Yahoo Finance What the world’s best Business Class cabin looks like
Qatar Airways’ QSuite won the best Business Class at the Skytrax World Airline Awards held in Paris recently. With a fully lie-flat bed, in-suite accent lighting and generous storage spaces, this is what business travel looks like in 2020.
Qatar Airways has always had some of the world’s best business-class seats. It’s retained the World’s Best Business Class Seat award for its patented Qsuite and has won the World’s Best Business Class fourth time in a row.
So what is the Qsuite
Qsuite is Qatar Airways’ revolutionary design that’s made flying Business Class even more comfortable. The highlights of the Qsuite are its doors and dividers that offer privacy in a way that other Business Class seats don’t. Most Business Class seats, even those comfortable ones with lie-flat beds, don’t always offer privacy. If you’re walking up and down the aisle, you’ll likely have seen people in various states of slumber. You’ll always know what the guy across the aisle is watching. And, if you’re travelling with your partner, there’ll always be a partition or an aisle that’ll keep the two of you separate.
Qsuite is Qatar Airways’ new Business Class. It’s available on select Boeing 777-200LRs, 777-300ERs, Airbus A350-900s and all of Qatar Airways’ A350-1000s. What makes the Qsuite revolutionary is the fact that these are the first suite-style seats for business class. Which is to say that they come with closing doors and are designed such that two adjacent seats can be converted into a double bed. If you’re a family of four, the partitions open up to create a cubicle that gives your group complete privacy. This unit can also double up as a collaborative workspace if you’re travelling with your colleagues.
Note that not all QA flights have Qsuites so you need to check before you book.
What makes the Qsuite special?
What doesn’t change with the Qsuite is the seating pattern. Like most business class seats, the suites are arranged in a staggered 1-2-1 pattern. Odd-numbered rows have seats that face the rear of the aircraft and even-numbered rows have seats that face forward.
The rear-facing seats are closer to the window and offer more privacy whereas the front-facing ones are nearer to the aisle. Ditto for the centre-row seats the rear-facing ones are away from the aisle (and therefore closer to each other) and the front facing ones are closer to the aisle (and therefore further apart from each other).
In the centre row, this arrangement comes together to form the four-seat unit we spoke of earlier. The rear-facing seats can be converted to form a double bed so you don’t have to sleep apart or fight over who shouldn’t be sleeping with the baby through the night.
It’s this arrangement that makes the Qsuite such a genius design. You no longer have to worry about people watching you as they walk to the loo, nor do you have to tolerate the glare of your neighbour’s TV screen.
Talking of which, each Qsuite has a 21.5-inch screen that has touch screen controls and more than 4,000 menu options. As with all enclosed rooms, each Qsuite has a DND sign for when you’re catching a wink or need some, ahem, privacy (wink).
