Etihad unveils its new A350 Business Class seats in Dubai

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The Dubai Airshow is currently in full swing and amidst a few impressive fly-bys and a lot of industry talk, a cabin that a lot of us have been waiting to see has made its first public appearance – the Etihad A350-1000 Business Class cabin has finally been unveiled.

The first of Etihad’s new A350-1000s was delivered to the airline back in 2019 but a combination of financial issues and then the worldwide pandemic saw that aircraft go straight into storage where it was joined by four more A350s in the months that followed.

Up until recently, that’s where the A350s have remained but with Etihad now trying to reboot its network, it has used the Dubai Airshow to put its newest aircraft (complete with new Business Class cabin) front and center.

The Incompressible Flow Twitter account appears to have been one of the first to offer up pictures of the new A350-1000 Business Class cabin and the images confirm that Etihad has chosen the excellent Collins Aerospace Super Diamond seat in place of the ‘Business Studio’ seat that it offers in its Dreamliners.

Etihad presents its A350-1000 cabins at the Dubai Air Show 2021

5x A35Ks were delivered in 2019 and 2020 and have since been stored

Collins Super Diamond for Business class; similar to BA Club Suite and Aeroflot 77W

787-9,-10, A35K become their future long-haul fleet#DAS21 https://t.co/8AFax9PFVd pic.twitter.com/LWck3zAWfZ

— Incompressible Flow (@incompressflow) November 14, 2021

This is the seat upon which the new British Airways Club Suite is based, …

… the seat that you’ll find in most Qatar Airways Dreamliners and any A350s that have yet to be fitted with the Qsuite, …

… and it’s the seat that you’ll find in some American Airlines 777s.

It looks like Etihad has opted to follow in BA’s footsteps by installing a version of the Super Diamond seat that had a sliding suite door which, considering the direction that the airline is taking, would seem to make a lot of sense.

All the reports we’ve been hearing from Etihad in the past 2 – 3 years indicate that it will only be offering First Class on a very limited number of aircraft so if it is to compete in the premium cabin sector, a Business Class+ seat of the kind that we’re seeing here is going to go a long way to helping the airline do exactly that.

The Etihad A350-1000 is expected to finally enter service in 2022 but so far the airline has remained tight-lipped about any route plans so we don’t yet know where we can expect to see the new cabin make its debut – my guess is that outside of any orientation flights, the first route we’ll see the Etihad A350 on will be the Abu Dhabi – London route.

For reasons that remain unclear, Etihad hasn’t yet released any official images of the new cabin but now that unofficial images are appearing on Twitter, I’d expect the airline to put out a media release at some point later today – I’ll update this post with any further images as and when they appear.

Bottom Line

Etihad has unveiled its new A350-1000 at the Dubai Airshow and we’ve been given our first look at the airline’s new Business Class cabin which features a customized version of the Collins Super Diamond seat.