Recently, major airlines have made moves: United launched its Polaris first-class and business-class products, and Delta also came out with a new Delta One product last year. Qatar Airways (Qatar Airways, QR), one of the three major airlines in the Middle East, has always had an excellent business-class product. On International Women’s Day today, Qatar launched its new business-class product, QSuite, at the ITB exhibition in Berlin. Let’s take a look at what’s unique about it.

qr-qsuite-two-seats-bed.png

Press Conference

The event was also livestreamed on Facebook Live. For people used to polished, high-end airline launch events, Qatar’s presentation was pretty chaotic. Qatar’s chairman, Akbar Al Baker, stood in a small corner speaking into a microphone. In the end, he actually put his hand on an iPad (imagine all the fake fingerprint-recognition apps on iOS) and triggered a mechanism, but nothing happened. It was truly a rather rare, eerie launch atmosphere.

https://www.facebook.com/qatarairways/videos/1486711098014472/

Here is an introduction video for QSuite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yhZDsctiZg&feature=youtu.be

Q-Suite Business Class

Suite

Following Delta One, Qatar also offers suites with doors in business class. From the photos, the privacy of this suite is excellent, comparable to first-class cabins on many airlines. On the hard-product side, a fully flat bed is a must, and the in-flight screens have also been upgraded to large HD displays.

Mahjong / game-table setup?

qr-qsuite-four-seats-meeting-1
Four-seat mini meeting room

This may be Qatar’s strongest selling point in the new business class. Do you remember Singapore Airlines and Emirates can link two first-class suites together on the A380? Qatar’s QSuite can connect four seats, front and back! The above is the effect after opening all the doors. I think this is clearly designed with Chinese passengers in mind; this setup is practically made for playing mahjong (if Qatar added an automatic mahjong table, it would be even better), and it’s also great for playing Dou Dizhu or other table games.

[caption id="attachment_5305" align="alignnone" width="1500"]qr-qsuite-four-seats-meeting-2 Mahjong room from another angle[/caption>

However, because there are only a few of these mahjong rooms on each aircraft (depending on the configuration), there may be only a few across the whole plane, so you really need to book early.

When can you sit on it?

QSuite will first be deployed on Qatar’s 777-300ERs, with flights from Doha (DOH) to London (LHR) starting as early as June this year. Eventually, all Boeing 777 and Airbus A350 aircraft will offer QSuite business-class product.
Meanwhile, the 787 and A380 will also be equipped in the future with a slightly different version of the QSuite business class.

Here is a 360-degree video introducing the new Q-Suite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAqBd5elC6Y

I hope other airlines can also catch up so that everyone can live up to Qatar’s boss’s bold statement: “I think airlines don’t need first class.”