At ITB Yesterday, Qatar Airways proudly launched its much anticipated new Business Class product. It has certainly impressed the public with its claims to have the world’s first double bed in business class, new sharing plate concept, sliding doors for privacy and large communal area for families of four.
Don’t get us wrong, we are also impressed, but we take a closer look at the product’s offerings on paper, we start to question how many of these new innovations are unique to Qatar Airways.
Designed over a period of two years with B/E Aerospace, the QSuite features “the industry’s first-ever double bed available in Business Class, with privacy panels that stow away, allowing passengers in adjoining seats to create their own private room. Adjustable panels and movable TV monitors on the centre four seats allow colleagues, friends or families travelling together to transform their space into a private suite, allowing them to work, dine and socialise together. These new features provide the ultimate customisable travel experience that enables passengers to create an environment that suits their own unique needs.” As the press release states.
“In addition to the existing decadent ‘dine on demand’ service, the new Business Class menu will now offer a selection of snack ‘sharing dishes’ available throughout the flight, allowing travellers to turn dining at 35,000 feet into a social experience. A wake-up Express Breakfast will also be available for those who choose to sleep a little longer by making the most of the ‘Do Not Disturb’ option available on the door of their private QSuite.”
This all sounds quite revolutionary on paper, however, some of these innovations are already being touted by other carriers. For example, the ‘double bed’ concept isn’t really that unique.
British Airways and Thai Airways are just two examples of how current seat products could already be classed as double beds as there is no real divider between the seats. (Just around the head area) and carriers such as Etihad and even Emirates also offer side by side seating configurations in their business class products.
The layout of the seating is actually already pretty similar to Etihad’s Business Class Studios, both offering curved footwells, and similar forward / rear facing seats, whereas Emirates (like Thai) both offer only forward-facing options.
We think this double bed concept is also really only going to benefit passengers travelling together, as solo business travellers, sometimes on busy business-heavy routes, will certainly only take these as a last resort. For those travelling alone, it makes little difference if their seat connects with the one next to them, as long as the divider goes up between, but considering you may be sleeping back to back, small knocks on the divider could annoy the fellow sleeping passenger.
As for the communal aspect, while this is perhaps a very unique development, it only caters for families or groups of travellers who are exactly four in number, as parents with just one child, or groups of three, may have to end up sharing this space with a stranger, especially if the cabin is full, which usually on the launch route of London, it is (unless Qatar is willing to forego a paying passenger to ensure privacy in these four-seat cabins. The fact that passengers will also have to shuffle to the side chairs on the separated seats in order to see their passengers on the other side of the sliding TV’s raises issues of comfort due to the smaller legroom on these more ‘occasional’ ottomans.
In fact, the communal aspect isn’t new either, charter airline group Thomson released their concept (above) for a communal seating configuration back in 2014, and while it never came to life, it shows that cabin designers have been playing with the idea of communal seating areas for some time.
As for the privacy found by the sliding doors, Delta’s A350s will roll in to service this year with their own private Delta One suites. These seats will also offer equal privacy to passengers, and with the ability to raise a partition between middle seats, also caters more closely to solo business travellers compared to families. JetBlue has been offering suites with doors on its Mint product for a few years now. Talking JetBlue, they, like Virgin America and Hawaiian Airlines also offer smaller Tapas plates – which Qatar Airways has just announced – that are ideal for sharing.
So all in all, the touted ‘revolutionary’ product isn’t actually anything new, but what it is however, is a very well packaged product, that when aligned with the rest of the Qatar Airways passenger experience, will no doubt be a huge success and a highly desirable business class option for travellers. We applaud the airline for investing in its own product, which is lavished with a fine attention to detail, and perhaps responds to their unique passenger demographic.
The suite will first be showcased on the airline’s prestigious London-Doha route this summer. 777s and A350s will be retrofitted at approximately one a month.
TheDesignAir 
Couldn’t agree more, looks very similar to the etihad business class suites which I had the joy of experiencing last month. This does really mark out how poor the new emirates business class product in a 2-3-2 config really is? Who would choose that option above this or the etihad options?
C’mon, are you really comparing this with British Airways’ pair of middle seats? Seriously?
Did you forget there are two more seats around it in BA?
I understand the concept is vaguely related, but the difference is abysmal!
It’s like saying, for example, any two business seats in Tam’s 777 are also side by side, with very little privacy between them, therefore the same concept.
Hi ale, we are comparing the concept of a ‘double bed’ to the BA concept, not the entire seat architecture. Hope that clarifies
I understand. But almost everything in the world is based on a previous concept. You enumerate a series of concepts, but in the end all of them had been applied in this new product. So it is at list a bit revolutionary, because nobody did it before, and definitely sets the bar higher for other airlines.
PD: sorry if I sounded a bit aggressive in my previous comment, but the comparison between the BA seat and the QSuite touched my nerves 🙂
I really enjoy reading The Design Air, it shows things that no other blog show.
I think Qatar Airways´ made a mistake by promoting this product already before the official launch. It was a highly anticipated event and most of the people expected something revolutionary and maybe even a breathtaking product with the potential to make any first class seating obsolete.
As far as I remember Al Baker even announced that the seats might become better than some first class seats currently offered on the market.
But I agree that this product is not the game changer which was expected, it is a great product positioning Qatar Airways as one of the leading business class airlines but still it is not a successor to a proper first class such as Etihad, Lufthansa or Air France offer it.
it’s basically Etihad / Polaris but with doors
Think of a Etihad/ Polaris/ Delta One Suite hybrid in QR colours. Personally, I don’t think it’s that ‘revolutionary’. When I think of revolutionary in the airline industry, I think of Emirates’ showers, Singapore Airline’s Suites (first in the world), Korean Air’s on board duty free shop, Etihad’s Residences etc and obviously British Airways being the first airline in the world to introuduce flat beds in business class. Some airlines, however popularised so called innovations and revolutionary in the airline industry i.e US Airways reverse herringbone layout which was patented and highly popularised by Cathay Pacific Airways.
Personally, a top notch hard prouct is always a jack pot but its the service that counts for me. Despite the hatred towards BA’s Club World product, I still like their service especially flying home from the USA because the flight attendants do make you feel like home. American Airlines is another airline that is getting a lot of hatred at the moment but having flown with them recently on Y and Business, I find their product and service outstanding (obviously this is all subjective). However, if you ask me my favourite airline is, Cathay Pacific hands down. I’ve been flying with them since I was very young and their service is still outstanding. I’d love to give Qatar’s Q Suite sometime! I have more than enough Avios for a reward flight!
I don’t care for it