Qatar Airways has unveiled its brand new seat at ITB Berlin today. Let’s dive straight in with what we know about the seat from the announcements and presentations.
Qatar Airways new economy class seat – image via https://twitter.com/qatarairways/status/1103277701446610944
- The seat is a part fixed back shell – which for Economy poses an interesting dilemma. The good news is that recline into your legroom will be limited. However, it means the seat pan will move forward to create a recline effect. When implemented on Cathay Pacific, these didn’t go down well – at all. The seats offer a 19-degree recline angle.
- Dual trays – one for drinks and one for the meal/work use. This – whilst isn’t revolutionary is a good space benefit to the economy class passenger (heck, I love the split economy class tables that fold in half – so I have room for my drink as well as for myself.
- 13.3″ 4K resolution seat back screens – Sounds good in theory, doesn’t it? Except there will be one big problem (and its the same problem that HD Screens have) – the lack of delivered content. If you don’t have the content to match the screen… what is the point? Qatar Airway is indicating up to 4000 entertainment options loaded on-board
- Adjustable headrest – well, if a long haul seat doesn’t have that, there’s a few issues in comfort terms (and yes there are seats out there that don’t have this feature). Qatar’s fleet has them mostly.
- Magazine Pocket with USB-C port – this is welcome to see in some respects, as there is a major move to USB-C for some years (after everyone laughed at Apple for making everyone use dongles… before everyone else slavishly copying them). I do fear for those users who have USB A type cables still and need to charge. That will become less of a problem, but could easily be resolved with a twin-output power source.
There’s also some work going on with the softer part of the product including:
- An updated amenity kit
- Quisine – it’s new updated dining concept that will offer more choices, food tailored for each region, a bottle of water and larger portions in the air.
The roll-out will commence on the new Airbus A321neo aircraft the airline is due to receive, with versions roll out to the fleet on both new deliveries and retrofits.
But where is the Premium Economy?
These changes are all well and good – however, I struggle to think of another airline that has a gulf between its Economy product and its Business Class offering. Even looking amongst its contemporaries, Emirates is in the process of working out how it’s going to deploy a premium economy product for roll out in 2020, Eithad has buy-up and sales options for its seating to increase passenger space.
Meanwhile, Qatar Airways has… nothing.
It seems that whilst there’s a little work going on, there’s not a lot to either close the gap, or fill the gap with another product.
As usual, the proof of the pudding is in the eating of it – and we will find out these seats will play out when installed and flying aboard it’s new Airbus A321LR.
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Wow, I have no skin the game either way, or any real allegiance to any airline, but you really come across as a hater here.
To me this looks incredible for Y class and way better than, say American premium economy, or maybe even SQ. Revolutionary? Er… yeah probably.
Massive HD screen, seemingly awesome seat itself, enhanced food etc etc etc. Seems thoroughly modern, updated, and on a par with the upgrade of old biz herringbone to Q suite jump even?
What is your problem exactly? Have you been indoctrinated by the Americans Kevin? Too many Chicago trips?
Evolutionary would had been a better term for this roll-out, not revolutionary. Call it what it is, rather than the oversell.
I feel there’s a lot more PR than normal. 13″ 4K screens are wonderful, but show me the content that’s going the played. We’re struggling to to get to HD still on the majority of carriers (QR included!).
The benefits of this seat will work on the Airbus families where there is the width to play with due to the cabin size. On the Boeing family, it’s going to be tight.
Fixed shell recline has been proven to be unpouplar, and I can’t see any evidence this will change.
As for USB-C Power, it’s welcome, but again – not earth shattering revolutionary.
What would had been revolutionary would be saying “We’re going back to 9 across on the 777 family, trading capacity for passenger comfort.
I’m no way in AA’s or BA camps with their densification projects, and anyone who sticks a 31” wide space-optimised toliet in a plane gets what they deserve,
And about the only thing that is revoultionary is the dual tray set up. And I hate to the think of the medium-long term maintence cost of it.
I might be salty on this – but I have my reasons.
And the fact that QR still widening the gap between it’s Economy Class and Business Products, with no product in-between for the customer who has more to spend than an Economy Passenger, but can’t justify Business Class, where nearly everyone else is thinking of a Premium Economy sized solution to fill in the middle of the cabin.
Definitely evolutionary, but short of revolutionary.
I question the USB-C decision, since most people have USB-A right now. Are they going to sell adapters onboard?
And “Quisine” is an abomination upon the earth and has to go. It’s almost as bad as “Bonvoy”.
The USB adapter issue is going to be annoying for a long time.
But yes. Evolutionary rather than revolutionary. If they went for the staggered seats as some have been saying, I might have a different viewpoint…
Just how comfortable will these seats be? Any word on seat width and pitch? Are the seats the dreaded slimline seats? Entertainment is nice but doesn’t make up for massive discomfort, particularly on long haul flights.
QR’s business fare on many routes is low enough to be competitive with local carriers’ PE fares. I just bought OSL-DOH-SIN return for U$1700. There really is no need to spend hundreds of millions to install a 3rd class across its fleet, just attract that segment that will pay s few hundred $s more with a cheap J fare.
The seats have both USB A and C ports for charging, it’s quite clear from a video Qatar posted on YouTube.