Last June, Qatar Airways announced a plan to eliminate its long haul first class product, which is currently only available on Airbus A380 aircraft and on ex-Cathay Pacific 777s.

Qatar has a new CEO and he announced in March that they would offer a new first class product for new planes they’ll be ordering.

• Qatar Airways has one of the world’s best business class products, but it is not a first class product.
  
• You don’t get as much space on the airplane as in the first class cabin on a comparable airline.
• And ground services aren’t as bespoke.

When I’ve flown Qatar’s first class I’ve been escorted from the aircraft on arrival in Doha from plane through immigration formalities. And the design aesthetic of Qatar’s first class al Safwa lounge is among my favorites.

People often comment that the al Safwa lounge ‘looks like a museum’. But it doesn’t just look like one. It has pieces on loan from the Museum of Islamic Art.

While Qatar has an amazing business class what they call first class is limited:

• Short haul flights are marketed as economy and first class, with standard business class seats but first class lounge access

• Their Airbus A380 first class is good enough, but seats are entirely ‘open’ in design, with two rows of four abreast seating. There are no doors, which Qatar offers in business class on many of their widebody aircraft.

Long-term the Airbus A380 will retire. And rather than add a new, top-end first class along the lines of something that might compete with Gulf rivals like Emirates, Etihad and even Saudia, or even like European carriers Lufthansa and Air France, Qatar had planned to eliminate long haul first class – believing that the extra perks of first class didn’t drive enough additional revenue.

In March CEO Badr Mohammed Al Meer said that the new first class seat was ‘70%-80% done.’ Now he reports that he’ll be shown a prototype of the new first class seat this Thursday.

This seat will only be on new aircraft. They ordered 20 more Boeing 777-9s today though may order Airbus A350s still.

With Qatar Airways unveiling the next generation of its QSuites business class this week, improving on its already world-leading product, I think we can be confident that the first class they introduce will be better than both current first class and than the new business class. That means it will be very impressive.

It may not have showers, or the sort of spaciousness offered by Singapore Airlines and Etihad on their Airbus A380s – separate seats and beds, where walls come down to create true double beds – if only because new Boeing 777 or Airbus A350s won’t be as spacious a plane as the Airbus A380, it’s almost certain to be at least a world’s top 10 product if not top 5.