To understand the history of Singapore Airlines you need to understand the history of Singapore... and Malaysia. Or Malaya, as it once was.

The Malay Peninsula juts out to the south of mainland Asia, between the Andaman Sea (where Charles Kingsford Smith, the namesake of this airport, vanished) and the Gulf of Thailand. The northern part of the peninsula is part of Thailand. The southern part is mostly what is now (part of) Malaysia, save for one smallish island off the southern tip of the peninsula, surrounded by even smaller islands. That would be the 733.1 square km (283.1 sq mile) Singapore.

The rest of Malaysia is on the island of Borneo to the east across the South China Sea. Unsurprisingly, Malaysia today is a federation of 13 states and some federal territories.

Singapore became part of Malaysia when that country was constituted by combining the former Malaya (more or less the bit on the Malay peninsula) with Sarawak and north Borneo (the bits on the island of Borneo) in 1963. This lasted only 2 years since Singapore separated from (or was booted out of, depending on who you listen to) Malaysia in 1965 to become an independent nation. Part of the problem was differences in ethnicities and religion. Malaysia today is almost 70% Malay, and 23% Chinese, as well as 63.5% Sunni Islam and 18.7% Buddhist. Singapore is 74.3% Chinese and 13.5% Malay, 31.1% Buddhist, 20% no religion, 19% Christian and 15.6% Islam. It wasn't the easiest mix.

The predecessor of Singapore Airlines had been formed in 1947 as Malayan Airways Ltd (not to be confused with the much later Malaysian Airlines) by mostly British parent companies. The business' name was changed to "Malaysian Airways" (again, not the same as the later one) after federation in 1963. After Singapore left the union it was changed to Malaysian-Singapore Airlines, or MSA.

By 1972 Singapore and Malaysia were pulling in different directions. Malaysia wanted MSA to concentrate on domestic routes, Singapore, being postage stamp sized, didn't HAVE any domestic routes and wanted to go international. MSA therefore ceased operations and split itself into Singapore Airlines (also known as SIA) and Malaysian Airlines Systems (yes, THAT is today's one).

Singapore is unusual in that its livery has barely changed since 1972. On the one hand it gives them a consistency that no other airline I can think of has, on the other hand the 1970s livery is starting to look a tad stodgy.

Their aircraft, on the other hand, are quite modern. This is an Airbus A350-941 twin jet, registration 9V-SHK which entered service in November 2019. On this occasion we see it after landing as flight SQ221, Singapore to Sydney.