It may not be first to the punch, but following on Lufthansa’s coattails, Swiss has revealed its own personalised ‘SWISS Senses’ air travel experience from 2025 onwards utilising exactly the same hardware as sister carrier Lufthansa. The centrepiece of the new customer product is a redesigned cabin for the airline’s long-haul aircraft fleet, which was…
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Lufthansa peeled back the curtain today on its new Allegris product, with a wide range of products now on offer across its future wide-bodied fleet. We’ve already covered most of this story here including the myriad of Business Class seating options that Allegris will be offering. However, perhaps the scene stealer today is Lufthansa’s First…
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Qantas has finally unveiled prototypes of the First and Business cabins on the aircraftthat will fly passengers non-stop from Australia to New York and London from late 2025 along with a detailed virtual reality fly-through render of the aircraft cabins. This comes shortly after news of a new First Class lounge that will open in…
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This is the TheDesignAir’s hottest Design Airlines to try in 2023. Whether you fly regularly or are saving up for that once in a lifetime trip, here’s our recommendation for airlines, big and small, that bring a bit of style to the skies, but which have you flown and which are you wanting to try?…
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Kuwait Airways has recently announced a wave of enhancements across its passenger fleet on the A330-900neos as well as new uniforms, new routes and improvements to its lounge offering in Kuwait. While many of the improvements will only been see by a few travelling on the airline in the near future, one element will be…
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Air China has just revealed images of its new A350 interiors, which feature the Recaro CL6720 seat in Business Class, something we reported back in 2021. These new seats replace the existing Super Diamond seats found on the rest of the A350 fleet, with a more condensed seating LOPA, yet the additional benefit of privacy…
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As the first in a series of United Club locations to open in 2023, United has officially opened its new United Club lounge in Chicago O’Hare’s Terminal 1, close to gate C10. Not to be confused with United’s Polaris lounges, the Club lounge is home to a range of new additions designed to elevate the…
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British Airways announced that its 787-8 Dreamliners are the latest in the line to get some much needed love in regards to their business class product. While the majority of the fleet has already been updated, there’s still a few aircraft left with the original Yin-yang suites from the 2000’s, including the 787-8’s, 787-9’s and…
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Plaza Premium might be new to the US, but that doesn’t mean it is coming to the market tentatively. The group’s brand new Plaza Premium Lounge at Orlando International Airport (MCO) is a flagship product in virtually every regard, from space, design through to the range of facilities on offer. The state-of-the-art Plaza Premium Lounge,…
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China Airlines has now released a new menu and tableware to compliment its Japan routes. The airline will partner with Toutouan, a famous restaurant in Tokyo, to launch their “natural style” Japanese cuisine for Premium Business/Business Class on all Japanese routes. Brand new Japanese tableware will also complement the cuisine. “By bringing Japan’s signature banquet…
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Yesterday saw the very first of no less than 120 retrofitted aircraft take off from Dubai to London Heathrow. As part of a US$2billion upgrade program, EK003 heralds the start of a huge investment from Emirates to bring all of their A380s back to the skies, and – eventually – featuring the latest cabin products…
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Iberia is the first airline to take delivery of the new A350 cabins that feature ever-so-slightly wider cabins and new technologies that make the aircraft lighter and more advanced (such as greater flap settings and faster retracting landing gear), even though they look identical on the outside. However, on the inside, Iberia has opted to…
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Last week saw Air France unveil its fully redesigned lounge in Terminal 1 at Munich-Franz Josef Strauss international airport in Germany. While other airlines have been closing their ground products across the globe, Air France is one of the few carriers bucking the trend with upgraded and refreshed spaces. Dedicated to Air France, KLM and…
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It’s with great pleasure TheDesignAir’s 10th annual award winners have been announced today, celebrating the very best in aviation design, brand and passenger experience from across the globe. We’re thrilled to see airlines once again investing in passenger experience and brand, and there have been many excellent entrants and shortlisted entries this year. We’re thrilled…
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Award-winning Taiwanese carrier Starlux has just received its first of over a dozen new A350s, destined to start flying long-haul routes next year. As well as being the first carrier to have Airbus’ latest version of the XWB, which features an additional 4″ of internal width at the shoulder level and electronically tinted windows. While…
