First photos: Qantas Boeing 787 Dreamliner business class seats
By David Flynn, October 27 2016
Here's your first look at the new Qantas Boeing 787 business class seats, aka the Dreamliner Business Suite.
As expected, it's an evolution of Qantas' highly-regarded Airbus A330 Business Suite with a few subtle tweaks and one substantial improvement.
That big change? There's now a sliding divider between the paired middle seats – similar to that on the Qantas Airbus A380 superjumbo – which travellers can move up for privacy, or down for sociability with their seatmate.
This addresses one of the few criticisms of the original A330 Business Suite (below), which had a fixed wall between those middle seats.
Most everything else remains the same, wrapped in a contemporary toned-down colour scheme designed to match the interior of the Boeing 787-9's premium cabin.
"We've retained the main champagne colour, the timber is changed be a darker shade and some items of finishing have also been updated a little bit to introduce more natural finishes" says industrial designer David Caon, who Qantas hired to update the seat from the original Marc Newson model.
The pointy end of the Qantas Boeing 787 will sport 42 Business Suites in a 1-2-1 layout, providing every passenger with direct aisle access and a staggered seating arrangement as seen in the A330s:
The rest of the Business Suite recipe remains pleasingly the same: a goodly amount of space around the seat to keep your personal stuff close at hand, conveniently-located AC and USB power sockets, and a large 16 inch video screen.
The seat can be partially reclined during the taxi, take-off and landing stages of your Boeing 787 flight, and of course it swings down into a 2 metre lie-flat bed.
The Boeing 787's business class will be divided into two cabins: a main section at the front of the plane with eight rows, and a smaller secondary cabin with three rows located just ahead of premium economy.
Also read: Here's what we know about the Qantas Boeing 787 Dreamliner
David Flynn is the Editor-in-Chief of Executive Traveller and a bit of a travel tragic with a weakness for good coffee, shopping and lychee martinis.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
04 Aug 2016
Total posts 13
I'm happy to see the sliding divider.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
13 Jun 2014
Total posts 3
A330 J class is a fantastic product but happy to see change to fabric on B787 rendering. However not convinced B787 grey faux wood paneling - the A330 lighter natural colour grain is more inviting than a grey on grey cabin.
28 Oct 2011
Total posts 645
'grey faux wood paneling'? it's simply a new grey surround where the wood look currently is. Currently the 10 A333s which predominately fly INT routes have fabric seats. The remaining 16 332s with leather seats predominately fly domestic east/west coast routes, and the leather seats are easier to clean during the shorter turnarounds on domestic flights.
20 May 2015
Total posts 579
The sliding divider is great. This makes these seats pretty much just as good for paired travel as the Cirrus design's middle seats.. perhaps even better.
10 Jun 2015
Total posts 6
Yep, I had fabric seats (with a leather head rest) when I flew A330 yesterday to Hong Kong
24 Aug 2011
Total posts 1207
Putting the removable divider is a good fix but it probably should never have been allowed like that on the A330 in the first place. Do you think they will have a retrofit developed for the A330 so it too can have a sliding divider in the future?
QF
25 Feb 2014
Total posts 20
Design flaw fixed - Well done to QF for listening to their business customers. Now if only they would listen to the economy ones. :p
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
15 Mar 2016
Total posts 167
Now they've refined the design, it'd be great to see an announcement saying it'll be retrofitted to the A380 whose J cabin is seriously showing its age - those skybeds simply dont lie flat anymore! A standard J class across the international fleet, and one of this standard, would be a real boon for the airline.
09 May 2013
Total posts 8
If you're flying out to Europe and forced to share the Perth Domestic Qantas club with a heap of high vis blokes then I hope they have a separate business lounge, including Gold access. Snobby or not, their behaviour in a lot of the clubs around Australia is basically a giant boys club.
09 May 2022
Total posts 4
I like that it is forward facing and not these slanted herring bone configurations of other carriers. I’ve never flown first but a lot of business and hate those little bird box sized cubby holes for your feet. I hope you get more room in first. Hate the way they say lie flat bed, I’ve never seen a single bed that’s 12” across at your feet. In reality when you fly biz class you are paying $$$$Thousands to sleep in a z-bed, in a dormitory with your hedge 6 inches away from a stranger’s feet. Still, it beats being like a battery hen in a smarty tube in economy.
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