Singapore Airlines wins Hand Towel Stakes: Secret Technology Revealed

Nobel Laureate's Travel Log: Hot Towels! Who would have thought they were so difficult to get right. The best hand towels are from Singapore Airlines. The luxurious cotton towels arrive hot but not scalding, damp but not dripping wet and are very lightly scented. In comparison, Qantas towels are tiny scraps of material with no pile on the towel, usually dripping wet, and often too hot or too cold because they don't have enough substance to retain any heat during distribution. Emirates towels are a little better but no-where near the SA standard. Cathay Pacific are close but not quite as nice as the SA towels.
So that I could spend the remaining years fo my life sometimes using decent hand towels, I obtained the secret hand towel formula from SA. Here is how they do it (this could be a draft S.O.P. for the rest of the airlines).

1. The plush cotton towel weighs 21g dry and 55 grams wet.
2. It is 12 inches by 9 inches and has the SA logo in the top left corner (see picture)
3. The required amount of water is added to the towels.
4. The towels are microwaved to reach a temerature of not more than 50C
5. Before distribution, the temperature of the towels is tested with the back of the hand to make sure they are safe to use.

The sad thing is that Qantas staff probably never fly on other airlines, or apparently have no way of providing input into the proceedures they use every day. The low quality hand towels have persisted for several years already so maybe they can try to match the world best. I have other suggestions for Australian travel industry which I will put here from time to time under "Travel Log" subheadings. Watch out for next week's entry which will be "Security".