Qatar Airways 777 business class cabin The business class cabin is in a 2-2-2 configuration, with a total of 24 seats. With such a configuration I prefer having a center aisle seat, so that that nobody has to “climb” over me when they need to get up. Qatar Airways 777-300/ER economy class Doha to Amsterdam 05. EasyJet A320 main cabin Amsterdam to London (LGW) 06. Norwegian 787-9 main cabin London (LGW) to Los Angeles. As excited as I was to try Qatar economy class, it occurred to me during the taxi ride to the airport this morning that I did things a little bit backwards on this trip.

• Qatar Airways Boeing 777 aircraft. Qatar Airways was awarded the World’s Best Business Class 2018 accolade by Skytrax.
• The first 777-9 fuselage assembly started in March 2018. In May 2018, Qatar Airways head Akbar Al Baker thought development was a couple of months late but expects Boeing to catch up.

Qatar 777 Business Class

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Qatar Airways has one of the world’s two best business class products, QSuites. They also have a very special first class lounge, but that’s mostly been welcoming to regional first class passengers (of which there are fewer during the regional blockade against Qatar itself).

International first class has been a product only on the airline’s Airbus A380 aircraft. For the most part they’e flown that only to a couple of destinations in Europe and Bangkok, though that was extended to fly all the way to Auckland. The A380 first class product is surprisingly weak.

Qatar Airways A380 First Class

Qatar Airways A380 First Class

Up until this past summer it was my expectation that the demise of the A380 on Qatar would mean the end of the airline’s offering a long haul first class. However the airline’s CEO Akbar Al Baker says not so fast.

Qatar 777 First Class

“We are studying the possibility of having a very exclusive first class cabin of just four seats, for example,” Al Baker says, describing it as a deliberately “very niche product” aimed at well-heeled Qatari travellers.

“We have huge demand here in Qatar to two or three European destinations” such as London and Paris, Al Baker explains, “so we may introduce a very small first class cabin for our local passengers who want a very exclusive first class product.”

Qatar 777 300

The airline will have a subfleet of their new Boeing 777-9s, serving limited routes like London and Paris, that will offer first class. This will be a small number of planes, and probably offer just four suites.

We won’t see the product for awhile as aircraft with first class won’t be among the initial deliveries of these new planes. In fact it could be 2028 before we see it.

Qatar 777 300er

And anything that’s projected out to 2028 isn’t just far from certain, but more in the realm of entirely speculative, at this point. However any first class that does materialize will have to be better than QSuites, and indeed better than whatever QSuites are 8 years in the future. Combine that with Qatar’s outstanding service and catering it has the potential to be a fantastic product.