Singapore Airlines 737 MAX 8 Business Class: Good Hardware, Simple

We flew Singapore Airlines 737 MAX 8 aircraft to Kuala Lumpur and got a great seat but not much else on the short journey.

Singapore Airlines 737 MAX 8 at gate — *Sadly, given the position of the gate on both departure and arrival, this was the best picture I had of the plane*

Booking Singapore Airlines business class

I’ve already done a deep dive into the booking process for this flight, but a quick summary:

We needed to get from Bali, Indonesia over to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
While there are nonstop options available, I had some Singapore KrisFlyer miles that would soon expire. I already extended these miles once, eliminating my ability to extend the points a second time.

Thus, my best option would be to just use those Singapore KrisFlyer miles before they expire. Thus, I booked a flight with a connection in Singapore on the way over to Kuala Lumpur. On the plus side, the flight only cost a total of 84,000 KrisFlyer miles for the four of us. Sometimes you look at the price for flying business class these days on Singapore Airlines and scoff at how bad it looks. Flying in South East Asia is much more affordable than the longhaul routes.

This is the second of the two flights in that same booking.

Earning Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles

If you reside in the United States, your best way to earn more Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles is to work the bank program transfers:

Most major bank transfer programs can convert points over to Singapore KrisFlyer (Amex, Capital One, Chase, Citi).
Thus, consider signing up for a credit card in one of those programs. Singapore Airlines does not have a cobranded card in the United States.

While you could also credit your Star Alliance flights to Singapore Airlines to earn miles, we wouldn’t consider this to be a quick method to earn more miles in their program.

Unfortunately, you’re going to need 1,000 miles in your account these days to search for Singapore Airlines award seats.

First impressions of Singapore Airlines 737-8 business class

We arrived at Singapore Changi Airport (SIN) with a connection that only ended up being a little more than an hour. Naturally, we tried to squeeze in a little too much during our brief visit to Singapore. Our first stop was the beautiful Butterfly Garden in Terminal 3, followed by a very brief visit to the SilverKris Lounge in Terminal 2. From there, we briskly walked over to our gate (E7) to clear security and board.

Wouldn’t you know it that the flight already mostly boarded by the time we arrived. The kids felt a little bit of panic, but I knew that once we cleared security, we were fine.

Onboard the Singapore Airlines 737 MAX 8

You’re going to see us reference this plane as both the 737-8 and the 737 MAX 8. The names are interchangeable, a tactic that Boeing used after all the issues with people boycotting the “MAX” planes. For those not familiar with aviation terms, the 737-8 is a different plane than the 737-800 (confusing, isn’t it?).

Anyways, we were one of the last to board our flight. All passengers boarded through the forward door, which isn’t uncommon for this single aisle plane.

The flight from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur is incredibly short. While it’s blocked at just over an hour, you’re only traveling 184 miles on this route. That’s about 50 miles shorter than the route between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, if you want a point of reference.

And yet, despite that, you get a lie-flat seat on this route despite the fact that the seatbelt sign never turned off. The plane is in a 2-2 configuration in business class, and the four of us sat in a row at the rear of the business class section.

There are only 12 seats in business class on the 737-8, making it a small cabin with only one flight attendant working the section. Naturally, the flight was completely full in business class despite the short time in the air.

The Singapore Airlines 737 MAX 8 business class seat

Singapore Airlines does occasionally fly the 737 MAX 8 on longer routes, including potentially on routes to South Korea (almost 7 hours). And if we’re being honest, the seat seems perfectly comfortable for longer routes. In terms of seat cushioning, I preferred this seat much more than the 787-10 we took to get to Singapore from Bali. But if you’re in an aisle seat, you will feel more exposed. On a flight like this, that just doesn’t matter in my mind.

Each seat in business class comes with a shoulder strap, which must be worn for takeoff, landing, and taxiing.

Next to the seat is the headphone jack (though we received no headphones on this route), a personal light, and a standard USB charger.

Underneath the arm rest in the center console are the seatback monitor controls.

As for the seatback monitors themselves, the screens are on the smaller side compared to other plane types, but they felt new. With the windows open, you will get excessive glare on them, though.

Lastly, between each pair of seats is where the tray tables are stored. You’ll also find some universal power outlets down by your feet (not pictured).

There wasn’t much time at all to do this, but I figured I would give it a try anyways. You can transform the bed into the fully lie-flat position. The bed actually gets pretty low to the ground relative to the armrests. Thus, despite there not being too much privacy when you’re sitting upright, the privacy when you’re lying down is much better.

The footwell isn’t quite as large as I would prefer it. Lying here with shoes on was a bit difficult, but doing it without shoes was fine enough for me.

Above each pair of seats are some seat lights and individual air nozzles.

We’ve flown in a lie-flat before on a different MAX aircraft (the Copa 737 MAX 9), and frankly I like the aesthetics and bed a bit more in this one. As far as I’m aware, aside from Copa and Singapore Airlines, the only other airline to currently have lie-flats on MAX aircraft is flydubai. Both Alaska and United announced plans, so soon there will be 5. There’s some odd trivia for you.

