Business Class Seats May Have Doors Soon
Jennifer Billock April 20, 2018
Business class seats may soon be getting a taste of first class with seat manufacturers offering to install doors on the seats – or at least that was the sentiment at the Aircraft Interiors Expo, which showed nearly every business class seat option with an attached door.
The seat manufacturers at this year’s Aircraft Interiors Expo all seemed to share a common sentiment: that business class seats should probably have doors on them. Nearly every manufacturer exhibiting offered the door option on their new designs if the seat itself was a flat bed with aisle access, Runway Girl Network reported. Manufacturers showing the option included Jamco, Recaro (currently flying with El Al and soon to be on TAP Air Portugal planes), Rockwell Collins (which offered a new take on the suite door, one that slides open into the seat rather than the aisle), Stella, and Zodiac.
The trend of a door on seat suites in first class started about 10 years ago, but it hasn’t been without criticism. Sometimes having a door on a suite can seem a little too claustrophobic, and some smaller planes simply can’t fit the doored suites into the body of the aircraft. Manufacturer Zodiac, though, may have a solution for that – at the expo it debuted a SkyLounge seat that has a fabric pull-screen door that doesn’t take up any extra space.
Some airlines have already decided against installing suites with doors, like Qatar Airways, who will not include QSuite seats on its planes – if it did, the seats wouldn’t be able to have a quad-seating option.
[Photo: Jamco]
That last sentence is quite confusing indeed (or rather wrong than confusing).
Don't see the point myself. Those doors are so low than anyone walking down the corridor can see over, so only a vague hand wave towards privacy.
It is confusing maybe a clarification would help ?
Delta has already done it on the new A350s and will with the 777 refurb, using the Thompson Vantage XL. I've flown twice and while it is nice, I've not felt the need to close the door. But aside from the door, this is a very comfortable seat -- the entire arrangement is pretty comfortable.
These will be an absolutely fabtastic complements to the Skyrider saddle 'seats' for all the poor peons in Y! As J & F continue to become more palatial and extravagant, Y continues the path towards becoming the flying human centipede.