Singapore Airlines Moves Suites to Upper Deck, Reveals Photo of New A380

Via Australian Business Traveler, new images of Singapore Airlines’ new A380 aircraft captured from its ferry flight from Toulouse to Hamburg’s Finkenwerder Airport have surfaced and they might shed some light on the new layout of the new and improved Singapore Suites to be announced later this year.

The first major difference that you’ll notice is that the suites are being moved to the upper deck of the A380. In the current models, the first class cabin, consisting of 12 suites, is in the front of the plane on the first cabin level and the entire upper deck consists of business class seats on some aircraft, while some also include an economy section.

In the new A380 you can tell that this will likely no longer be the case based on the photos shown by FlightMaestro. In the photo below on the left you can see the current A380. As pointed out by FlightMaestro, notice the windows are in four groups (2-3-2-2) which correspond to where the four suites are located on either side of the plane (there are also four suites located in the middle of the cabin).

But now take a look at the upper deck of the A380 on the right and you can see where three groups of two windows are located (and presumably the suites, too).

This might show that there will be three suites on either side for a total of six first class suites if they all offer single aisle access. If they keep the option of the double bed, I’m wondering if they’ll move to a layout closer to Etihad’s design with beds perpendicular to the windows/fuselage (where only two cabins get this benefit on either side).

Or maybe if these suites are big enough and there are actually only six of them, each suite will have its own bed rivaling the size of a double bed. Who knows?

We already know some stuff about the new first class suites. Australian Business Traveler already confirmed that there would be fewer than 12 suites on the new Singapore Airlines first class product on the A380. While additional details seem hard to come by about this new product (we should receive something by the summer), Singapore Airlines also already confirmed that there would be no shower but that there would be larger suites. Also, the new A380s are set to go into service October 2017

Hopefully, we’ll see the addition of a bar, as Singapore Airlines is one of the only top first class products on the A380 without a bar and given their level of service and cabin design, I think they would offer an exceptional bar area.

Ultimately, fewer seats means less likely of a chance to score award seats but it’s always exciting to see what an airline like Singapore will cook up for its next first class product.