An intriguing hint about the new British Airways Club World business class seat

As most Head for Points readers know, British Airways is launching a new Club World business class seat this year.

It will debut on the A350 fleet when they are delivered, with retrofitting commencing at the same time on the Boeing 777 fleet.  By Christmas there will be six aircraft with the new seat.  Oddly, they will not be used to fly on ‘flagship’ routes such as New York because there is no First Class on the A350.

My expectations for the seat are not high.  My money has been, at best, that we get the Iberia seat on their A350 fleet which I reviewed here.  BA has confirmed that the TV will be fixed to the back of the seat in front, which supports the Iberia thesis.  Everything we know about the way British Airways behaves leads to that.

And yet …..

British Airways has launched a questionnaire via its Future Lab customer panel to shape the name of the new seat.

Let’s ignore, for a second, the fact that asking people to suggest names for something that they haven’t seen is not necessarily sensible.

Four concepts are presented:

Name it in a way that describes the product

Name it with a model number, like an iPhone (eg Club World XIX as it will launch in 2019)

Name it using a random word pulled out of the air (eg Club World Vector, Contrail, Ventral)

Name it using an evolutionary phrase (eg New Club World, New Generation Club World)

 Here are the examples for the first option:

This is very interesting.

We have to assume that whoever set this questionnaire has seen the new seat.  This means that ‘Club Suite’, ‘Club World Suite’ and ‘Club World Space’ are being seriously considered as names.

Now, there is chutzpah and there is chutzpah.  I doubt even the most confident marketing guru would call the new Iberia business class seat a ‘suite’.  The same goes for the American Airlines seat.

Yes, they are very impressive.  Yes, I like to fly them and I would be happy if British Airways introduced them, but they are not ‘suites’ in the sense the word is used now.

In 2019, a ‘suite’ on a plane, if you follow the definition used by Qatar Airways with their business class Qsuite:

….. has a door which opens and closes.

See also the new Emirates First Class Suite which – spoiler alert – I am flying on Thursday and am quite excited about:

Whilst it seems hard to believe, there is a chance that British Airways is really planning to launch a Club World ‘suite’ with a door.  This is a phrase I never expected to write.

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