First Class is Bigger than Ever, But Sometimes in Disguise

Coming as it usually does around Easter, the Aircraft Interiors Expo has a funny habit of resurrecting aspects of the inflight experience that were supposedly dead. Think proper meals in economy, seatback inflight entertainment screens, and now first class.

It turns out that the increasingly luxurious business class seats and suites are not enough for airlines with a high-end customer profile segment. Some passengers want even more than that. 

Notably, the future of first class is not just aboard the government-backed airlines with unlimited money. Airlines that actually need to make a profit, such as Air France, British Airways, Japan Airlines, Lufthansa, and Swiss all have new first-class cabins. These are an entirely separate product from their business class seats. 

An Emerging Hybrid Offering

There’s also the ‘business-first’ category, where extra space in the front row of business class cabins is generated thanks to the absence of a seat in front.

Taiwanese full-service carrier Starlux sells this as an actual first class, while Virgin Atlantic’s Retreat Suite and Lufthansa’s Allegris Business Suite are sold as a premium ancillary option.

Full first class seats are now entirely customized for airlines. For example, Stelia for Air France’s new chair-and-chaise-longue, Collins for BA’s new A380 first class, and Lufthansa Group’s FICE (Future Inter-Continental Experience) better known as Lufthansa’s Allegris and Swiss Senses respectively.

Seatmakers often work with aviation design studios like Tangerine or JPA to combine style with regulatory know-how. These agencies have the aesthetic sensibility to make the space look luxurious as well as the aviation experience to design products and source materials that the seatmaker can produce and certify on time – or at least that’s the idea.

Airbus is also reorganizing the front of the A350 to enable a more premium layout. The European manufacturer is adding a special first class overhead feature light, moving the crew rest access, and offering a larger first class lavatory/changing room option. Here, like other A350 first classes, the company is exploring a double suite in the middle section of the aircraft.

Older Planes; Fresh First Class Cabins

Historically, new first class cabins were generally introduced on brand-new aircraft, but the end of A380 production, fleet changes as the result of the pandemic, and the delay of the 777X has changed things.

These factors – plus a few more – mean that the A350 and 777-300ER are the new flagships for first, but new cabins are being installed retrospectively, or “retrofitted” in industry parlance.

Lufthansa’s Allegris first-class product was not ready for its initial set of Allegris-equipped A350s, necessitating post-delivery (and indeed post-entry into service) retrofit. British Airways’ new first class – its biggest change in the category since introducing first class flatbeds in 1995 – will be delivered on retrofitted A380s.

Some of the previous generation flagship products from the A380 may not even be installable on single-deck aircraft. For example, the single-aisle upper deck designs found on Etihad and Singapore Airlines seem likely to meet renewed regulatory focus when it comes to emergency egress and exit, already a stumbling block with recent seats.

Key opportunities seem to focus on the front row, business-plus market, and making lemonade from the lemons of front-row monument tessellation. Thompson Aero Seating has long pushed its ability to create a semi-cabin product as “first class for free”, with most other seatmakers now offering something similar. 

While airlines have largely implemented this as a business-plus model via ancillary pricing rather than as a first class cabin, it seems clear that there is a real opportunity for a seatmaker to make use of every single inch of that all-important front-row real estate.

Read more of John Walton’s passenger experience insights for Skift here.