The launch date of the newest Singapore Airlines A380 has now been announced, with the aircraft taking to the skies on the Singapore-Sydney route from 18 December 2017, fitted with the very latest First Class Suites and the newest Business Class, both set to be revealed next week, on 2 November.
Passengers on SQ221, departing Singapore at 20:40 and landing into Sydney at 07:40 the following morning, will be the first to experience the latest product offering on this brand new aircraft. The following day, on 19 December, the same aircraft will return to Singapore as SQ232, leaving at 12:15 for the 8 hour 20 minute afternoon flight to Singapore, landing at 17:35.
The SQ221/SQ232 flight pair will continue to be operated by the new aircraft on a daily basis thereafter until additional new A380 aircraft arrive, after which some other A380 destinations will also likely be switched to feature these latest products.
We checked for KrisFlyer redemption availability and not surprisingly it has been well bottlenecked on these flights for the first couple of months, with saver awards waitlisted almost every day in business. Only a few dates had immediately-confirmable full award redemptions in business class. This may also be partly down to the seasonal effect with flights to and from Australia always extremely busy during the main holiday season through to late January.
No more saver redemptions in “new Suites”?
In Suites we didn’t find a single day over the first two months where saver award availability was even open to waitlist on SQ221/SQ232. This could be indicative of a new policy for the latest Suites product, which will only have capacity for six passengers.
If SIA do adopt this policy, it will significantly restrict the ability to experience the latest Suites product using KrisFlyer miles, for example between Sydney and Singapore the saver redemption in First/Suites is 80,000 miles + AU$90.51. For a full redemption however, which looks like it may become the only option on this product, it’s nearly double – 150,000 miles + AU$90.51.
On a positive note, at least redemptions are available – for those rich enough in KrisFlyer miles. Some speculation had suggested that it would not be possible to redeem into this cabin at all, at least around the initial introduction, but this does not appear to be the case.
The big product reveal is next week
Keep an eye on our blog next Thursday (2nd November) as SIA is set to announce the eagerly-awaited brand new Suites, Business Class, Premium Economy Class and Economy Class cabin products which will be installed on these new aircraft, and eventually will be retrofitted across the SIA A380 fleet. In the meantime, one last teaser.
