Qantas business class seat gets a first class upgrade

No, what's coming in Nov?

The first Qantas Boeing 787 :)

tottall agree

Not for the Qantas 787, but your description of this as a 'hybrid' product is a good one: as Thompson say, 'super business class'. It would indeed be interesting to see how an airline might combine the Vantage First (at one row) with Vantage business class in terms of pricing and differentiation.

Increasingly, as business class evolves into what used to be the domain of first class – wide seats, lie-flat beds, direct aisle access, loads of personal space, large video screens etc – the first vs business equation is becoming more about the 'soft product/service' (with notable exceptions in the modern 'suites' category of Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Etihad etc).

I agree with your second point David, that business is morphing into what was first class only a few years ago. I think we're already seeing many airlines offer a high end business prodcut and either a suite as first or no first at all. Even with the likes of EK and SQ, not first on every route.

What confuses me is where a marginally better, small cabin of a first product sits in amongst the high end business product. I can understand if Qantas, for example, only had the above suite in place of business in the new dreamliner. But it would surprise me if they had the above as the "first" and a very closely appointed business product then went on to sell them separately. 

You get the feeling that airlines are going to be introducing a new class.  Just like Premium Economy sits between Economy and Business, welcome Premium Business, the class between Business and First.

could a 1-1-1 version of the First be used as the A380 First Class replacement?

"could a 1-1-1 version of the First be used as the A380 First...?"

Main deck or upper deck?

If main deck, 1-1-1 is very inefficient use of cabin width on a 380....it's even wider than the main cargo deck of an Antonov124 or 3 HUMVEES parked side by side.

If upper deck, 1-1-1 does not match the best F available today in 1-1 layout fm EY so why bother?

Either way, why 2 aisles are needed for direct aisle access fm a  single center seat? 

It's not currently listed on the Thompson Aero website.

okay, can i find it elsewhere?

There's this new website called 'Google' you could try...

of course ive done that

Well there's your answer, there's no other information out there apart from articles like this one and maybe this is 'the first' anyway.

i think qantas will use it for the whole buisness cabin on the 787 and A380 and a 1-1-1 version for the A380 First class replacement. 

But it doesn't look like you could use it for the whole cabin efficiently because each suite doesn't 'dovetail' into the one in front like the standard Vantage XL (which is what helps make it an efficient design). This is why it might work for row 1, but would take up much more room if you used it for the rest of the cabin. The lack of the 'dovetailing' is also what gives you all that extra open space and means the ottoman is usable as a buddy seat and not stuck in a little cubby hole!

I think rgsydney is right.  From the look of things, the image above shows a standard Vantage XL seat nesting into the console for the new Vantage First seat, whereas the First seat does not 'nest' into any console itself. 

I think it would make sense for Qantas to install this on the 787s, as they have mooted these planes as replacements for the 747 on some of their asian routes (where First is not currently offered and is not likely in high demand), in addition to servicing new routes like MEL - DFW, SYD - ORD, and PER - LHR which are markets which likely have higher demand in F.

No, the design doesn't allow for this, it needs to 'dovetail' into Row 2 of business class. And there's really nothing wrong with the current Vantage XL 'Business Suite' design or at least nothing which could not be addressed by some design 'tweaks'.

"No, the design dosen't allow for this."

Agree.  By itself and aisde fm material choice/colors, this new design is nothing remarkable...we've seen similar F suite designs already in service for yrs.

The truly revolutionary aspect of this design is the space efficient integration between a F suite and a J flatbed in which I hv never seen before.  It has its limit(i.e. U can do it only for 1 row per bulkhead) and neither J nor F pax in those seats will feel any real diff but the cabin space efficiency solution is just ingenious for the operator.

"..it appears this product only works for 1 row when it's in front of the existing Vantage XL product..."

That's exactly the core concept(Or the whole point) of this design:  To take advantage of the typical extra space in the 1st row immediately aft of the bulkhead within any J cabin.

Before this design emerged, the extra space behind the bulkhead in J is almost always used partially as the footwell for the flat bed seat in row 1 AND partially as a general cabin storage cabinet+top shelf(i.e. non-Rev$ earning space).  With this design, that space gains F Rev$ potential.

"If so it's a pretty limited offering!!"

But likely appropriate for the real, fare-paying mkt size of longhaul F these days worldwide if deducting most/all F demand fm FFP redemptions.  Most importantly, what will be attracive to the airlines is that with this design, that same space in row 1 can earn F fare instead of J fare.....a pretty good return-on-investment by just tweaking the utilization of a tiny little bit of cabin real estate.

Totally agree with what you're saying, and I doubt it would ever replace First on say, the a380s.

I think they could conceivably sell this as first on the 787s if the bed is a little longer (which should be able to be accomplished), sliding doors, larger AV system, and all of the soft product enhancements (food, bedding, wine etc.).

It seems like it would be a good fit to sell as F on the long haul Europe and NA destinations the 787 will fly to, and upgrade Plats to on flights to Asia (sans any of the soft product upgrades).

Do you think that would dillute the F offering too much if the hard product was available to Plats for free on shorter routes? 

