U.S. travelers are about to lose access to one of the most luxurious products in the sky.
Singapore Airlines plans to pull its Airbus A380 from its fifth-freedom flight between New York John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) and Frankfurt (FRA), the airline said Tuesday.
It will operate the JFK flight with a Boeing 777-300ER instead. The airline said it had changed the equipment in order to add more A380 service between Singapore and Australia.
Want more airline-specific news? Sign up for TPG’s free new biweekly Aviation newsletter.
While the equipment change means a reduction in capacity — Singapore’s 777-300ER seats 264 passengers, compared to 471 seats on the A380, it also means that Singapore’s flagship Suites product will no longer fly on any U.S. routes.
Singapore’s Suites product is a unique cabin above first class and is only available on the A380. The suite creates a private, individual cabin for each passenger, complete with a sliding door, a chair, and a separate standalone bed. The dividing wall between suites can also be lowered, turning the bed into a double for couples traveling together.
Singapore also offers a “regular” first class cabin on some of its aircraft, including the 777-300ER that will start flying to JFK. While those seats are extra-wide and offer some privacy in the form of a partition that partially blocks the seat from the aisle, there’s no closing door. Non-Suites first class passengers still enjoy the same service and the rest of the soft product, including Singapore’s “Book the Cook” option that allows passengers in premium cabins to pre-order their meals.
The airline typically uses the A380 on key routes from Singapore to destinations in Australia, Asia and Europe. However, Singapore has also used the double-decker on its JFK-Frankfurt service, which continues on from Frankfurt to Singapore (SIN).
Although award availability on JFK-FRA can be intermittently sparse, it was sometimes possible to fly the Suites for just 86,000 Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles and roughly $130 in taxes and fees.
The change is scheduled to go into effect on May 15, 2023, so there’s still time to try Singapore’s ultimate first class product out of the U.S.
