▫ Singapore Airlines Suites Class from Singapore to Tokyo
▫ Three Days in Tokyo: Off the Beaten Path
▫ Sapporo, Otaru and Cape Kamui: Scenic Self-Drive Guide
▫ Furano, Biei, Sounkyou and Asahikawa: Amazing Autumn Colours
▫ Jozankei, Noboribetsu and Hakodate: Unparalleled Beauty
▫ Scoot's ScootBiz Class from Tokyo to Singapore
If you've been following along on our Hokkaido trip, you might recall that we spent the night in a really tiny hotel room.
The bed itself was fairly comfortable, though, and after check out we catch the hotel's free shuttle bus back to Narita Airport for our Scoot flight back to Singapore. If you're doing last minute souvenir shopping in Terminal 1, the Akihabara duty-free, air-side departure (i.e. past immigration / customs) shop has among the widest range of goods and snacks from all over the country.
A word of warning if you're hunting for food: The tempura at Tentei (天帝) is terrible and is to be avoided at all costs.
Our choice of transport back home: A "business class" seat on Scoot's Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
We put "business class" in quotation marks because this cabin really is a Premium Economy product rather than a true Business Class product ...
... which is sort of okay, because the pricing is very attractive! During promotion periods you can get a ticket at around the same price as a full service carrier's economy class. As you can see in the photo above, the seats are wide and you've got a lot of legroom. More than enough for even my 6-feet-tall body to stretch out very comfortably.
As part of the "business class" differentiation: A 'welcome aboard' cup of water. If you want bubbly or even soft drinks you'll have to pay for it.
Each seat also comes equipped with 110V sockets to power your laptops or devices. I understand that on the B787, economy class seats are also equipped with the same sockets, but that you'll have to pay extra to use them.
Of course, the standard Dreamliner features are present, including the clear-to-dark-blue electrically controlled window 'shades.' It doesn't ever get totally dark, in case you were wondering.
There's also the rainbow-coloured cabin lights, which we found rather tacky.
Food and drink is where Scoot's Low Cost Carrier roots really make themselves felt. A "business class" ticket includes baggage, an extra carry-on (two in total), and a meal with drink and dessert. There are four choices, all of which were so terrible that we can't be bothered to write about them in more detail.
The in-flight-entertainment is served up via the in-plane wifi. It's free for "business class" passengers, but you do have to bring your own device. We tried on iPhone, Android and Windows laptop and had no problems with streaming any of the (very limited) TV Shows and Movies. The Dreamliner also has Internet over the wifi; but as it was quite expensive we didn't pay and therefore don't know how fast (or slow) it is.
Scoot's Tokyo to Singapore service has a stop in Taipei (in both directions), so the total journey time is about 2 hours longer than a direct flight. Our flight was delayed by about two hours, which seems alarmingly par for the course according to FlightStats, which rates TZ 201 as only having an on-time performance of just 73%, with an 18 min average delay.
Having said that, we still do think ScootBiz fills a niche remarkably well. With pricing rivaling full service carriers' economy class, you get a vastly superior seat, with a lot of leg space and a seat that reclines far enough for actual comfortable sleep. Of course, Scoot is a low cost carrier, so you have to make do with sub-par in-flight entertainment and food and beverage. But we're impressed, and definitely wouldn't hesitate flying it again in the future - provided the price point remains roughly the same!
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