Years ago Singapore Airlines used to offer a premium economy product on their ultra-longhaul equipped A340-500 aircraft. These are the planes that they used to fly between Singapore and Newark/Los Angeles. Because these were the longest flights in the world at the time, they had to keep the weight of the aircraft down, meaning the plane was sparsely configured with just business class and premium economy class.
Then a couple of years back they changed the configuration so that the plane was configured exclusively with business class seats (100 seats total), before axing the flight entirely late last year.
Anyway, while Singapore Airlines has certainly been a trendsetter in the industry, one trend they haven’t set — or even followed, up until now — is premium economy. For whatever reason they haven’t installed premium economy on most of their fleet, though that will soon change.
Singapore Airlines A380
According to Australian Business Traveller, Singapore Airlines will be introducing a premium cabin product on their Airbus A380, Airbus A350, and Boeing 777-300ER aircraft starting the second half of next year:
The new premium economy seats and cabin will be launched in the second half of next year, the airline revealed this morning.
A spokesperson for Singapore Airlines confirmed to Australian Business Traveller that premium economy “will enter service in the second half of 2015, initially on Boeing 777-300ERs and very soon after on A380s… as well as the A350-900s that will operate on long-haul routes.”
So why hasn’t Singapore introduced a premium economy product up until now? The reality is that very few airlines offer four classes of service throughout most of their longhaul fleet. You have first class, business class, premium economy class, and economy class, and while there’s a market for all of them individually, most airlines can’t economically fit all four on a plane. Many airlines think that there’s no longer a market for first class so have eliminated it and added premium economy.
Because while there’s lots of money in first and business class, there’s also lots of risk, especially when you want a common fleet type. It’s much tougher to profitably fill premium cabin seats than to fill the “cheap seats” at above the marginal cost. For example, British Airways has a longhaul 777-300ER with just 299 seats, while Emirates fits 427 seats on their regional configuration of the plane.
Typically when a new cabin is added, something has to “give” to make up for the reduction in seats. Singapore Airlines has “only” nine seats per row in economy class on their 777-300ERs, so my money is on them reconfiguring the cabin with ten seats per row, a la American, ANA, Emirates, Etihad, etc. I certainly hope I’m wrong.
And hopefully premium economy doesn’t come at the expense of a first class cabin.
Alex is right, this is all about competing with CX.
@lucky
gotcha.
btw, thanks the pointers on UA's award routing rules. writing to you from FRA, on my way to HKT & beyond.. was able to squeeze 2 stop-overs & 2 open jaws out of 1 round-trip award... essentially 3 two-zone 1-ways
If Singapore Airlines took a little of business and a little of Economy to make the number of seats stay the same/even increase, then they wouldn't have to reconfigure (or axe, of course) anything.
award redemption?
@ Mr. Cool -- You typically can't redeem miles from US airlines for premium economy, though my guess is you'll be able to redeem KrisFlyer miles for it.
SQ has seen what a success CX has had with their four class 77Ws and realised they stuffed up. No matter how good their Y class is (which is why they said they weren't going to install PEY), they were losing those customers who simply aren't going to pay for Y when they can afford PEY, and the yields that go with it.
Yup, F goes out, biz becomes new F , PEcon becomes new biz.....Qatar was right all the time... Except Residences !
Hmm... Looks like a lot of commenters on ABT also suspect SQ will go 10 abreast in regular Y (I guess, that'd be one way to distinguish it from Y+ if they make Y+ 9-abreast).
@ Lucky - since they have to take each plane out of service for a bit to update F & J, that would be the best time to install Y+/reconfigure Y, right?
@ Ivan Y -- Exactly, especially since they're often done during "checks" anyway, when they literally strip down the interior of the plane, so that's the best time to do that.
It would be a sad day indeed if SQ were to reconfigure Y to ten-abreast and axe F.