Singapore. A city that runs to time, which is why the exceptions matter so much.

Seletar is where business aviation in Singapore operates. Its terminal has a Business Aviation Centre shared by the handling agents, with a private drop off, a lounge and dedicated immigration and security, and passengers are usually off the apron and into the car within fifteen to twenty minutes of the doors opening. From there it is around twenty five to thirty minutes to Orchard Road and twenty five to thirty five to Marina Bay, on roads that are as predictable as any in Asia.

The field has limits, and they are worth knowing before the aircraft is chosen. The runway is a little over six thousand feet, which is ample for most business jets but not for everything, and aircraft parking is finite in busy weeks. Changi takes business aviation when it has to, but it is a very large scheduled airport and it treats private movements accordingly. If you are arriving on a scheduled long haul service instead, Changi's own private terminal is the sensible way through, and we bring the car to it rather than to the public arrivals hall.

Singapore drives on the left, the road surface is excellent, the signage is unambiguous and the enforcement is total. For a British passenger it feels immediately familiar, and for a chauffeur it means the variables are few: the morning and evening peaks on the expressways, the schools, and the weather. Tropical rain arrives suddenly and hard, and it slows the island more than traffic ever does.

The cost of using a road here is metered rather than assumed. Electronic road pricing charges vehicles on the expressways and entering the central business district during charging hours, and the country is part way through replacing the overhead gantries with a satellite based system using on board units, which become mandatory for Singapore registered vehicles at the start of 2027. None of this is your problem. The charges, the unit and the compliant vehicle are part of what we quote.

What does affect your day is the shape of the centre. Marina Bay, Raffles Place and Orchard are dense and well managed, with proper hotel and office driveways rather than kerbside stops, which makes arrivals easy. Sentosa has its own access arrangements. The residential districts around Tanglin, Bukit Timah and the east coast are spread out, and a car waiting rather than shuttling is usually the cheaper way to run a day that crosses between them.

The Singapore Grand Prix is run on public roads around Marina Bay, and the circuit is built and dismantled over several weeks either side of the race. Roads close in stages, some of them well before the cars arrive, and on race days the streets inside the perimeter are simply gone. Hotels inside the circuit are reached on foot from a setting down point outside it, which is fine if you knew that in advance and unpleasant if you did not. Aircraft parking at Seletar, cars and drivers all go months ahead for that week.

The rest of the year is steadier. The airshow, held in February in even numbered years out at the Changi Exhibition Centre, fills the business aviation apron and the hotels. Conference season runs through the spring and autumn. The turn of the lunar new year, usually in late January or February, quietens the business city and fills the leisure one. Otherwise Singapore is one of the few places where the diary, rather than the traffic, decides how much you can fit into a day.