Singapore Airlines’ first Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner aircraft landed at Changi International Airport on Wednesday March 28, 2018 sporting an all-new regional business class seat product.

This is the first B787-10 to be delivered to an airline, and is set to take off in May serving the airline’s Osaka route followed by Perth later that month. However, travellers will be able to experience the aircraft on select regional routes in April – notably Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur as the airline deploys the aircraft for crew training purposes.

The rolling out of a new regional business class product, called the Stelia Opal, is a significant step for Singapore Airlines, particularly following the unveiling of its new Airbus A380 business class seats last year. The airline’s regional business class product – currently equipped on its A330s and pre-retrofit B777s – has noticeably fallen behind its brethren and today the old regional business class product is one of its oldest seats.

Travellers may not have to wait too much longer to see these seats replaced by the new Stelia Opal seats, however. Speaking to Business Traveller, Marvin Tan, senior vice president of product and services at Singapore Airlines, said that the A330s and B777s featuring the older products would slowly be replaced with newer aircraft featuring the upgraded seats.

“I don’t know exactly when it will be when all the replacements will happen, because we have this airplane [the B787-10] and we also have the A350 medium-haul planes,” said Tan. “I don’t have a date for that, but it’s our objective for these two aircraft to form our regional fleet.”

As for future destinations for the aircraft, Singapore Airlines has been coy about which routes will next see the aircraft.

“Eventually it will be on all our medium-haul routes but of course we have to take a look at capacity,” Tan added. “This aircraft is 337 seats, while our A330s are 285 so you’ve got quite a jump there. For regional routes, we have to be quite nimble about it. So depending on demand maybe for certain flights we will bring in the Dreamliner and other flights we will bring in the other aircraft.”

Overall, Singapore Airlines has 49 of the new Dreamliner on order making it the largest operator of the aircraft in the world.