Qatar Airways wants to ride the luxury travel wave with the launch of all-new first class suites which it claims will be more like flying in a private jet.
The posh private suites will crown the airline’s new Boeing 777-9 fleet expected to arrive from the end of 2025 – and with those jets also sporting the revamped Qsuite 2.0 business class, the pointy end of the plane will need to be something extra-special.
The first class suite, which Qatar intends will one-up the offerings of key rivals Emirates, Etihad Airways, Singapore Airlines and soon Cathay Pacific, will lean into the Gulf carrier’s experience with its Qatar Executive private jet fleet.
“We will utilise our knowledge and our expertise from having a private jet company,” Qatar Airways CEO Badr Mohammed Al Meer said during an interview with CNBC over the weekend.
“I feel that nobody can develop a first class cabin better than us” for that reason, he explained.
“We want to combine the experience from flying commercial and from flying a private jet and develop something new.”
The well-appointed ‘open suites’ design of Qatar Airways’ A380.
Of course, it was less than a year ago – in June 2023 – when Al Meer’s predecessor Akbar Al Baker declared the superlative Qsuite had made first class obsolete, and Qatar Airways would no longer offer first once its A380 superjumbos were retired.
“Why should you invest in a subclass of an aeroplane that already gives you all the amenities that first class gives you?” he posed. “I don’t see the necessity.”
But Al Meer sees things differently.
“We have always been pushing away the concept of having a First Class cabin on our aircraft,” he admitted, “but I have decided in the last few months that we have to introduce a First Class cabin… especially when we have to exit the A380.”
“Based on demands for certain sectors we see that there is and that there will be, always, very high demand on first class.”
Some routes will aways have high demand for first class, says Qatar Airways’ CEO.
Qatar first class for London, Paris, New York?
That said, Al Meer’s citing of demand for first class on “certain sectors” or flights mirrors Al Baker’s take back as far as 2020, when he revealed plans for the 777-9 first class in an exclusive interview with Executive Traveller.
His thinking was that the 777-9’s first class suites would cater for what he saw as “huge demand here in Qatar to two or three European destinations” such as London and Paris.
“So we may introduce a very small first class cabin for our local passengers who want a very exclusive first class product,” he said, adding that a small number of the 50 Boeing 777X jets on order would thus sport a “very exclusive first class cabin of just four seats.”
Al Baker said this would be a deliberately “very niche product” for routes with an established pattern of well-heeled travellers.
Executive Traveller understands design work on the suites progressed through to mid-2023 before Al Baker his the pause button – and it seems Al Meer is now picking up exactly where Al Baker left off.
“We are 70% and 80% ready, and we are only finalising colours and final touches,” he told CNBC. adding that “hopefully, we will be able to announce it very soon.”
Al Meer also said the airline was shopping around for a large aircraft order, with proposals now out with Airbus and Boeing – presumably for another tranche of Airbus A350 or Boeing 777X jets to both support the airline’s expansion and allow retirement of the older less fuel-efficient Boeing 777-300ER workhorses.
