Jan 30, 2021 The four weekly flights will be operated by Qatar Airways’ state-of-the-art Boeing 777. Kicking off 2021 by expanding its West Coast footprint with inaugural flights to the Emerald City comes as.
- Qatar Airways is operating the Boeing 777-300ER on a variety of long-haul destinations. There are three versions of the B777-300ER, both with only two classes of service where all Business Class seats feature 180 degree recline. For this Version, Business Class is found from rows 1 to 7 and Economy Class begins at row 10, ending at row 43.
- The Boeing 777-300ER is the long-distance workhorse of Qatar's fleet. The reinvention of the Gulf carrier’s Boeing 777 fleet will be almost a like-for-like swap. Qatar Airways has 48 workhorse Boeing 777-300ERs, which will make way for the initial 50-strong order for the Boeing 777-9.
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).
Qatar Boeing 777 200lr
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.
“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.”
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.
Boeing 777 Qatar Seating
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.
Boeing 777 Qatar Airlines Interior
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.