It took a while, but at the weekend we finally got confirmation that the last aircraft in the Singapore Airlines fleet with the old ‘Spacebed’ business class seats has been permanently retired from service. Unveiled in May 2002, almost 16 years ago, this product was well past its sell-by date and frankly after many sleepless night flights spent sliding into the foot wells – good riddance!
Even when the ‘Spacebed’ product was first unveiled, then still called ‘Raffles Class’, it was already behind the times. British Airways had just introduced a proper, fully flat bed in business class (granted, they haven’t really updated it since then!).
That didn’t stop SIA being very excited about the Spacebed product – so much so they even created several dedicated microsites to promote it. One of them, designed to advertise the seat for the launch of the A340-500, is still available online.
And here’s a flashback from the days when Singapore Airlines still paid for TV adverts!
Even at the time, the seat received a fairly critical reception. People liked the high cocoon back (something which has been echoed, albeit far more gracefully, on the new A380 business class) but the strange purple material and steep bed pitch were deal breakers for many.
Hang on, this seat was still recently in service?
Fast forward to 2017 and the product was indeed still alive, unbelievably. However, 9V-SVF, a Boeing 777-200ER, was the only Singapore Airlines aircraft left in the fleet with the old ‘Spacebed’ business class seat.
When the business class passengers on board SQ921 from Manila to Singapore landed into Changi in the late evening of 1st December 2017, little did they know they would be the last to experience the ‘Spacebed’ seat. The aircraft hasn’t flown a revenue service since, leading most to happily conclude the unannounced e