Imagine my surprise this afternoon when, ahead of a Singapore Airlines flight from Changi Terminal 2, I trotted up the escalator and along the corridor to the SilverKris Business Class lounge and was met by a smiling agent at the reception desk gesturing me to take a right turn instead of left, into what until very recently was the former First Class SilverKris lounge.

Having fully expected the same old left turn into the somewhat tired and dark existing T2 Business Class SKL, as many of us have done countless times over the years, this was a genuinely unexpected development, and one I hadn’t heard a peep about beforehand.

Annoyingly though, I’d left it late and only had a small window of time before boarding, so a more thorough exploration (and a proper crack at the food) will have to wait. For now though, here’s what’s already taken shape.

A reminder of what’s going on

If you’ve been following our coverage of SIA’s S$45 million Terminal 2 lounge renewal project, you’ll know it’s a phased affair, with substantial expansion of seating capacity on the cards once it’s wrapped up sometime in 2027.

The launch phase already delivered the all-new First Class SilverKris lounge on the opposite side of the terminal’s central atrium back in November last year, purpose-built in space SIA acquired specifically for the project.

That move freed up the old First Class space, and it’s this section that’s now being pressed into service as a temporary Business Class lounge, while the much larger ex-Business Class footprint on the other side gets the builders in, ahead of a larger merged section in the coming months.

What’s currently behind the hoardings will eventually re-emerge split into two: an extended Business Class SKL section (which will merge through with the space now open), and an enlarged KrisFlyer Gold lounge that will retain its own separate entrance.

The current KrisFlyer Gold lounge remains unaffected for now, operating from its existing dedicated entrance at the top of the escalator, and still featuring nothing special – like its own toilets!

So treat what follows as a halfway house – but we must say a rather nice one.

The walk in

The first thing you’ll notice once past reception is the long corridor stretching ahead, lined on the right with a generous run of dining-style tables and those distinctive burnt-orange leather chairs familiar from the T3 Business Class SKL.

It’s a lot of seating, and right now feels almost like an overflow zone in waiting.

Whether this layout survives once the full lounge opens remains to be seen, we’d guess some reconfiguration along that right wall in the photo above is likely, but for the time being it’s a useful fallback if the main dining area is busy when you arrive.

A T3-style fitout

The design language here is essentially a carbon copy of the T3 SilverKris Business lounge, which is no bad thing. Warm wood panelling, those signature tan and slate-blue armchairs, the high communal counter with leather bar stools, and the ribbed ceiling treatments all feel instantly familiar.

The good news for anyone who suffered through the windowless former T2 Business Class space is that there’s now some natural light in the room, courtesy of a row of small opaque windows along the far wall, that once only featured in the First Class lounge when it was located here.

It’s not the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of the new First Class lounge across the bridge, but it’s a great improvement on the previous cave-like atmosphere which led many to prefer the new T3 lounges over this one.

Productivity Pods make the cut

A particular highlight, and one of our favourite features in the latest SIA lounges, is the inclusion of Productivity Pods.

There are only four of these in the currently open space, but bear in mind this is likely to represent only around half of what’ll eventually be a roughly 320-passenger facility, so we’d expect the final tally to be more substantial.

For anyone with a bit of work to do before a flight, these are a fantastic addition. Privacy, power, and a proper surface to type on means the basics done well, in our book.

Dining: live cooking yes, tended bar no (for now)

The buffet area is up and running, complete with a live cooking station that’s already turning out fresh dishes to order. Sadly I didn’t have time to sample anything on this visit, as boarding soon called, but it’s something we’ll come back to in a more thorough review when the full lounge opens.

What’s not here yet is a tended cocktail bar.

This is almost certainly being held back for the larger, fully completed lounge once the ex-Business Class section is reopened, where it’ll have the space and theatre to work properly. For now, drinks are limited to self-serve from the wine and beer fridges, or champagne buckets, along the back wall.

That’s the one absent feature worth being aware of, and arguably now the only meaningful gap between this temporary arrangement and what you’d get over in the T3 Business Class SKL today.

For now though, we’re happy to see Crossroads craft beer on tap, something we don’t recall from the former T2 lounge.

Toilets and showers

The bathroom facilities have all been brought up to the latest T3 lounge standard, with the same grey marble finishes, rain shower heads, vanity units and Toto toilet fixtures.

There’s no penny-pinching here, these feel genuinely premium (despite the insistence on non-branded shower toiletries, which are a similar let-down over in T3).

Shower-wise, we count 10 unisex shower rooms already in place, which is more than the six to eight we’d previously predicted for this facility.

For comparison, the larger T3 Business Class SKL has 15 showers, so we suspect the 10 we see here may well be the final tally, since the closed section under construction is more likely to be focused on additional seating, dining, rest areas and the tended bar.

Either way, that’s a solid number for a lounge of this size, and should keep wait times manageable even at peak hours.

For years, the T2 SilverKris Business Class lounge has been the poor cousin of its T3 counterpart. Older, more cramped, and conspicuously dated.

This soft opening changes that significantly. The temporary lounge isn’t a downgrade in any meaningful sense from the T3 facility, with the same design DNA, the same seating standards, the same Productivity Pods, the same shower fitout, plus a touch of natural light that the old space sorely lacked.

The single caveat is the absence of a tended bar, which will feature when the full lounge eventually opens. Capacity may also be tight in the interim period, given this is only roughly half of the eventual footprint. Proper rest areas should also be part of the finished product.

If you’re flying SIA from Terminal 2 in Business Class over the coming months, expect a much better lounge experience than you’d have had even a week ago, and we’ll be back with a more thorough look (and a food review) once the full facility is up and running in the coming months.

(Cover Photo: MainlyMiles)