Singapore Airlines: New Economy Class

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Singapore Airlines has revealed the latest generation of seats they will be fitting in selected new aircraft from September. Passengers on certain flights on the London-Singapore route will be the first to experience them.

Although the new seats are evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, and initially will be fitted to only eight new Boeing 777s, they are significant in some respects.

They reflect the changing demands of passengers, particularly in the way they can use their own electronic devices in conjunction with those of the aircraft, and provide further evidence of the ferocity of competition in the airline business.

Their development also represents the antithesis to the degrading factory farming attitude to passenger wellbeing of Ryanair and its ilk. The seats have been specifically designed to allow greater attention from cabin crew.

The new seats will also be installed in the Airbus A350s that SIA expects to be operating from the end of 2015. While the seats could be retro-fitted to existing aircraft in SIA's fleet there are so far no plans to do so.

The main changes are: in economy, softer, more comfortable chairs, an extra inch of legroom, power sockets and handy USB ports; in business class, more stowage space and better lighting, along with a flat bed 28 inches wide - the industry's widest, claim SIA. In first class the bed is even bigger -- 35 inches wide and 82 inches long. The first class seats, of which there are only eight on the 777 - all upholstered in dark brown leather - offer greater privacy, more cubby holes for stowing personal possessions and more sophisticated lighting.

The Panasonic in-flight entertainment system, controlled with touch-screen handsets, is the same in all three classes, except for the size of the LCD screens. All are bigger. Those in first have been increased to 24 inches, in business to 18 inches and in economy to 11 inches. With some 230 movies, 340 TV programmes, 80 games, 790 CDs, as well as radio, audio books and Berlitz language lessons, there are more than a thousand options available on demand. Passengers in first and business classes have noise-cancellation headphones.