Singapore Airways operates a fleet of seven Airbus A350-900ULRs, that are the longest vary plane on the planet. The airline makes use of these jets to function its longest flights, together with from Singapore (SIN) to New York (JFK), Newark (EWR), and San Francisco (SFO).
The Star Alliance service will quickly be taking a few of these jets out of service for upkeep. This raises an fascinating query as as to whether there is likely to be a bit extra to this…
Singapore Airways decreasing A350-900ULR flights
Singapore Airways took supply of its A350-900ULRs again in 2018. It’s regular for plane to wish heavy upkeep occasionally, and within the case of those jets, it’s each six years. With that in thoughts, Singapore Airways is making ready to cut back its A350-900ULR schedule, to mirror that solely six of those seven jets will likely be in service at any given time.
As reported by Primarily Miles, between Could 1, 2024, and January 31, 2025, Singapore Airways will cut back frequencies with these jets on a few of its longest flights. The airline will preserve each day flights from Singapore to each New York and Newark, however will make adjustments to its A350-900ULR community in any other case:
- Throughout this 9 month interval, Singapore Airways will exchange 7x weekly A350-900ULR flights to San Francisco with A350-900s
- Throughout this 9 month interval, Singapore Airways will exchange 3x weekly A350-900 flights to Los Angeles with A350-900ULRs
As you may see, these A350-900ULRs will go from working 21x weekly flights to working 17x weekly flights. The airline has confirmed that these planes will bear scheduled upkeep throughout this era. There’s nothing actually shocking right here, although there’s some fascinating hypothesis on the market that I figured could be enjoyable to debate.
Will Singapore Airways replace its A350-900ULR cabins?
In July 2023, Government Traveller reported that Singapore Airways deliberate to reconfigure its A350-900ULRs. No supply was shared for this info, however it was handed off as reality fairly than conjecture.
Needless to say when heavy upkeep is carried out on plane, it contains primarily stripping the whole inside of a aircraft, after which reinstalling it. Once you mix these elements, one has to surprise if these two issues is likely to be related.
If Singapore Airways is planning updates to its A350-900ULR cabins, and if the airline is performing heavy upkeep on these jets, then it might be completely logical to finish each initiatives directly.
For context, Singapore Airways’ A350-900ULRs are in a brilliant premium configuration, with simply 161 seats, together with 67 enterprise class seats and 94 premium financial system seats.
If Singapore Airways had been to replace its A350-900ULRs, what sort of adjustments might we see (and once more, it is a big “if,” and is only hypothesis)?
It’s potential that Singapore Airways maintains the identical seats, however simply adjustments the breakdown of the seats in every cabin. It’s my understanding that enterprise class tends to promote higher than premium financial system, so might the airline be making the enterprise class cabin larger, and making the premium financial system cabin smaller?
For that matter, might we see Singapore Airways introduce top notch on these jets? It looks like the airline would possibly be capable of generate extra income by decreasing the scale of premium financial system and introducing a small top notch cabin, as I’m positive there could be some demand for that.
The opposite potential situation is that the airline would possibly lastly introduce a brand new enterprise class product on these jets. There has lengthy been discuss of Singapore Airways introducing a brand new enterprise class seat, and that was initially purported to debut on 777-9s as of 2020. Nevertheless, with that jet having been delayed by not less than 5 years, might Singapore Airways lastly be debuting this cabin on the A350-900ULR as a substitute?
It’s anybody’s guess how this performs out, however I do suppose there’s a superb probability the A350-900ULRs don’t return from upkeep trying precisely the identical as they did once they went in. For what it’s price, Singapore Airways has a historical past of solely asserting the main points of cabin updates shortly earlier than the planes are able to enter service (Lufthansa might be taught a factor or two).
Backside line
Singapore Airways will quickly be performing upkeep on its Airbus A350-900ULRs, that are used to function the world’s longest flights. For a interval of 9 months, Singapore Airways will cut back its A350-900ULR schedule, in order that one aircraft might be out of service at a time.
Whereas Singapore Airways claims that that is simply to carry out routine upkeep, one can’t assist however surprise if we’d see another updates to those cabins, whether or not it’s a change to the cabin structure, or the introduction of a brand new enterprise class.
Do you suppose Singapore Airways will simply carry out A350-900ULR upkeep, or do you suppose we’ll see some materials adjustments to the cabins?
