I love the way that the Middle Eastern carriers are elevating the travel experience, in many ways beyond what’s supported economically by a profitable business model for the airline narrowly conceived.

Here’s Etihad’s strategy for lighting huge sums of money on fire to build Abu Dhabi into a global aviation hub, investing in money-losing airlines the world over in order to direct connecting traffic through the capital of the UAE.

Towards this end they’re also continually evolving their product. And they’ve just announced improvements to the service and amenities going into effect December 1.

Here’s the new first class soft product improvements:

And the new business soft product, although the description may describe a hard product improvement as well:

Economy is getting some new features as well:

It seems like some of these changes are specific to the new Etihad A380 and 787 services which really do look pretty over the top (although the 787’s feature of turning the center seats into a bed in first is something Singapore already offers in its A380 suites).

For instance, the business class ‘mattress’ may just be related to the new seat. Or it could be using the term mattress liberally, and they’re really just referring to a mattress pad that will go over the existing seat. Either way we’ll know soon enough!

Here’s how to book Etihad’s A380 Residence with miles and here’s the first graduating class of Etihad Residence butlers.

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