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In aiming to bounce back from the region’s conflict, Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad are trying to outdo each other with new planes, seats and menus.
Dubai’s Emirates, Qatar Airways and Abu Dhabi’s Etihad have grown fast by creating more luxurious aircraft and offering better service than their established rivals: Qantas, British Airways, Air France, Lufthansa, and Iberia, along with all the US airlines.
Now, with the ongoing conflict in the Middle East putting the trio under pressure to lure passengers, the Gulf carriers are trying to outgun each other.
“Competition in the region is crazy,” said Etihad CEO Antonoaldo Neves at the Arabian Travel Market in Dubai this month. All three carriers showed off new products at the travel trade show. Emirates’ new economy seat features the adjustable ‘U-Dream’ headrest. Sir Tim Clark, the Briton who runs Emirates, reckons airlines have neglected economy-class travellers by concentrating on suites, bars and showers for business-class and first-class flyers.
So he unveiled a new economy seat that is “a lot more comfortable, with more features, functionality and products”. It comes in bright colours, unlike on most airlines, and has a new “U-Dream” headrest that adjusts both vertically and horizontally, with thick sides that fold down to create the perfect neck rest. The latest travel news, tips and inspiration delivered to your inbox.
Sir Tim already operates the best premium-economy cabins on any carrier – downstairs at the front of Emirates’ Airbus A380 superjumbos or between business class and economy on its Airbus A350s and Boeing 777s. He has gone one better now by introducing a new seat that has the “U-Dream” head rest but also motorised recline and a large motorised divider between each seat to create greater privacy.
I sat in the seat in Dubai on Monday and it reminded me of the cradle seats that passed for business class in the 1980s. Premium-economy passengers get new Aveda amenity kits and the best wines in that cabin on any airline, including a Chablis Premier Cru 2024, a 2014 Bordeaux and Wiston Estate English sparkling.
AdvertisementEtihad has eschewed premium economy and is instead introducing four rows of extra-legroom economy seats on its new A330neos – the only Gulf carrier to offer this. It is also doubling down on first class. At ATM, it introduced new first-class products for both its new Airbus A330neo wide-body jets and its Airbus A321LR narrow-body jets.
Both come with doors that close for privacy, a new colour palette of greys, beiges and greens, a vanity mirror with a drawer full of ESPA products, wireless charging and snack tray. This takes Etihad’s total first-class offerings up to five: a “super first class” three-room apartment, The Residence, and large Apartment suites with a separate bed and seat, plus showers, on its A380s; a first suite on its Boeing 787s; and the new suites on the A330neos and the A321LR.
Etihad’s new A330neo cabins have a new colour palette and its new first-class suite includes a vanity mirror with Espa beauty products, wireless charging and a snack barthat demand for first class was rising: “Wealth is there. People want to go first class. We will offer seamless first-class service in the right way for each aircraft on each route. ”Qatar Airways has updated its Qsuite experience to create a more sociable travel environment.
Qatar is putting its golden eggs in the business-class basket. The latest version of its Qsuite business-class suite, was on display at the show. It has a wall, containing a television screen, that divides each suite but, for the first time on any airliner, can also be folded back, allowing for a more sociable travel experience.
With the dividing walls retracted, the quartet of seats in the middle of the cabin opens up into a small room, with seats that face each other, like a restaurant table for four. Each pair of seats converts into a double bed. Another “first” is a lockable drawer for valuables.has come up with the only business-class suite – Business Elite – that gives the Qsuite a run for its riyal.
The Hafawa lounge at its King Khalid hub airport in Riyadh, with a fine-dining restaurant and cigar terrace, is also upping the ante; it’s the best combined business-class and first-class lounge in the Gulf. It might seem strange for the Gulf airlines to be making all these new investments – whose collective costs are around $US100 billion – when the war in the region is far from over.
But their bosses insist that aircraft are 70-80 per cent full – only around 10 per cent off pre-war capacity at this time of year. Bookings for the crucial northern autumn and winter season are “looking quite great”, as Adnan Kazim, Emirates’s deputy president and chief commercial officer, put it. I flew to Dubai for ATM on Qatar Airways via its Doha hub, Hamad International, and there were only a handful of empty seats to and from London.
Many of those passengers are not stopping off in Dubai or Doha – “The flow is really working quite well between Asia and Europe and Europe to Asia,” notes Kazim – but for airlines a seat sold is a seat sold. Most governments and travel insurers have removed the Gulf states from their “No fly” lists. Privately, all the airline CEOs concede that a resumption of hostilities could “change everything overnight”, as one put it.
Theat the start of the conflict loom large in the memory of many travellers. But as the fragile peace just about holds, the arms race at 39,000ft shows no signs of letting up. Indeed, Qatar Airways is planning a new first class on its forthcoming Boeing 777Xs, with what insiders say could be a suite with floor-to-ceiling walls to create a mini “apartment” in the sky. Emirates will soon unveil the new bar on its 777Xs.
. And Etihad will open a new lounge at London Heathrow and its sixth type of “super first-class suite” for the 777X and the Airbus A350, as Neves puts it. AdvertisementIt has a small cabin on the upper deck of the Airbus A380, with 56 seats arranged 2-4-2, and two lavatories. It’s the most civilised economy-class set-up you can find.
Its new seat is the most comfortable on any airline, offers more privacy and comes with an amenity kit and wines that rival business class on many carriers. The Qsuite raised the bar for business-class travel almost a decade ago, and the new version unveiled this week is vast, luxurious and private. It cannot be beaten for choice, offering five first-class suites across its fleet with a sixth on the way for its new Boeing 777Xs and Airbus A350s.
It offers three different vintages of Dom Perignon in first class, a large bar in business class, class-leading wines in premium economy and a mean chicken curry in economy.
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