Travelers from the Mile High City will be clocking up the miles with Denver’s newest long-haul service.
15.03.2024 - 20:37 / skift.com / London Heathrow / Mohammed Al-Meer / Gordon Smith
If you thought the concept of flying first class was dying out, think again.
On Friday, Qatar Airways’ new CEO revealed the carrier is preparing to launch a new first class cabin. Badr Mohammed Al-Meer said the project was already in its advanced stages, with further details coming “very soon.”
Speaking to CNBC, he said that on certain routes “there is – and there always will be – very high demand for first class.”
Badr Al-Meer said the decision, which was taken in the past few months, had renewed urgency with the eventual retirement of the Airbus A380.
The super jumbo is currently the only plane type in Qatar’s fleet to offer a first class cabin (pictured above). It flies to select destinations including London Heathrow, Sydney, and Bangkok from Doha. The A380 has eight first class suites situated on the aircraft’s upper deck.
Badr Al-Meer’s comments represent a major U-turn in strategy for Qatar Airways. Just last year, his predecessor Akbar Al Baker told Bloomberg that he “didn’t see the necessity” for first class. “Why should you invest in a subclass of an aeroplane that already gives you all the amenities that first class gives you?”
In a bullish assessment, Badr Al-Meer claimed that “nobody can develop a first class cabin better than us,” citing two main reasons.
The first is Qatar Airways’ existing QSuite business class product. It has swept the board with industry awards and been described as ‘first in business’.
“What we did with the QSuite, by raising the benchmark for a very long time, we will do the same with the first class cabin,” said the CEO.
The second reason, says Badr Al-Meer, is the knowledge and expertise the company has from its Qatar Executive private jet division. “We want to combine the experience of flying commercial and on a private jet to develop something new.”
In terms of a timeline, he told CNBC that the project is already very well advanced. “We are 70-80% ready – we are only finalizing colors and small touches.”
Qatar Airways plans to launch a first class cabin, new CEO tells CNBC's @dan_murphy. pic.twitter.com/9XL3LspujH
As for its first class pricing strategy, the CEO said fares for the new cabin will be broadly in line with its existing top-tier option. “People will not have to pay an arm and a leg to fly on [the new] first class – it will be the same cost as our [current] first class on our A380.”
In recent years carriers including LATAM, Malaysia Airlines and South African Airways have withdrawn their international first class products.
This has left only a handful of long-haul carriers which continue to invest in a true first class cabin. These include Singapore Airlines, British Airways, Air France, and Japan Airlines. However, even these companies only
Travelers from the Mile High City will be clocking up the miles with Denver’s newest long-haul service.
Last year, my husband and I splurged on round-trip first-class tickets on Japan Airlines from San Francisco to Tokyo for $13,474 each. We reserved them in February for an October flight through American Express Travel. On the same day, I also bought business class tickets for a couple who was traveling with us at $8,429 apiece. In September, Amex notified me that we had been downgraded to business class for the return flight. JAL’s conditions state that we would receive “the difference between the normal fare amount of original class of service and for the normal fare of lower class of service.” To me that means that since the difference between our first class seats and our friends’ business seats was $5,045 each, we should be refunded about half of that — around $2,522 per person — for the second leg. But we got only $941 each. I contested this with Amex Travel, but they rejected our claim. Can you help?
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