Qantas A321XLR interiors are a surprise at first, but there’s still opportunity to see cabins that this aircraft deserves

When Qantas revealed its new interiors for the brand new A321XLR, almost all of us were expecting to see a relatively revolutionary cabin. After all, the airline had been ‘bigging-up’ the arrival of its new fleet and its upgrade to the Qantas passenger experience, however, when the new cabins were revealed, we were left a little longing and thinking to ourselves ‘Is that it?’ Almost as underwhelming as the new Emirates Business Class launch, we started asking whether we have now reached the pinnacle of cabin design.

That said, these interiors aren’t to be sniffed at, these are large comfortable business class seats, and economy features some of the most advanced seats from Recaro. It’s also clearly got a David Caon stamp on the interiors, replacing the older Marc Newson designs that feature on the airline’s 737 fleet, and the results of this new interior design aesthetic are brilliant.

What is interesting to see is that the airline has doubled down on it’s A220 promise in removing inflight screens. There’s no IFE to be found on aircraft that will be operating over 5 hours. While I believe this is a huge error in building out the passenger experience, Qantas is obviously of the mindset that passengers would rather bring their own devices.

With tablet ownership not taking over the market in the way many had hoped – and the humble smartphone offering a sub-par entertainment experience – IFE screens lead the way in being able to offer a point of differentiation and in an increasing two-screen consumption, it was a clear way of offering a brand immersion that will now be lacking.

But XLRs are meant to be super-nimble long-range products that give a huge benefit to airlines looking to operate those lucrative, thinner routes. So how come Qantas has launched with just a short-to-mid-range cabin offering? After all, no passenger is going to want to pay a business class price for this product from Hong Kong to Sydney for example.

Well according to an interview on Executive Traveller, these cabins are certainly not meant for long-haul flights. In fact they’ll operate on some of the longer regional flights within Australia for the most part. A subset of XLRs is being considered by the airline which may include flatbeds at the front, which will mean the airline can start to deliver on thinner long-haul routes that haven’t been profitable enough to commence just yet.

This approach is already being adopted by many carriers such as TAP, JetBlue, Aer Lingus, American and FlyDubai, but unlike the Transcon market in the US, there isn’t any real competition meaning that these recliner seats will just have to do – even though a 5-hour red-eye flight Australia isn’t really any different to the needs of a US passenger.

For us, this launch is a tale of two cabins. One, luxury residential-style design that enhances the passenger experience, and a bean-counter approach to inflight experience that stops short of providing a slick, premium passenger experience that is deserving of such an international carrier. Hopefully the long-range version will fix the shortcomings.

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