Singapore Airlines unveils new 737 Business Class cabin

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Update: This cabin will not be retrofitted to existing 737-800 aircraft but will be retrofitted to existing 737-8 MAX aircraft.

While yesterday saw Etihad unveiling its new A350 Business Class cabin, today has seen Singapore Airlines unveil the new Business Class cabin that it will be rolling out on its new 737-8 MAX aircraft in the coming weeks and that the airline is expected to retrofit to its existing MAX aircraft too.

Singapore Airlines 737 Business Class

Singapore Airlines inherited its 737s when it engulfed SilkAir (its former short-haul subsidiary) and it was only a few years ago that we saw the SilkAir aircraft unveiled with a nice Business Class cabin of their own.

Today and $170m/S$230m later, Singapore Airlines has unveiled a completely new Business Class cabin that it is having fitted to all of its 737-8 MAX aircraft.

The new cabin offers 2 fewer seats than the SilkAir Business Class cabin (12 seats have shrunk to 10) but the seats are a huge step up.

All the seats turn into lie-flat beds …

… and because the cabin is set out in a 2-2, 1-1, 2-2 layout – much like you’ll find in the Mint cabin on JetBlue’s A321s (which have 6 more seats) – there are two ‘throne seats’ for solo travelers to enjoy.

The seats have been designed by London-based Factorydesign and have been manufactured by Thompson Aero Seating based in Northern Ireland.

Each seat is 22″ wide and when set to lie-flat mode, will turn into a bed measuring 76″.

Singapore Airlines has said that a lot of care has been taken to give passengers as much comfort in this small cabin as possible with the cushions and covers copied from the airline’s medium-haul aircraft, and with the seat designed to wrap smoothly in a cocoon-like way to give flyers more personal space and a good amount of privacy.

A divider between adjacent seats provides a storage area for personal items…

… while the throne seats have their own storage compartment (complete with door) built into the shell of the seat between the seat and the aisle.

Other features of the new Business Class seat include 2 USB charging ports, an in-seat AC power supply, a reading light with adjustable brightness, mood lighting, and a high-definition Panasonic X-series 16″ touch screen monitor for in-flight entertainment that Singapore Airlines says is “akin to a home theatre experience”.

Here’s a video walkthrough that Singapore Airlines has released that shows the full details of its new 737-8 MAX aircraft.

Where these aircraft fly

Singapore Airlines uses its existing 737s on its short- and medium-haul network which, before the pandemic, looked like this:

With more 737-8 MAX aircraft on the way, the airline has confirmed that these too will operate on some of the routes you see above with destinations in Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Nepal, and Thailand highlighted for the new aircraft.

Bottom Line

Singapore Airlines has today unveiled the new Business Class cabin that it is installing in its new 737-8 MAX aircraft and that it will be retrofitting to its existing MAX aircraft as well. The new cabin offers 10 lie-flat seats which offer 22″ of width and which can be turned into lie-flat beds measuring 76″. As short-haul premium cabins go, this is just about as good as it gets.