I just don't see this as necessary for Qantas at all. The real First Class experience should start with ground service, at least with an incredible lounge, and QF already have two First lounges and building more would be extremely expensive. Building a First lounge at PER? There won't be enough First traffic to justify it.

And making First Class inconsistent over the different airframes really can dilute the value of the brand significantly. I'd rather QF kept with consistency as much as possible.

Alternatively, this may be a "medium-haul" first for Asia, but I'd think that would be more likely to be used on 787-10s (if Qantas gets them) rather than 787-9s, and the first 787-9s are unlikely to be put on routes to Asia in the first place.

Good point.

What's the current consensus on where these first 787s are going to go?  I had assumed (perhaps wrongly) that they were 747 replacements and maybe opening up new routes MEL - DFW, SYD - ORD, and PER - LHR.  Apart from the PER - LHR one, the 747s primarily depart from Sydney and Melbourne, so the lounges would be available.

Also, I think it would make sense to have F on MEL - DFW (as the SYD leg has F), as well as SYD - ORD (as their longest, 'flagship' flight).

As for the 747 replacements, I would guess there is potentially a market for F on half the routes the 747 operates (BNE - LAX, MEL and SYD - HKG), but potentially not on SYD - JNB.  Not sure about SCL.

The first 787s are meant to be 747 replacements, yes (with upgauges in frequency to compensate for the smaller jet). However, CASA will need to ease up on the ETOPS before the SYD - SCL and SYD - JNB routes will be shifted towards 787 operations. Whilst a lot of other routes have been proposed as possible, I REALLY don't think MEL - DFW is feasible with 787-9 (even at a light load), and PER - LHR really doesn't save any time over a DXB stopover and only benefits PER residents (maybe CBR residents too). SYD - ORD is also 777-8 territory more than 787-9 territory.

I agree MEL - DFW should have F... but to me that seems to indicate QF should buy some 777-8s and put them on the route.

I think the first routes we'll see on the 787 will be BNE - LAX - JFK, possibly BNE - DFW or BNE - DXB, and SYD - YVR (QF have said that with Dreamliners they can go to a year-round service, possibly daily, on that route). SYD - JNB/SCL will be added as soon as CASA stops being bitchy about ETOPS.

So what do you reckon the F demand would be like on the routes you've predicted?  I would think BNE - LAX, BNE - DFW, and BNE - DXB could all sustain 4 F seats per day, although I think I remember QF just axed the F lounge in BNE so maybe that's not in the cards.

So is your conclusion then that QF isn't actually going to take delivery of this product, or that it will and it just won't be marketed as F but rather as a special perk for Plats?  That would be interesting, but I'm not sure whether a "premium" business class would be correctly positioned in the market given that QF's business class fares are already usually the most expensive on any given route.

First demand? I think it would be great on all the routes I predicted if the cabin only needed 4 passengers per day. But the issue really is consistency; if first class out of Brisbane meant a narrower seat and no ultra-awesome lounge, then unless they charged substantially less for it (which they won't because that would suck demand from SYD/MEL), it wouldn't be attractive.

So yeah... at best, it would be a perk for their top-tier frequent flyers. And even then, would it be worth it?

"But Vantage XL is a very, very good Business Class product already."

lucky from OMAAT would disagree with you there. ;)

Erm, Lucky hasn't flown in any Vantage XL seats.

Unless he's reviewed SAS recently.

Lucky's flown in Vantage but not Vantage XL, from what I know. Remember that so far the only airlines with Vantage XL are SAS, Qantas and RwandAir.

Erm, he HAS just flown on SAS and that's what I'm referring to.

Ahhh, yes, I just saw the "10 photos" post.

He said he prefers Reverse Herringbone and the window seats of a BE Apex configuration over Vantage XL. That doesn't necessarily imply that Vantage XL isn't "very, very good." I'm sure Lucky would take Vantage XL over sloping-sleepers, BE Parallel Diamond, standard Vantage, or non-direct-aisle-access flatbed seats.

"Surprised noboby noticed..."

I hv "noticed" it ever since SQ firmed order for that batch of 5 frames in Oct12.  In fact, the related official press release is still there today under the media section on SQ website.

On the other hand, I'm totally NOT "surprised nobody" (including myself until now) mentioned it here because such comments may be considered off-topic by the AusBT comment section administrator(e.g. David)....this website seems to be very very strict about what can or cannot be commented under specific topics/news relative to other websites.

"..SQ is all about luxury.."

Really?  Is that why it decided to launch Scoot and then pour even more $ into Tiger in recent yrs?

"..could the Thompson Vantage First be put on SQ Biz?"

It could but I can see 2 issues immediately:

1) Thompson Vantage First(TVF) is @ current F suite design std(size, specs, etc.).  Even if SQ is willing to use F design std in J mkt segment(i.e. willing to accept significant loss in J cabin density & seat count), why wait specifically for TVF debut to implement?  Such F designs already exist and SQ could hv implemented it all along to leverage seat production scale.

2) If SQ uses F suite design std for J, what can it use for F?  Match EY's F Apartment/Residence?