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I’ve been saying for a while that Etihad has been repositioning itself as the leader of boutique carriers. In fact, an impromptu conversation in my hotel bar last night with two Emirati ladies reaffirmed this belief, who excitingly dubbed the carrier as more ‘exclusive and chic’ than its larger, brasher, blingier, counterparts. It seems today…
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While Lufthansa had to quietly retreat from it’s questionable 5-star Skytrax rating just a few weeks ago, to a more understandable 4-star rating, it’s no surprise that the carrier is trying to pull out all the stops to re-energise interest in the carrier which has been marred recently by news of impending strikes. Yesterday Lufthansa…
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Let’s face it, airline cabins are becoming more and more familiar, the day of being surprised when walking onboard is almost over. The era of innovation that saw all-aisle access, private suites, and fully flat beds in business class – which first blossomed some twenty years ago – has seemingly settled into a plateau that…
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After recently travelling on both Virgin Atlantic’s B787-9 and the A350 products to the US, I had the opportunity to experience both the brand-new and older Upper Class products in quick succession, and the differences were noticeable, but actually not in a way I had expected. Now this might seem a little controversial, but.. Out…
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Yesterday saw American Airlines announce a relatively needed and long-awaited refresh to its interiors programme. Bringing its long-haul and premium narrow-body cabins a whole new look was expected, and after United and Delta had rolled out its own signature Polaris and One products, American needed to step up to the mark. While the new cabins…
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Now we aren’t saying AA’s existing lounges weren’t terrible, but apart from a handful, they weren’t much to write home about either. However the good news is that American Airlines has decided to up the ante with a redesign of its Admirals Club lounges across the United States. Customers will first experience the new look…
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Launched today in London’s still-trendy Shoreditch, Virgin Atlantic’s new A330neo product should indeed turn heads. Launching a brand new product across a small yet nimble fleet usually means that the product offering becomes increasingly fragmented, but actually the airline has stumbled upon better synergies than ever on its Transatlantic offering. Introduced on Virgin Atlantic’s 16…
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Hangar 22 is Air New Zealand‘s moniker for its research lab, which has been working on the future of ultra-long haul cabins for no less than 5 years in a mirror effort to Qantas’s Project Sunrise. There’s good reason for Air New Zealand to invest heavily in a new product, as the airline will start…
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Herringbone and forward-facing staggered business class seats? The catalogue available to airlines is now seemingly never-ending, and the latest Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg this week has revealed how the industry has never been more spoiled for choice. Two of the latest entrants in to the market have come from Safran dubbed ‘VUE’ and ‘Unity’.…
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With some 6000+ narrow-body and regional jets in the US alone, there is a huge market for ‘domestic First Class’ still, and competition is heating up at the front of the plane. Delta has just shown off its new First Class product, first announced in 2020, and the MiQ seats are starting to become commonplace…
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Most people will have flown on a Vantage product at some point if they’ve flown business class in the past decade, and the VantageXL is the flagship version, which has been adopted by the likes of Qantas, SAS, Delta and Philippine Airlines over the years. Understanding that passenger habits and needs have adapted in the…
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Today saw Air France reveal a brand new Business Class product that will start to grace its 777-300ERs. It also revealed an exciting new ‘brand video’ to impart the new Air France brand to its global audience. At the heart of this regeneration lies its new business class seat, which is entirely new, although it…
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Last month, we were lucky to try out SriLankan’s Business Class again, approximately 4 years since the last time, which was the first time since the pandemic, and it gave us an opportunity to see how the carrier was faring post-COVID. SriLankan has always been one of our secret favourite carriers. It often sits below…
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Today saw the official approval of Qantas’ long-awaited Project Sunrise, something that was postponed a few years due to COVID. With the announcement that the airline will order 12 A350-1000 aircraft capable of flying from Sydney direct to London and New York, which will see the longest and furthest flights in the world. But that…
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A staggering 18 months ahead of schedule, the doors to the ‘Delta Sky Way’ at LAX is now open to customers. And when LAX customers visit the new Delta terminal, they’ll have more than just a streamlined check-in experience and new designer facilities to look forward to. The new Delta Sky Club at LAX, located on the…
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