Singapore Airlines Suites (A380) Review: Still the World's Best First Class in 2026

The cabin, in geometry#

Singapore Airlines' new Suites cabin — installed across five rebuilt A380s from 2017 onwards and now the only Suites product flying — sits at the front of the upper deck in a 1-1 layout, six suites total. Each suite is its own enclosed cabin: full hard walls floor-to-ceiling, sliding door, 23-inch touchscreen, and the separate-bed configuration that defines the product. The seat is a 44-inch wide leather armchair that does not convert; the bed is a 76-inch full-flat mattress on the opposite wall that the crew makes up with proper linens during your dinner. The interior space — 50 square feet for a single suite, 100 square feet for the combined double — is closer to a hotel room than to any other commercial cabin, including Emirates First and ANA The Suite.

The double-bed configuration#

The headline feature, and the only one of its kind in commercial aviation, is the row 1 / row 2 double bed. When suites 1A and 2A (or 1F and 2F) are booked together, the divider between them retracts fully and the two single beds are combined into a king-sized mattress with shared linens. Singapore is explicit about the policy: only the front and rear row of each three-row block has this option, only when both suites are booked under the same PNR, and only in suites paired on the same side of the aircraft. On the Singapore–London sector the cabin is configured 1A/2A on the port side and 1F/2F on starboard; either pair works. Couples flying SQ Suites without the double-bed pairing are leaving the most distinctive part of the product on the table.

Route footprint and pricing#

Suites flies on every A380 service in the network: Singapore to London Heathrow (twice daily), Frankfurt, Sydney, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo Narita. Paid cash fares in 2026 run SGD 9,800–13,800 round-trip on the London route depending on season and booking class — peak December/Chinese New Year fares can touch SGD 16,000. The cheaper way in is the KrisFlyer saver award: 130,000 KrisFlyer miles one-way from Singapore to Europe in Suites, with cash co-pays of roughly SGD 350 in fees. KrisFlyer space opens 355 days out and tends to be plentiful in the off-peak windows (mid-January, May, October) and brutal across peak. Saver awards on Suites are the single best value redemption in premium commercial aviation.

Pre-flight and ground experience#

The Private Room at Changi Terminal 3 — a sub-lounge inside The Private Room concept reserved exclusively for First and Suites passengers — operates as a sit-down dining room with full à la carte service, including a credible Singapore satay station, a champagne pour of Krug Grande Cuvée and Dom Pérignon side-by-side, and a quiet zone with proper daybeds for transit passengers. At Heathrow, Suites passengers are routed to the Qantas First Lounge (the strongest premium product in Terminal 3 by some distance) with à la carte dining from the Rockpool Bar & Grill menu and a quiet spa offering complimentary 25-minute treatments. Boarding is genuinely separate — a dedicated jetbridge to the upper deck on both sectors avoids any contact with the main cabin.

Soft product and dining#

The Le Labo amenity kit (the brand's Another 13 in the 2025 redesign) holds full-size 30ml hand cream and lip balm, a high-quality Lalique-glass perfume sample, and a Penhaligon's collaboration pyjama set in soft cotton. Bedding is by Lalique with goose-down pillows and a proper duvet. Dining runs through the Book the Cook programme: a 24-hour-pre-flight pre-order from a menu including dishes by Sanjeev Kapoor, Yoshihiro Murata, Suzanne Goin and Georges Blanc — the lobster Thermidor and the New Zealand lamb rack are the two consistent standouts. Champagne is the most generous in the sky: Krug Grande Cuvée and Dom Pérignon 2013 are both on the cart, poured continuously, no rationing. Caviar service is twice per long-haul — once at boarding with a 30g Petrossian Royal Ossetra service, once mid-flight on request.

Honest negatives#

Three real drawbacks worth flagging. The Suites cabin has no individual climate control — the upper deck runs slightly warm, and at altitude the cabin temperature tends to drift up across the second half of the flight; the crew will reduce on request but the option is binary. Second, the in-flight entertainment screen, while large at 23 inches, runs an older Panasonic eX2 system that genuinely feels dated against the newer eX3 in Emirates First First or the Thales AVANT in Qsuite — film selection is strong, the UI is not. Third, the double-bed configuration, while genuinely transformative for couples, is operationally restrictive: if you book a single suite, the row in front or behind being empty is the only path to extra privacy, and Singapore does not actively manage that for solo passengers.