In this week’s long-haul, low-cost vs full-service airline comparison, we take a look at Scoot and Singapore Airlines on two different flights from Singapore to Europe. Why two different destinations?

Scoot is Singapore Airlines' low-cost subsidiary and provides passengers with direct flights into Europe via Athens or Berlin.  Singapore Airlines operates direct flights to numerous ports in Europe however excludes those operated by Scoot. For this comparison, we used the direct flight with Scoot into Athens and the Singapore Airlines direct flight into Rome.

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Our return flight with Scoot came to $1830 SGD with the inclusion of a meal, snack and drink on each segment, a standard window seat, 30kg of checked baggage and a 10kg carry-on bag.  Amenity kits such as blankets and pillows are also available for purchase ($24 SGD) on board but given most passengers wouldn’t buy these, we left that off the price for this exercise. I also added an additional $40 SGD to each flight ($80 in total) for the purchase of in-seat power, additional drinks, meals and snacks over the 11-hour flight.

Our flight with Singapore Airlines came in at $2787 SGD which included meals, snacks, unlimited drinks, in-flight entertainment, amenity kits, blankets and pillow plus 30kg of baggage and a 7kg carry-on bag.

In terms of comfort, Scoot offers 30-31 inches of legroom and Singapore Airlines 32 inches. Both offer an 18-inch seat width and a 6-inch seat recline.  

Having flown both airlines multiple times the author can vouch for the value Scoot provides and the excellence in dining, inflight entertainment and comfort you receive on Singapore Airlines. Anyone who’s flown Singapore Airlines long haul will know what I mean.

Even though Scoot has no in-flight entertainment, less legroom, a buy-on-board menu and comfort packs that need to be purchased, with a saving of $957 SGD this author would have to choose Scoot over Singapore Airlines. The Rome flight is longer than the Athens flight (60-90 minutes) so you would expect a higher fare however not that high!

If the budget allowed and you aren’t travelling with anyone under 12, I would recommend upgrading your flight to the Scoot In Silence cabin for an additional $200 SGD

If money was no object, it would be Singapore Airlines all the way but looking at the value proposition of getting from Singapore to Europe, Scoot would be the easy choice on this occasion.

If you missed last week’s long-haul comparison between WestJet and Air Canada check it out here

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