bay depending on time of day which is why I like BART for OAK flights.

 

51 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

I will be there in July for a flight.

You should be good on that flight.  Sadly, I have spent too much time in the winter waiting in SFO for a delayed evening flight home or in the morning at SAN missing a meeting because of fog or other weather at SFO.  For predictability, I will pick Oakland over SFO to day flights trading flights being on time at the airport for the longer transit time via BART.

 

One more thing I like about LAX for international flights from where I live is that I can fly nonstop at reasonable cost (due to all the competition) to many destinations.  For me, making a connection is just another opportunity to get delayed by unforeseen circumstances. 

 

Edited February 23 by SelectSys

[rinshin]

On 2/23/2024 at 2:01 PM, SelectSys said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You should be good on that flight.  Sadly, I have spent too much time in the winter waiting in SFO for a delayed evening flight home or in the morning at SAN missing a meeting because of fog or other weather at SFO.  For predictability, I will pick Oakland over SFO to day flights trading flights being on time at the airport for the longer transit time via BART.

 

One more thing I like about LAX for international flights from where I live is that I can fly nonstop at reasonable cost (due to all the competition) to many destinations.  For me, making a connection is just another opportunity to get delayed by unforeseen circumstances. 
 

 

 

Interesting.  Business class from SFO to Asia is always higher due to where it is at with Silicon Valley. LAX is definitely more competitive. We always fly out of LAX or YVR because the flights have been cheaper on ANA or JAL.  We use our miles to fly from SJC to LAX or SFO to YVR to catch our flights. 
 

Using United to Amsterdam on business the price was the same SFO or LAX. So, we are flying from SFO.  
 

I don’t find LAX dirty at all.  On the other hand, I never use Oakland.  Just never feel safe getting there. Only one time we were affected due to weather coming into SFO and that was 3/14/23 from YVR.  FAA cancelled all flights due to severe wind of 90 miles per hour.  

[SelectSys]

17 hours ago, rinshin said:

Business class... is always higher due to where it is at with Silicon Valley. LAX is definitely more competitive. We use our miles to fly from SJC ...

My first flight to Tokyo Narita was back in the early 1990's on an American Airlines MD11 from San Jose.  

 

18 hours ago, rinshin said:

I don’t find LAX dirty at all

Agreed, I have never found this to be true except perhaps in some very old parts of the airport that are undergoing renovation. I was in TBIT last month in the satellite terminal and it was very clean. 

 

18 hours ago, rinshin said:

I never use Oakland.  Just never feel safe getting there

On the freeway or via BART?  It used to be kind of a logistical hassle to get to downtown SF back in the days of the BART bus between the airport and the Oakland Coliseum.  However,  the "new" train system makes it super easy to get between the airport and the BART station.  Of course I always went during rush hour periods and might feel differently late at night.  I also haven't been on BART since before the pandemic so I can't speak to how if feels to be on BART now.