Welcome back! Which airline has the best and the worst business class seat? I think most of you would agree with me, the seat is the most important single element of passenger experience on a long-haul flight.
But there are so many types of business classes out there nowadays. There are sweets, there are lay flats, angle flats, hurrying bones, you name it. I tried out most of these seats and here's my personal take.
So the worst business class seat is probably this one. It looks completely okay when it's upright two, two and two sitting. But when you recline and make it fully flat, it became two different levels.
By the window, the one is on the upper level, and by the aisle, the one's on the lower level. So you can found these seats on Philippine Airlines A330 high density configuration and also Royal Air Morocco 787-8. The trouble with this is when it's fully reclined, by the window you're sleeping on a very high position.
And if you are sleeping on the aisle side, you're sleeping so low, you're almost touching the ground. This has to be one of the more interesting odd design I've came across. This configuration definitely presents a problem of how to hop over your neighbor to get out.
On the lower one, it fells pretty close to the ground actually. I actually like this upper bed better. When I'm in this position, I don't actually get to see the person below me.
On a long haul flight, no one likes to be stuck in the middle. It is inevitable in economy, you have neighbors on your left and right. But sometimes in business class, you also have the same issue.
On those airlines has two, three and two in business class configuration. These can be found mainly on the Boeing 777. So Emirates has a lot of these 777s doing the old configuration 232.
Ethiopian Airlines has them, Turkish Airline has them, Korean Air, Philippine Airlines, and Egypt Airs, a few airline that runs their 777 in these old configuration. So these 777 came around late 2000s and early 2010s. They have now reached midlife and is due for cabin refurbishment.
But with all the supply chain slowdown and late delivery of new aircraft, expect longer of these airplanes in the service. So I want to share you a little tip if you're flying on an Emirates Boeing 777. Try to get row six or row eight in business class.
These roles are usually reserved for infants or for handicapped passengers, but they are available online check-in or at the check-in desk on request. These rows are the first row in each cabin zone in the business class, and they give you more privacy and more comfort. So the next worst business classics can be found on Air New Zealand and Virgin Atlantic.
You can found these on Air New Zealand 777, 787 and Virgin Atlantic 787 and A330-300. So these are the herringbone seats, but instead of looking into the window, they look away from the window, they look inwards. So you can see your fellow passenger's face, passenger's feet, and there's very little privacy to it.
In terms of privacy, it's also interesting when I go fully flat, all I can see is up the ceiling. I don't see anyone else. The only problem I have with this city is they can only go either flat or back to upright position.
So I want to share you a trick. If you're flying on Air New Zealand or Virgin 787, choose the A side because on the A side, you don't actually look into others. There is a wall divider.
But if you sit in the middle or sit on the right side, you look across each other. So there's more privacy on the A side. So I know there are some shortcomings and weirdness on these seats, but you gotta remember they're still fully flat seats.
And I flew the Air New Zealand long flight from New York to Auckland, and I remember I slept very well on these seats, because there's nothing on top of your feet. Unlike those coffin box, a foot well or shoe box you tie yourself in, and these ones you can free move your feet during the sleep. The business class seats evolution has came a long way, but Thai Airways 777-200 have one of the worst configuration.
It has the ancient 2-2-2 in an angle flat configuration. This airplane are one of the oldest planes in Thai Airways fleet and they're used as a standby aircraft. So occasionally they get called out to operate one of the longer flights.
My problem here is it's really flat at the top here. It's not really flat here. The thing is it's just like my foot just go kind of like standing.
It's like between sliding, standing and sleeping position. So the design of the business class seats are getting smarter and smarter to use the limited space of aircraft cabin. Some of these staggered seats called 121 are actually not 121.
They're actually 242 if you look at the way they design and stagger the seats around. So the result is the sita being very narrow. So I have exactly that experience on Turkish Airlines A350 and also on their 787.
They have the same seats. These seats are actually fully flat, looks like very private. However, the footwell are very tight and small.
And because the seats are so narrow, I did not sleep at all during a long flight from Canada to Turkey. I didn't sleep at all last night. It's just one of those nights.
I don't know what happened to me. I found that the band was very narrow. The seats were so closing in as well.
You know, I just really hope this is just a one-off experience. On the other hand, Turkish Airlines has the 232 business class on their 777 long-haul aircraft. These seats has very little privacy, but arguably everyone sleep very well on these seats because these seats are long, straight forward facing, not in an angle flat, and also there's nothing on top of your leg.
So there are always pros and cons in business class seats. The next business class seat to shame about is on Lufthansa. They have very old two, two and two business class seats actually on board every single type of their aircraft.
I'm gonna give them some credits because as a passenger, you can expect no variation if you're flying on Lufthansa 330 or 340 or 747s or the 380, right? It's always expecting the same products. But Lufthansa is now due to upgrading some of the aircraft, especially the 747-8.
