The next in our ‘farewell’ series covering the recent retirement of SIA Business Class and First Class seats is the 2006 First Class product, which was available on selected Boeing 777s since late 2006 and bowed out in 2020, slightly earlier than planned as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Launched to the media in October 2006, the seat entered service two months later between Singapore and Paris, initially featuring on the airline’s first Boeing 777-300ER (9V-SWA), which came delivered fresh from the factory with new cabin products in all three classes.
Costing S$570 million across First, Business and Economy Class, the major product revamp was SIA’s first in more than a decade, and set a new industry benchmark for premium airline cabins.
“What we are introducing today is a suite of products that meets, if not exceeds, the expectations of the increasingly sophisticated world traveller. It promises to deliver improvements to all aspects of the customer’s flying experience across all three classes.”
Sak-Hin Chin, General Manager, SIA
October 2006
The 2006 First Class seat in particular was notable for being the most spacious First Class product ever to be introduced by a commercial airline, at 35 inches wide, and was promoted by SIA as “the largest full-flat bed in the sky”.
Operation of the seat peaked in 2012, with 208 of them installed fleet-wide at that time (on seven Boeing 777-300s and 19 Boeing 777-300ERs).
Over 13 years after they were first introduced, the era of the 2006 First Class seat in SIA came to a slightly premature end, when the final passenger flight with this cabin touched down at Changi on 24th October 2020, marking the end of Boeing 777-300 (non-ER) passenger operations.
The seat design
This seat was manufactured by Koito Industries of Japan, as an exclusive design for Singapore Airlines.
The same company made the 2006 Business Class seat, and those of you who’ve read our tribute to that product will no doubt recall the certification scandal that ensued, significantly delaying new seat deliveries for SIA.
That also affected the rollout schedule of this First Class product, which we’ll touch on later in the article. Koito no longer manufactures aircraft seats.
Styling was by French luxury fashion house Givenchy, who were also contracted at the time to provide the bedding and dining ware in the First Class cabin.
The Singapore Airlines 2006 First Class seat
This revolutionary product was sometimes referred to as the Koito ‘Diamond Plus’ seat (while the 2006 Business Class was the ‘Diamond’ seat), though Singapore Airlines never specifically named either one.
Privacy, direct aisle access and seat width were all significant selling points, but SIA also lauded the seat’s power supply options and entertainment screen in its marketing.
Here’s SIA’s promotional video for the 2006 F seat.
First Class offers eight luxurious seats, 35 inches wide, providing enhanced privacy, personal attention, convenience and entertainment. For the best sleeping experience, the seat converts into the largest full-flat bed in the sky, complemented with luxurious soft furnishings.
Singapore Airlines
For some, it was too wide
Like the 2006 Business Class seat, the enormous width in this First Class product was such that it could actually be uncomfortable to relax in for some passengers, as it was almost impossible to have two easily reachable armrests.
Singapore Airlines started providing bolster cushions at each seat to assist with this, though the practice eventually ceased.
If you were sat in one of the middle pairs in First Class but were not travelling with the person next to you, it was potentially a little impersonal.
Thankfully a large privacy divider could be raised to split these two seats into private cubicle-style spaces of their own.
Entertainment
One of the biggest selling points of SIA’s new cabin products in 2006 was the latest In-Flight Entertainment (IFE) system.
The 2006 First Class cabin was of course no exception, being fitted with the Panasonic eX2 IFE system. The 23-inch LCD screen looks very dated by today’s standards, but was cutting edge at the time and in fact Singapore Airlines was the launch customer for this revolutionary product.
The bed ‘flipped over’
Like its 2006 Business Class counterpart, one potential downside of the 2006 First Class seat was that the mattress was on the reverse of the seat itself, requiring you to flip the seat back over to convert it to bed mode.
Of course you could always ask the cabin crew to do this for you and they would happily oblige, however it meant you couldn’t easily switch between seat mode and bed mode.
The new 2013 First Class still requires you to flip the seat over when turning it into a bed.
It was possible to recline the seat between its upright takeoff / landing mode and a ‘lounging’ mode through the standard seat controls without any assistance.
Boeing 777-300 cabins had huge gaps
When eight of the 2006 First Class seats were incorporated into each Boeing 777-300ER from design stage it was done efficiently, with the seats well fitted into a small two-row cabin section ahead of a bulkhead wall separating them from Business Class.
However, when it came to the Boeing 777-300s – which had to be refitted with this seat – the former three rows of First Class just couldn’t be squeezed in. Since SIA had installed a galley behind the First Class section on these aircraft, options were limited.
The Boeing 777-300s with 2006 First Class seats installed therefore had a ridiculous amount of space ahead of Row 1 and behind Row 2, to simply ‘pad out’ the available cabin section.
We even joked while flying on the aircraft that the area ahead of Row 1 could easily accommodate a row of Economy Class seats!
By the time the seat had been restricted to only a few Boeing 777-300s, routes were very limited with Jakarta, Manila and occasionally Tokyo seeing 2006 First Class products offered.
Seat stats
Here are the key stats for the 2006 First Class seat, shown alongside its replacement – the 2013 First Class product, which was officially launched on 9th July 2013 and first entered service on 27th September that year.
| & |