Monday, April 8, Virgin Atlantic will unveil the cabins on its soon-to-be-delivered Airbus A350-1000 aircraft. The event will come just three weeks to the day after British Airways unveiled the Club Suite on its also soon-to-be-delivered A350-1000s.
Virgin Atlantic expects to take delivery of the first of its 12 A350s on order later this year — all of which will be delivered with the new Upper Class seat. At this time, few details are available as to what the product will look like.
Australian Business Traveller reports that the new product won't be installled on Virgin's existing fleets of Airbus A330 or Boeing 787 aircraft. The A350s will take the place of Virgin's fleet of aging Boeing 747-400s.
Virgin's current Upper Class product is arranged in a 1-1-1 configuration on all of its aircraft, with the exception of the 747, which is arranged in a 1-1 configuration at the nose of the plane, and some of the A330s, which are arranged in 1-2-1. Among the biggest complaints of the Virgin Upper Class seat is that passengers are required to stand up in order for the seat to be converted to a bed.
British Airways' unveiling of its new Club Suite product has set the bar high for new premium products in the UK. It remains to be seen just how the new Virgin Atlantic Upper Class seat will stack up to the BA version. But, in less than three weeks, we'll have a better idea of which UK carrier's product will reign supreme.
