Intra-European flat beds are rare because the market will no longer tolerate the accompanying prices.

Except for equipment swaps there are a small number of exceptions.

QR do ZAG-BUD and TBS-GYD on A320s as fifth freedom flights. These are sometimes flat beds and sometimes they are recliner seats. QR also used to do OTP-SOF but SOF recently received direct service from DOH.

LA do MAD-FRA.

There is only one of these flights per day, so watch out. It's for the cargo capacity. Most flights are standard European business.

Yes, the MOW-LON traffic will tolerate the cost.

It is in a "mid haul" configuration with flat beds.
http://www.thebasource.com/seatmaps/a321/23j131y.html

Why aren't there many first-class flights within Asia? It is much bigger. Some flights are as long as New York to London.

It never is about "making sense".

Perhaps OP purchased a European business class ticket before and couldn't work out why they still ended up in economy class, only with a curtain behind them separating them from another part of economy class. So now they are asking if there is business class in Europe?

The LAN flights MAD-FRA-MAD are on a 787 (through service to/from Santiago).

One note is that, although Spain and Germany are both Schengen, the flight is treated as an "international" flight, even if you are only doing the intra-European segment(s)

There actually are a fair number of routes between primary cities in Asia with F seats and service. CX, SQ, TG, CA, KE all come to mind straight away, then there are the 5th freedom routes on the overseas carriers, some of which have F. (Cheapest way to ride in EK A380 F for example). Then there are a few carriers like OZ who have F sections but don't sell it on intra-Asia routes so a few lucky C customers get those seats with C service.

Europe and Asia are very different markets, aside from just much greater distances between cities, there are also plenty of companies here who let their employees waste ridiculous amounts of money on premium cabins even for fairly short flights. A lot more business is done face to face here and in some countries takes more visits for relationship building before deals are made, so this supports a market with real premium cabins and no shortage of people to pay for them.

If I had the choice between a flat bed and a regular seat, whether the flight is 30 minutes or 14 hours, I would choose the flat bed.

QR recently discontinued their ZAG-BUD flight. Now they go ZAG-DOH and BUD-DOH direct.

But back to the original issue, I think that except for places like Moscow and Istanbul, Europe isn't big enough to support the demand for fully flat biz seats. I understand that lie flat is almost always preferable to recliners or the economy seats with the middle blocked that most European airlines use, but since very few intra-European flights operate overnight, most people eat and work and read instead of sleeping on the daytime flights.

Not oneworld, but GA flies a 777 LGW-AMS with fully lie flat seats and has rights to sell seats on that segment.

It is obviously not there to serve local traffic. And the trend is going the other way: BA's new seating, which I just had the pleasure to sample, is Ryanair-worthy (not enough space to read a newspaper in business class!).

BA flies flat beds to TLV which is in Europe according to FIFA.

Hmm. Blatter is not a crook according to FIFA.

Due to cargo requirements, Finnair on HEL-BRU once a week (thursdays IIRC) is A340 with longhaul configuration.

Yes, first time pleasently surprised. After that I tried to schedule my BRU-HEL travel on thursdays. Last time, 4 weeks ago, the purser said the A340 occasionally does the same route on wednesdays too ^

I just can't fathom what kind of cargo traffic between those cities might require a 343 between those cities.

I understand that Eurobureaucrats are fat, but I didn't think it reached those levels!
Indeed it's on the schedule for some Wednesdays as well.

Naturally, using HEL hub to transfer cargo.
Has been done for a long time, started with MD11
AY has PHARMA certificate, presumably important to BRU:
http://www.finnairgroup.com/mediaen/...l_1700141.html

MAD-LHR requires a daily 340 for cargo traffic