When it comes to Japan, you take any Saver when available! 

This time around I will be flying back from Osaka instead of Tokyo. After countless trips to Japan, this is still my first time flying back from Osaka rather than Tokyo. The airport is slightly further out and even with the most expensive express trains, it still takes 1 hour to travel from Osaka Station. That is much longer than both Tokyo HND and NRT. I issued my ticket from Osaka to Bali and paid 52,000 miles and 50.54 SGD in taxes. What a deal. As usual, I got a free Singapore to Bali flight by doing this. SQ623 departs around midnight, and to be honest, this red-eye isn’t the best for the full experience. It does work well for passengers who want to preserve leaves. This is also a flight operated with regional seats which are less ideal. They are my least favourite. But as the saying goes, beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to a Japan saver flight. I have reviewed these seats multiple times. You can find my previous review here. Additionally, please visit my collection of SQ Premium Class reviews here. 

Checking In

I got to Kansai airport at around 8.35pm. I took the Haruka train from Osaka Station which cost me around 15 SGD per person. I got it from Pelago with some discounts. It is rather straightforward and no change is needed. Singapore Airlines departs from Terminal 1 of KIX. They use check-in counters D. It is in the central area towards the right. There are around 50 to 6 people ahead. Despite them having 3 counters open, it was a pretty slow check-in process and the staff assisting us was super inefficient. Check-in took such a long time. It took us almost 20 minutes. This is such a drastic experience from my previous Japanese flights.   

Boarding Process

I was assigned Gate 19 for boarding in the central area. It was quite a far walk away from the ANA lounge. We then spend the rest of our time shopping at the duty-free shops with the vouchers. Kansai Airport is pretty bad and boring. There isn’t much to do here, especially in the evening. The gate area was also super packed. Thankfully boarding started slightly earlier at around 10.40pm with premium cabin passengers and elite status holders. 

I was one of the first to board since I didn’t want to spend too much time over here. I was warmly greeted by the crew and they seemed to be above average. They were going around to help everyone with their bags into the overhead cabin. Kimberley and Hikari who were working my aisle were awesome. They also helped with my jackets. It took some time but business class was almost full. While on the ground, the crew also came by to offer hot towels and to provide pre-departure drinks. The new Le Labo amenity kits were also offered. 

Singapore Airlines 787 Regional Business Class

I shall not dwell too much on the hardware and the seats since I have reviewed this product countless times. You can find some of my recent reviews of this cabin here. The hardware is also very similar to the one onboard the A350 Medium Haul. I will just include some pictures of my seats here. You can find my full collection of SQ Premium cabins reviews here. I will include some pictures of my seats here.

 

Meal Service

This is single-handedly the most disappointing aspect of this entire flight, and I’m not referring to the service of the crew, but rather the meal choices. Red-eye flights usually come with supper service. Because of the flight timing, the meal is already smaller than the usual menu. For this particular flight, the choices are ridiculously bad. I do not like any of the four choices that they have on the menu. This is disappointing. Furthermore, Osaka does not provide any Book The Cook for their flights. This is probably the first time that every single choice on my flight is so bad. I even opted for a special non-seafood meal but that ended up being the same as the crepe on the in-flight menu. Service was delayed since we hit some turbulence right after taking off. After being stable enough the crew sprang into service and offered meals. In the end, I went for the Ochazuke but left it almost untouched. It was so bad. 

The lovely crew offered to bring over something else and I got some amazing noodles. Cup noodles are always delicious onboard no matter where you are! It is especially good when you have a full bar onboard to pair it with your cup noodles. Sake and cup noodles. That’s got to be a first for me! 

Conclusion

The flight soon went by in no time. It is way too short. Just on the edge of 6 hours, it is hard to properly enjoy it. I got a little shut-eye after the meal. I am not a huge fan of sleeping on these tight regional business class seats but I guess it got the job done. Japanese flights or mid-haul flights are always rough. The service is alright and the seats weren’t the comfiest. I got nothing good to share about the meal. It is hands down the crappiest meal I ever got onboard a SQ premium cabin flight. The onboard selection and special meals are equally bad resulting in me relying on the OG instant noodles.