I spent a good chunk of my Sunday morning planning travel on Qatar Airways and I’ve got to tell you, trying to connect the dots between aircraft types with whichever iteration of the airline’s business class product put me into a head spin. QR currently throw their entire fleet at LHR, from their fresh out the shop A380 to their dinky A319 and all sizes in-between. So I decided to apply some methodical thinking to the task. First things first, a strong cup of coffee was in order. Note to self: stock up on proper Nespresso capsules - those Caf�pods I picked up from the supermarket taste a bit meh.

So I began with Qatar Airways and after about an hour I finally managed to get my head around their bewildering collection of long haul business class products and kinda kept going, as you can see below. Hopefully, this quick reference guide will be as useful to you as it is to me.

Whilst I’ve tried to gather all the current long haul business class products together with their correct product names but please bear with me if I’m slightly off regarding proper nouns etc. Note, regional business class products have been excluded from this thread. Also, I wouldn’t pay too much attention to the seat dimensions - no two sites will provide you with the same information and besides since almost every seat has a trapezoidal footprint with so many crevices, nooks n crannies any published dimension should be taken with a large pinch of salt.

As different airlines procure seats in different ways, it is worth mentioning those that have procured proprietary seats available from within the aerospace industry. While proprietary seats are tailored to the airline's brand specifications (fabrics, colour/materials palette etc), and fitted with the airlines choice of in-flight entertainment, the seat mechanisms and functions are essentially unchanged.

Let's continue with the coverage of the business class seat products in full. Here are the contents, listed by airline in alphabetical order:
If you spot any errors or omissions, please let me know.

 

 

 

Regional business class and domestic first class


32 aircraft new to AA (delivered 2013-15), fitted 8F with AVOD. GoGo ATG4 WiFi + power


93 pre-merger US Airways aircraft fitted 8F, with IFE streamed to personal device. GoGo ATG4 Wifi upgraded to GoGo 2Ku from 2018


48 pre-merger US Airways aircraft fitted 12F with IFE streamed to personal device. GoGo ATG4 Wifi upgraded to GoGo 2Ku from 2017. 5 aircraft will be retired in 2017


17 aircraft new to AA (delivered 2013-14), fitted 10F 20J 72M for transcon routes. Thales AVOD and GoGo ATG4 wifi


16 aircraft new to AA (delivered 2014-15), fitted 16F 165M for Hawaii routes. Thales AVOD and GoGo ATG4 wifi
58 aircraft new to AA (delivered 2015-17), fitted 16F 165M. Thales AVOD and GoGo ATG4 wifi


121 pre-merger US Airways aircraft fitted 16F 171M with IFE streamed to personal device. ATG4 Wifi + no power


72 aircraft new to AA (delivered 2013-17), fitted 16F 144M. AVOD + Logo ATG4 WiFi + power. 10 aircraft cabins fitted with larger overhead storage lockers


221 pre-merger AA aircraft (delivered 1999-13), fitted 16F 144M with IFE streamed to personal device. GoGo ATG4 WiFi + power




53 pre-merger AA aircraft, fitted 16F 124M with IFE streamed to personal device. GoGo ATG4 MWiFi + DC power. 25 aircraft due for retirement in 2017 with remaining aircraft following by summer 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Great thread: thank you. One omission is Sri Lankan. Hard to find out everything we want to know -- and the FT thread on precisely this topic doesn't get as many posts as we'd like. That may change -- it seems that several of us have trips booked.

[I'm posting this directly to the thread, safe in the knowledge that you can use your magic mod powers to make it vanish again! ]