This was my first visit to the Qantas First Lounge in Singapore, and also my first proper First Class lounge experience. I was guested in by a friend, who was a oneworld Emerald member, so I went in curious and with very little personal benchmark for what a First Class lounge should feel like.
I liked it a lot. The lounge itself isn’t the most dramatic at Singapore Changi Airport, and there are no tarmac views, but the dining and the service are the reason I would come back. This is a lounge to visit hungry, rather than one I’d choose simply because I wanted somewhere quiet to sit.
Location and access
The lounge is located on Level 3 of Changi Airport’s Terminal 1. After immigration, turn right at the Louis Vuitton store and follow the signs to the lounge. It’s next to the Marhaba Lounge.
Access is available to Qantas and oneworld First Class passengers, as well as oneworld Emerald members departing Singapore even when they are flying Economy Class. In both cases, you can bring one guest as long as that guest is travelling on a oneworld flight. That was how I got in on this visit, which gave me a chance to see the lounge without flying First Class myself.
Layout
The Qantas First Lounge sits mostly on the inner side of the terminal, so you won’t get the aircraft views that some of Changi’s other lounges offer. You can see a little of the departure hall from the dining area, but the windows have blinds for privacy and this isn’t a lounge where I would sit around watching planes.
The seating starts with an area containing private rest pods and sofas. This is the part I’d use if I wanted to lie down for a while before a flight. There are also coworking tables with power sockets, so you can work there instead of trying to balance a laptop on an armchair.
The dining area is directly above the departure hall, which gives it a partial view down into the terminal. It isn’t a particularly exciting view, but it does keep the dining room from feeling completely enclosed.
Food and drinks
Food is the main reason to visit the Qantas First Lounge. Everything is ordered from a menu and brought to your table, so the meal feels quite different from the buffet setup in the Qantas Business Lounge next door. You can sit down, choose what you actually want to eat and leave the plate collecting to somebody else.
Qantas contracts Accor’s hospitality team for the lounge, and the service felt noticeably more polished than what you’d get next door at the Qantas Business Lounge. Executive chef Linda Sim, who has been featured by CNA for her local cuisine specials, also gives the menu a stronger Singapore identity alongside Qantas staples such as salt and pepper squid.
We spent nearly a full day here and tried several dishes, including prawn paste chicken, prawn wontons, heirloom tomato with mozzarella, signature laksa with crayfish, barramundi with polenta, basil and zucchini sauce, beef with jasmine rice, and chocolate and hazelnut cake with banana ice cream.
The standard was consistently high across what we ordered. More importantly, the menu gave us enough choice to sit down and have a proper meal rather than simply take whatever happened to be on a buffet counter. It is one of the few lounge menus that made me want to order a meal, rather than pick at a few things before boarding. Not that I do see any buffet counters here anyways!
The bar also had a proper selection of wines, champagne and cocktails. Staff were on hand to mix drinks, so you weren’t left choosing a bottle from a self-serve counter and pouring it yourself.
Amenities
Showers are available, with toiletries from LaGaia Unedited. The shower rooms have artificial skylights with adjustable lighting, which Qantas says are designed to help with body clock adjustment, particularly for passengers on QF1 and QF2. I can’t say whether the lighting made any difference to my body clock, but the shower room itself looked polished.
Concluding thoughts
The Qantas First Lounge Singapore left a strong impression, especially as my first proper First Class lounge visit. The space is comfortable rather than spectacular, and the lack of tarmac views is a limitation if you enjoy watching aircraft, but neither issue mattered much once we started ordering food.
If you have access through oneworld First Class or oneworld Emerald status, I’d make time for this lounge before the flight. I would for sure arrive early if I could, and I would arrive hungry. The made-to-order dining and staffed bar are what make it worth choosing over a more ordinary lounge, while the room itself is simply a comfortable place to wait.
