Singapore Air reveals a new seat. Why?

Singapore Airlines will become the next international carrier to jump on the premium economy class bandwagon later this year as it introduces the roomier seating on its A380 and 777-300ER aircraft.

The Asian carrier will roll out the new seating product in August on the Singapore-Sydney route, followed by Singapore-Hong Kong and Singapore-London Heathrow. The deployment schedule calls for introduction of premium economy on the New York-Frankfurt-Singapore route in December 2015, Los Angeles-Tokyo-Singapore starting January 2016, and then San Francisco-Seoul-Singapore later in 2016.

Singapore’s new premium economy section — with a 2-4-2 configuration — will offer seats with 38-inch pitch, width of 18.5-19.5 inches, eight-inch recline, 13.3-inch touchscreen HD monitors, noise-canceling headsets, power outlets, and two USB ports.

In-flight service will provide a choice of three entrees as well as champagne and wines; premium economy passengers will get priority check-in, boarding and baggage handling, and a checked bag allowance of 35 kg (77 pounds). Members of the airline’s KrisFlyer program who buy premium economy tickets will earn 110 percent of miles flown.

The company has set up a special website detailing the service and amenities of the new seating class, as well as the schedule for deployment on international routes.

Related: How to say “hello” the right way in Singapore? 

Here’s a footnote from history: This will not be Singapore’s first effort at premium economy seating. When the airline launched A340-500 non-stops from Singapore to Los Angeles and Newark in 2004, the specially configured planes had business class and premium economy seating (but no first class or regular economy). That configuration was eventually changed to all-business-class on those two routes (which were the longest commercial non-stops in the industry), but the flights were discontinued in October 2013.

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Premium economy class has been adopted by a growing number of carriers in recent years; it’s now offered on at least 21 international airlines as a dedicated product (not counting the extra-legroom economy seating — such as United’s Economy Plus or Delta’s Comfort +). Most recently, Lufthansa brought premium economy sections onto intercontinental routes out of Frankfurt starting last fall, and it just introduced them onto select Munich routes (to Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai) last month.

Transpacific airlines currently offering premium economy seating include Air China, Air New Zealand, ANA, Japan Airlines, China Airlines, China Southern, EVA, Philippine, Qantas and Cathay Pacific, according to Seatguru.com, which has a handy comparison chart detailing the seat pitch, width, and amenities of all premium economy cabins worldwide. (Here’s TravelSkills earlier report on the Cathay Pacific premium economy product.)

Why the trend toward premium economy seating? Think of it as a gradual recycling of airlines’ premium cabins, one that has a lot to do with corporate travel policies. First class cabins on international routes have been gradually disappearing, in part because fewer companies were willing to foot the bill for their employees to travel in such luxury. But they were more willing to pay for business class on long-haul flights — so airlines started to improve their business class products to compete for those high-revenue passengers. Over time, business class has become de facto first class on many airlines (it’s not a coincidence that United calls its international business class cabin BusinessFirst).

Some corporate bean-counters have taken aim at those new and improved business class seats in recent years, especially as fares have increased; but they still had no problem with economy seating — and increasingly, premium economy seating (which, after all, still has “economy” in its name). So airlines are trying to cash in on that enhanced revenue source.

What’s the price differential? SeatGuru estimates that premium economy fares are “generally” about 65 percent less than business class fares. Comparisons to regular economy are more complicated, but SeatGuru says that on transpacific routes, premium economy fares cost about 95 percent more than standard economy.

–Jim Glab

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