First things first: Qantas First Lounge, Changi Airport
Check out the new Qantas top-tier lounge at Singapore’s Changi Terminal 1.
A mint-sprigged calamansi lime mojito or a crayfish noodle laksa thick with bok choy, bean sprouts and fried shallots? Since the opening of the Qantas First Lounge at Singapore Changi Terminal 1 on December 2, these options from Neil Perry’s Rockpool franchise have been heading the hit list, scooped up by passengers before maximising their sleeping hours on board overnight flights.
The new facility, conceived by the airline’s go-to Australian designer David Caon, in conjunction with Kelvin Ho of hospitality specialists Akin Atelier, is ranged across 1000sq m and features Australian artwork and perforated rattan screens typical of equatorial interiors.
With dining seating for 157 occupying about 60 per cent of the space, the investment in food and beverage has been key, including an open kitchen and streamlined 3m-long mottled grey and white Carrara marble cocktail bar where the healthy likes of lemon and ginger kombucha can also be ordered.
Importantly, savvy baristas are well versed in the mysteries of the perfect Australian flat white.
The national carrier replaced Dubai with Singapore as the stopover port on its QF1 and QF2 Kangaroo Route services to and from London Heathrow in early 2018. Since then, there has been progressive investment in ground facilities.
The new Qantas First Lounge, built from scratch, accommodates 240 First passengers and top-tier frequent flyers and is the fourth such international terminal offering, after Sydney, Melbourne and Los Angeles, reflecting the airline’s focus on its key hubs and ports. With more passengers attaining premium frequent flyer status across airline alliances and airport lounge access, there’s a universal shift for carriers to acquire more facilities at their busiest network terminals.
On a visit to Hong Kong last year, it was standing room only at another airline’s business class lounge and the queue to the showers, quipped a fellow passenger, stretched all the way to London.
So it’s a given that we’ll see more expansion at this level by full-service carriers. Meantime, although the Singapore dishes and cocktails are flying out the door, as it were, classic Qantas lounge favourites such as salt and pepper squid (enlivened in Singapore with green chilli dipping sauce) and the comfort food option of a chicken club sandwich pepped up with roasted tomato and bacon are holding their own on the menu. But fans of the signature pavlova served at the international First Lounges in Sydney and Melbourne will find it replaced by a lighter and more tropical offering of coconut and mango sorbet with palm sugar syrup and toasted coconut flakes.
There’s no wellness spa but the 10 private shower “suites” come with an LED simulated skylight that mimics daytime and the mood across the facility is soft and hushed, with an acreage of blond European oak, a centre aisle of pale terrazzo flooring that stretches like a runway, brass fittings, potted greenery and calming colours.
I like that apart from sit-up dining in cushioned leather chairs with properly padded armrests, there’s a choice of communal seating or workspaces with high dividers. It’s a given that lounges of this premium ilk must have USB and charging ports but here they are more logically placed and in greater abundance than the norm.
Launching the lounge, Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce confirmed that the interiors of the entire Qantas A380 fleet will be progressively revamped by the end of this year and the airline will continue to invest in its “dual-destination” routes such as Australia to London Heathrow via Singapore.
But as energetic lion dancers celebrated the opening and the debate over those missing pavlovas continued, he would not be drawn on where the next Qantas First Lounge will open. Watch these spaces.
Susan Kurosawa was a guest of Qantas.
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Complemented by the expanded Qantas International Business Lounge at Terminal 1, there’s now combined seating for more than 800 top-tier flyers. National carrier Singapore Airlines operates the only other dedicated First lounge at Singapore Changi.