Qantas to open new Singapore first class lounge in 2019

Construction to start in April 2019. I'd imagine the delay is around waiting for spaces to become available. Not exactly a huge amount of vacant space for lease in SIN.

really? They announce a plan to solve the problem and already its taking too long....its a good solution and good things take time to implement. Coming to an agreement and finding a space, waiting for that space to become available, then building it. It takes a little time

Sound like it will be near or maybe in the old CX lounge.

They probably did, but the issue will have been negotiating with Changi to get a suitable space.

Depends what they do with the A380 once project Sunrise is underway. Will probably still fly it at least as far as SIN until the A380 are retired.

I'd expect Singapore will remain as a stopover for passengers who don't want to fly non-stop from Sydney to London, in the same way that for example Singapore Airlines has retained a stop-over alternative to its direct A350 flights to New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. But further down the track I'd not be surprised to see Qantas & Jetstar relocate to Singapore's new Terminal 5 when that opens..

It might be worth while doing a survey David (if you haven't already) of AUSBT readers, on their preference of taking a direct flight from SYD, MEL, BNE to LHR or with a stopover.

I would think there will still be 4 QF flights a day (SYD, MEL, BNE, PER) though possibly on smaller aircraft. SIN will always be a destination in its own right, as well as a stop for those that prefer to do long trips in shorter leaps.

Two concept photos, only one of which shows the inside of the lounge, and you can already pass judgement on the design? Impressive!

This is great news, a contact at SIN tells me it's been underway for some time because the difficulty is getting suitable space. I believe the new First lounge location about two-thirds of the way along the D Gates precinct, close to and upstairs from the food court. This is not too far away from where the old Cathay Pacific contract 'SkyView' lounge used to be, if anybody can remember that.

If the SkyView lounge is the same lounge I'm thinking of it was a horrible space, but in a great location between the C & D gates. Having recently avoided the QF lounge in favour of the relative calmness of the BA lounge, I look forward to being able to return to a hopefully great QF F lounge late 2019!

And a glass of something decent like Taittinger rather than the Moet rubbish they serve in the Emirates Lounge! :-)

don't go to emirates lounge if you don't like it simple as that!-

I'm with you Ross, no long flights for me, I always stop over a night in SIN and now I am looking for a suitable place to spend a night between SIN and Europe/London.

It is not all doom and gloom about the current Lounge. Recently I was flying SIN to HEL in Business Class with AY, on a Qantas ticket, so I had access to QF Lounge in SIN. The AY flight does not depart till almost midnight, as all the QF flights had departed it was quite pleasant and not crowded in the Lounge.

Very true. I am certain Qantas has known about the issues changing back to Singapore would create and would have been working on a plan since the day they made that decision.

The problem with that is that it doesn't appear that QF even started to work on the lounge issue until after the flight changes were already in force.

The space issue was clear to everyone, besides apparently QF, the day they announced the DXB > SIN changes. If they had started working on the lounges when they announced the changes, then this new F lounge would likely already be open now, if not far off it.

The issue was clear and my guess was expected, but how do you know they didn't start working on it straight away or even before hand? Just because it has taken almost a year to get to this point and another before it is open, doesn't mean it hasn't been a work in progress for some time and is dependant on the airport owner.

you said what I was thinking.

In LHR there's the CX FLounge available which would make it harder for QF to justify a dedicated FLounge though maybe once Project Sunrise is in full swing hopefully with more flights to LHR than at present they may be able to consider it.

And we are supposed to endure another year of this with. Qantas need a workaround

Gets back to the simple fact that maybe they haven't had the space until now to be able to do it. Not everything is about budget and profits, sometimes shock horror there are practicalities and limitations, like lack of space.