Singapore Airlines Reconsiders New Business Class Seat Design After Backlash

Last week, Singapore Airlines unveiled all-new cabins, with the most exciting developments being a new first class and new business class. The new cabins look great (nothing revolutionary, but a huge improvement), with one exception — the new business class seat colors. Not only do they look cheap, but they just seem completely mismatched to the rest of the cabin.

While the airline vehemently defended the color choices for several days, it seems that they’re at least now reconsidering it, though it remains to be seen if it’s too late to make a change…

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Singapore Airlines CEO addresses new seats in town hall

On Wednesday, November 11, 2026, Singapore Airlines CEO Goh Choon Phong had a town hall with employees, as reported by The Business Times. During this, he was asked about the negative feedback the airline has received about the new business class seat design.

In response to this, he reportedly said “we’ll look at it, we’ll see what’s feasible.” So that signals some willingness to make changes, though admittedly with how far out seats are ordered, that’s not necessarily so straightforward, so I wouldn’t count on anything happening. He did, however, emphasize that customers will come to like the seats after experiencing its comforts for themselves.

At the town hall, Singapore Airlines Chief Commercial Officer Lee Lik Hsin said this was a good learning point for the airline, but indicated that he hopes customers will mind the colors less after experiencing the seats. He also reportedly said “I suppose, you know, it’s the 80-20 rule, you can’t please them all.”

At the time of launch, Singapore Airlines VP of Product Experience, Ong Wah Li, explained the new design was in response to customer feedback, and described it as “modern, fresh, yet elegant and refined, that’s suited to business travel.”

BMW Designworks was behind the design of the cabin, and CEO Julia de Bono defended the color choices at the launch event, describing them as “more refreshing and more progressive.” As she viewed it, “what I see when I look at it, it’s definitely like a nice suit, with the white and the metal really popping out, you know, it’s more like a suit with a sneaker, so a bit more modern and fresh.”

I still can’t make sense of how we got to this point

To state the obvious, the trim and finishes on a new business class seat are hardly the most pressing issues facing the world. However, Singapore Airlines prides itself in being perhaps the most detail oriented airline in the world, because management has an obsessive attention to even the smallest things.

So I can’t help but be a bit confused by all of this:

• When I wrote about how I think the new business class seat colors looked cheap and mismatched, I invited people to disagree with me; best I can tell, not a single person said they actually like the design, and the best I heard was “I don’t mind it” (which isn’t exactly an endorsement for introducing a new product standard)
• Singapore Airlines’ CEO seems to have resigned himself to counting on customers liking the seat as such, rather than the design, which seems like a really low bar
• Singapore Airlines’ CCO seems many degrees off from accepting reality, if he thinks this is an “80-20” situation, where “you can’t please them all,” because this is more like a 0.1-99.9 situation, based on the sentiment I’ve seen

It also just feels to me like the mandate for the design of this product was off, as shared by the CEO of BMW Designworks. Premium travel demand is through the roof, and a lot of people in premium cabins aren’t traveling for business. For that matter, these cabins will be operating the world’s longest flights, so this isn’t a case of a business traveler hopping on a plane in a suit, and going straight to a meeting (at least that doesn’t make up a meaningful percentage of the traffic here).

Is “suit with a sneaker” really the vibe you want to go for with a new business class product that’s on an airline that’s known for its incredible warmth? It’s almost like the airline views warmth and modernity as being at odds with one another, which I don’t at all agree with.

For example, reader Sam asked AI to take the new seat, but preserve the old color concept, and below is what it spit out.

That looks so much more on brand for Singapore Airlines than what the airline actually arrived at.

I would’ve loved to be a fly on the wall when this design was finalized. Was everyone immediately onboard with this, and thought it looked great? Or was there some skepticism, but someone said “trust me, people will love this, this is what a modern cabin looks like?”

I just don’t understand how you can commit to investing in a project that costs billions of dollars, reportedly get feedback from hundreds of customers, and still end up so far off the pulse of public sentiment.

Bottom line

Last week, Singapore Airlines unveiled its new cabins, which is an exciting development. Everything looked pretty great, except the new business class seat finishes, which seem terribly mismatched to the brand. The airline claimed it wanted something modern and progressive, but I’m not sure “suit with sneakers” is really the aesthetic that the public wanted (or that the chosen finishes actually reflect that).

Singapore Airlines leadership claims it’s now looking into possibly updating finishes, but I wouldn’t count on anything coming of that, given how far along this is.

What do you make of this Singapore Airlines business class design fiasco? And I’m still waiting for someone to please tell me that they love the design, and think it’s great!