Spoiler alert: Qatar Airways doesn’t operate any “short” flights out of the United States, but if you’re flying business class, you might not care. The airline has announced plans to bring its revolutionary Qsuite business class setup, complete with privacy door, to the last two US markets the airline serves, which currently feature the older seats.
When those final flights go live in August 2020, a whopping 10 US cities will feature one of the two best business class seats – or “suites” – in the world, which means the big 3 US carriers may have some catching up to do…
Qatar Airways was the first airline to bring a privacy door to all seats in business class. Launched in 2017, it’s still one of the two best seats in the sky, and easy rivals some airlines first class offerings. Each “Qsuite” seat is effectively transformed into a “fully private suite”, featuring an extra large entertainment screen, a fully flat bed and electronic plugs, storage galore.
Here’s a review of the experience on the airlines flagship Airbus A350-1000.
10 US Cities Will Feature QSuite Business Class
The “Big 3” US airlines have fought hard to limit Qatar Airways, Emirates and other emerging airlines expansion into the United States. Now, we know why.
10 US travel markets, including: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia and Washington DC will bring one stop long haul flights to virtually anywhere in the globe, with a superior seat up front.
It’s not uncommon for airlines to put their best seats on cities like New York or Los Angeles, but to serve most major regional hubs of the US with one is fantastic for travellers. The two hold out cities of Atlanta and Miami will receive the upgraded seat in May, and August respectively.
Competition is crucial in the airline industry, particularly in the United States where a near monopoly by three airlines has slowed innovation at times. Qatar rolling out a world class business class seat to 10 key flying hubs means that airlines will have to compete on both price and new seat offerings to keep their market share. When that happens, passengers tend to win.
If you look at historical flight pricing out of many of these cities, the emergence of Qatar Airways and other predominantly Asian and Gulf carriers has taken the average long haul ticket price down by hundreds, if not thousands while improving the overall offering. Whether you’re paying with cash or miles, it’s a great time to fly somewhere long and far from the USA…
HT: OMAAT
I believe Miami is very temporary. Just for a few months it gets the A350-1000 then it reverts back. It’s never a guarantee with Qatar, I’ve gotten equipment swapped.
They are notoriously the worst for equip swaps! No argument there.
Definitely looking forward to the Q Suite coming to Atlanta. Just wish it was going to be here for my next trip on Qatar this Feb & March.
Where we have major corporate representation, i.e., Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks, Expedia, Costco to mention a few why isn’t Qatar offering direct service to Seattle?
It’s a very fair question, perhaps late to the game? Singapore and Cathay already getting in there makes it tough to compete for Asia traffic and perhaps the needs to ME/Africa are more limited? Tough call, would love to see it though.
at one point qatar annouced San Francisico route. but the annoucement of SFO route never annouce. wondering whats going on with qatar airways not annoucing the route.
i would love to see qatar airways fly to SFO. i have to always deal with flying to another cities that has qatar route with qatar airways .