Amenities in Singapore Airlines business class on the Kuala Lumpur route

If you’re flying to Kuala Lumpur, this has to be the least amount of amenities you’re going to find on any Singapore Airlines route. To start, we still got a pre-departure beverage, but the choices were limited to apple juice or orange juice. That’s right–no water or champagne.

Waiting for us at our seats were a rather large pillow and a blanket. It’s impressive to get these on such a short flight.

I didn’t get a photo of it on this flight, but the kids got the same Zootopia notebooks on this segment too. Inside are some stickers, activities, and blank pages.

The food in Singapore Airlines business class to Kuala Lumpur

This will be the least amount of food you’ll see on any Singapore Airlines flight.

During the flight, the flight attendants served drinks once during the flight. The selections were only coffee, tea, or juice. As far as I’m aware, there is no alcohol on board for this flight from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur.

As for the snacks, there is a small variety you can choose from. You can get packaged nuts, shortbread, or cookies. And that’s it. Hope you ate in the lounge before the flight! Granted, we didn’t expect much given how short the flight was.

However, in true Singapore Airlines fashion, we all still received a radioactive-temperature hot towel before the start of this service. I swear, Singapore Airlines has to have the hottest hot towels in aviation.

Wi-Fi and Entertainment

Singapore Airlines offers unlimited free Wi-Fi to passengers seated in Suites Class, First Class, and Business Class. Everyone else… just needs a free KrisFlyer account. It’s nice when Wi-Fi is free as long as it’s fast enough with everyone using it concurrently. For this flight, I have to admit that I didn’t bother connecting online.

As for the in-flight entertainment, it’s there, but also strange that there are no headphones. You might end up watching the film or TV show in silence. If you brought your own headphones on board, that works, but for proper audio, you’d need the three-pronged connector. This is one of those flights where the kids played on their personal devices and I just caught up on some work.

Service

For how short of a flight this is, you might expect non-existent service. Well, you’d be wrong on that. While there was a single flight attendant working our aisle, she made her presence felt throughout the journey, stopping by to check on us and especially the kids.

And that’s even despite the slight incident on board. One of the passengers sitting in front of the kids ended up (accidentally) stepping on the flight attendant’s foot as she was handing out coffee. The coffee spilled on her tray and I imagine it had to have been hot. Immediately, she went into the galley, limping noticeably. There, she remained for a few minutes to regain her composure and then came back out to distribute the rest of the drinks.

When she got back to my aisle, I asked her about it to make sure she’s fine. She said she was fine, answered with a smile, and appeared to hold no ill feelings towards the passenger who stepped on her foot. I’ve seen flight attendants on other airlines use something like this as a chance to provide snarky remarks or poor service. But here, she shook it off and nothing was different. Thus, I’d consider this to be the result of good service training.

And for the record, that passenger who stepped on her foot never asked if she was fine or apologized. I’m not sure the passenger even knew what happened.

Arrival to Kuala Lumpur (KUL)

The flight from SIN to KUL never gets to full cruising altitude, so you’ll get a chance to see Malaysian cities and the countryside relatively close up.

Once we landed, Jenn felt rather underdressed. She was wearing shorts, but almost every woman we passed by had their legs fully covered. Women’s attire in Malaysia is a bit more conservative, which has to be tough given how hot the weather is here. Still, no one commented or stared at her, so aside from her own observations, no one seemed to think she was out of place.

On our way to the exit, we passed by this indoor/outdoor garden. We could have stopped in, but just wanted to clear immigration as fast as possible.

While there are no entry visas or ETAs to worry about for someone with a United States passport entering Malaysia, there is a digital entry form to fill out before arrival.

Kuala Lumpur has entry gates that a U.S. citizen can use, but unlike the ones in Bali, these do not adjust to your height. So while Alex had no problem using the e-gates, and staff said our daughter Char could also use them at age 6, the machine couldn’t find her face to take a picture. Two people cannot enter an e-gate, so I couldn’t lift her up. Instead, she needed to go to the regular line. Jenn went through the e-gates to hang out with Alex, while I went to the regular line with Char.

And that regular line… it took about 90 minutes to get through. There is a priority line for those who are pregnant, elderly, or young children, but Char was not young enough to use it. Others with children around Char’s age tried but were rejected despite there being no one in those lines. And you know what made this line worse? Halfway through, Char needed to use the restroom. I didn’t want to wait another 45 minutes to an hour, so she fortunately was able to hold it. Fun times being a parent.

If you’re coming with kids who are–let’s say–over 4 feet tall, you should be fine to use the e-gates. But if your child is in that sweet zone, older than I think 3 but too short to use the e-gates, I feel your pain.

Recommendation: It’s not needed on this route, would consider for longer routes

Our journey on the Singapore Airlines 737 MAX 8 in business class was somewhere between simple and excessive. I’m a bit torn on where exactly to peg this. On the one hand, this is about as bare bones as you’d find on a Singapore Airlines flight. On the other hand, compared to what you might expect from other airlines (especially in the U.S.), you’re getting a much better seat.

I think I’d put it this way–on this specific route between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, I wouldn’t go out of my way to fly in business class. But if I were flying a longer route, I think I wouldn’t mind flying in this cabin. This isn’t my favorite plane type out there, but I like the seat and the cabin is small and intimate. Service was also good, all things considered.

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