They were upgrading the 350 and 787 into the Allegra, right? So expecting the variation gonna start getting more and more. So it's gonna be a luck of a draw, whether you're getting a new product or the old product.
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I think most people would remember the Qatar Airways Q Suite. Everybody raved about it because it has all the privacy. It can even turn into a quad suite for four people to share the space.
I recently went to Farnborough Airshow where they launched the new generation, next generation of the Q Suite. It's impressive enough. So I'm inside a Solo Q Switch Next Gen.
The difference is here. You can open the TV barrier to create even more space. The TV's got pushed by the side.
I'm now joined by one of my friend and colleague to dine together, to work together. We have a perfect location for your shoes which is now here with the Donw there? Down there we have another compartment for our laptop, which is also quite secure.
You sure you can fit laptop, right? It's big enough for the laptop. Not sure.
We have the wireless charger. We have another charger just down there. About C cable, USB-C.
Direct charge. You have USB-C as well. You have plenty of space starting with this safety drawer which you have the access on the panel to put the pin.
You can actually set your own pin to lock it. Extra safety. This is new.
So there are a couple of caveats on the Q Suite. Next gen won't be ready until the 777X get delivered, which we don't know when. And also, if you're flying on the older 787, A330, or the 350-900, or some of the 777, they don't have the Q Suite.
So airline from Japan has came up with some of the most awesome business class seats, ANA. Has one of the widest business class seats is called The Room. However, it face upwards and backwards to save space, but still it is so wide that makes all the other business class looks narrow.
We're enjoying the room here. This is my next door neighbor, but really this is just so wide. It fits two of us here.
You can close the door here. There he is! No.
Oh wow! Amen. Okay, what about here?
Are you going to close this up? Very nice. Oh, now I see.
This is called a room now. Japan Airlines have recently upgraded their business class on their A350-1000. Putting my shoe covers on because we're gonna be one of the first to go inside this brand new 350.
There's two giant business class cabins, one behind door number two and one in the forward section between door one and door two. to 54 fully enclosed suites. Each of them looks like a square box.
It's huge. What's cool is that on this aircraft, this is the world's first stereo-free headrest. So, I'll be able to sit back, so will you, and watch a film.
No headphones. No AirPods. Instead, it's that surround sound within the headrest.
It's integrated right in here. Ah, their speaker spilled in, probably. The sound is built in in the headrest so you can hear Exactly.
You don't have to wear any more headsets and worry about the wire or an airport jumping out of sleep. The next airline I have really good business classes is Air France. Air France is the launch customer of the 777-300ER.
They received their first one back in 2004, and they're one of the oldest now flying the sky, so they're due for refurbishment. So one by one, they're changing the old configuration into a beautiful 121 configuration, blue color seats with very well, nice design. Especially the seat on the bulkhead roads has extra footwell space, which is huge.
So this is a trend most airlines are doing in business cloud these days, adding the privacy doors. So recently, Cathay Pacific has came out with their Aria Suites. This one come with a door.
Malaysia Airlines recently took delivery of the first A330neo that also come with a door. And also Etihad, they're upgrading their 787 seats now with a fully privacy door. One of my old favourite business class seats is called the Apex suite.
You can find them on a handful of airlines, on Gulf Air, Oman Air, on Korean Air and Japan Airlines selected aircraft. This Apex suite is very straightforward. It is a two to two straightforward facing all aisle access business class seats.
The caveat of this seat is not every seat gives you the same feeling. If you sit by the window seat, you feel extra private with all the walls surrounding you and you have almost four windows to look out. But the problem with this seat is it took up a lot of space and the cost of the Apex is also high.
So it's not in favor with a lot of airline management. So by now we almost touched all of the airline except one very famous and popular airline that is Singapore Airlines. What about Singapore Airlines business class?
So on the long haul Singapore aircraft, A350 and the 777, they have this very spacious, very wide one, two and one seater, which is actually very impressive. However, I will also say this is one of the weirdest business class seats I've ever sat on. So I guess this is a first world problem.
This seat here is really wide. However, it doesn't go fully flat. In order to go fully flat, you have to flip the seats down.
So right now I'm just sitting but I'm tired I have to get out of my seat to flip the bed to get into a full flat position Okay, here's my second virtual problem. When the bat flipped, it goes flat, but my leg couldn't go straight. You have to go to diagonal like this in order to get more room.
Well, so far all we've talked about is business class seats, right? If you are an economy traveler, I haven't left you out because a while back I've also made a video of which airline has the best economy seat and which airline has the worst economy seat. Go check that video out.
So now we've reached the end of today's video. Let me know in the comments if you agree or disagree with some of my business class C choices. I would love to hear back your experience on some of the best and worst business class seats.
See you next week.
