Flight: GA855 from Singapore to Surabaya

8 Aug 2018 19:30 SIN – 20:55 SUB

Plane: B738

It was my second time flying with Garuda. With a one-way ticket at $100 to Surabaya, it was a good deal as it was around the same price as Scoot and it had in-flight services. The previous time, I had also flown with Garuda during the National Day weekend, to Surabaya to hike at Mount Bromo and Mount Ijen.

This time, my destination was Yogyakarta but I had to fly to Surabaya first before taking the train to Yogyakarta. This was the most suitable timing for us.

Since it was the National Day period, Changi Airport was decked in patriotic decorations like this.

After having dinner, we headed to our gate for boarding. Boarding was on time and we were seated in the plane waiting for take off. The plane took off at 7.52pm because of the long queue on the runway. I guess many Singaporeans are also traveling overseas for the long weekend.

Me taking a selfie with my shades in the plane while waiting for the plane to taxi to the runway.

Total flight time was 2h 5 min. About 40 minutes after take off, we were served dinner. During the in-flight service, we were served noodles with chicken or fish with rice. The chicken was fried first before being coated with sauce, so I did not like the taste. Wine and beer were also available as part of the drink selection.

Garuda has a limited range of movies and TV programmes, but at least they had a personal entertainment screen unlike Silkair. Most of the programmes were in Indonesian with English subtitles. The recent movie releases did not interest me because I had watched them in the cinema.

This is the place that we are going to for this trip.

After clearing the trays and tidying up the cabin, the crew prepared for landing. We saw the bright lights of Surabaya approaching and descended into the city. We landed at 8.51pm which was on time, as the projected time was 8.55pm. Airlines tend to extend their arrival times so that they would be at the receiving end of complaints if the flight is delayed for like 30 minutes. The airport was different from what I went through 3 years ago. Immigration was quick as there were not many foreigners on this flight. The airport had a new interior with more airport shops. My friend came to pick us up from the airport and we went out for drinks.

I would fly with Garuda again if they had such discounted fares on their routes because their service is good and there is a generous baggage allowance which we did not really make use of. Garuda has won the world’s best airline cabin crew in 2018 as part of the Skytrax awards. Hope to fly with Garuda again next time to Jakarta or Bali as they have quite a few direct flights from Singapore to Indonesian destinations.

My rating for this airline: 8 / 10