Singapore Airlines: All-Business Class Across the Pacific

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"SINGAPORE AIRLINES TO LAUNCH FIRST ALL-BUSINESS CLASS FLIGHTS FROM USA TO ASIA

(Los AngelesNGELES, March 4, 2008 – Citing consistently strong demand from business travelers, Singapore Airlines has announced plans to convert its five Airbus A340-500 ultra-long-range aircraft into an all-Business Class configuration on daily flights from New York and Los Angeles, making it the first airline to offer this service over the Pacific.

The current 2-class, 181 seat, configuration will be replaced with 100 of the airline’s new, award-winning, Business Class seats in a 1-2-1, configuration. At 30-inches wide, the seats are the largest Business Class offering in the sky.

Unique to Singapore Airlines’ widebody aircraft, every seat will have direct access to the aisle, and convert to a horizontal flat bed. The new Business Class seats are the same design as those installed on the Airline’s A380 and B777-300ER fleet.

The implementation will be phased in gradually from mid-May, 2008, on the New York (Newark) to Singapore route, with daily services in the new configuration to New York by the end of June, and Los Angeles by late September 2008. The program will require each of the five aircraft to be retrofitted in turn.

To manage the retrofit program, the existing daily Los Angeles to Singapore non-stop flight will not operate on Tuesdays between mid-May and late-June. There will be no change to New York service frequency.

Customers who are currently booked in Executive Economy Class on the A340-500 services, which will be affected by the conversion, will be re-accommodated where possible on existing Singapore Airlines services between Los Angeles, New York and Singapore.

In the future, customers looking to fly Economy Class between Singapore and Los Angeles or New York can book on existing one-stop flights.

In the case of New York, a daily B747-400 three-class flight operates between Singapore and New York’s JFK Airport, while between Singapore and Los Angeles; there is a daily B747-400 three-class flight via Tokyo and a four times weekly B777-200ER two-class flight via Taipei.