Photos: Flydubai Upgrades Business Class With Private Suites

Emirati carrier Flydubai unveiled its latest Business Class product during a ceremony at the Arabian Travel Market, the most important tourism event in the Middle East, held in Dubai.

Starting from the last quarter of this year, the carrier’s premium passengers will enjoy individual suites onboard some of its Boeing 737 MAX 8 and MAX 9 aircraft.

Photo: New Business Class seat, Flydubai. Courtesy of Flydubai.

The new product results from cooperation with seat manufacturer Safran and JPA Design. The new Business Class cabin will feature five rows in a 1-1 cross-section for ten seats, each with a sliding door for maximum privacy and direct aisle access.

The Safran VUE seat provides customers with a spacious width of 20.5 inches (23.8 inches in bed mode) and a full-flat bed length of 75 inches.

Photo: New Business Class seat, Flydubai. Courtesy of Flydubai.

Every suite will feature electronically dimmable windows, wireless charging, AC, USB-A, and USB-C power outlets, enclosed stowage, ambient lighting, vanity mirror, individual reading light, and a 17.3-inch-wide in-flight entertainment screen with Bluetooth headphone pairing.

Photo: New Business Class seat, Flydubai. Courtesy of Flydubai.

In point of layout and personal privacy, and space, the product is quite similar to the one JetBlue launched for its intercontinental Mint class about one year ago when it started flights from Boston and New York to London.

But, while JetBlue’s seats face forward and towards the center of the cabin, on Flydubai, each seat faces forward and towards the windows, enhancing the quantity of natural light in the cabin during daytime flights.

Photo: New Business Class seat, Flydubai. Courtesy of Flydubai.

The decor on each suite includes light grey, leather-covered headrests, orange-toned textile upholstered seats, blue carpets, and grey suite shells with touches of orange and blue (the same colors adorning the fuselage of Flydubai’s Boeing 737s).

“We are proud to unveil a new premium product that rivals the Business Class experience offered by many airlines on wide-body aircraft,” said Gaith Al Gaith, Chief Executive Officer at flydubai.

“We will continue to invest in innovation to enhance the customer experience across our growing fleet as we did during the past 14 years, an interval in which we evolved from a no-frills model into one catering to the ever-growing needs of our customers.”

Photo: New Business Class seat, Flydubai. Courtesy of Flydubai.

Daniel Kerrison, Vice President of Inflight Product, added, “We have been working with Safran Seats and JPA Design over the past three years to develop an experience that meets the growing demand for premium air travel services across our ever-growing network.”

Founded in 2009 as the low-cost, no-frills arm of Emirates, Flydubai adopted a Business Class in 2013, introducing a front cabin featuring 12 seats in a 2-2 cross-section with a 42-inch seat pitch and a 45-degree reclining on a number of its Boeing 737-800s.

Lie-flat seats were adopted four years later, with the arrival of the Boeing 737 MAX in the fleet, as Flydubai became one of only two carriers in the world (along with Panama’s Copa Airlines) sporting beds in Business Class on the narrowbody jet.

Photo: Flydubai’s fleet of Boeing 737 aircraft. Courtesy of Flydubai.

In 2021 a new recliner seat was introduced on 12 Boeing 737 MAX-8 predominantly used on short and medium-range flights as part of an ongoing product development program culminating on Monday with the presentation of the suites.

In other news from the Arabian Travel Market, flydubai highlighted its busiest-ever initial quarter of a year, carrying 3.37mln passengers from January 1 to March 31, 2023.

As of May 1, its fleet comprises 78 aircraft, including 45 Boeing 737 MAX-8s, 3 Boeing 737 MAX-9s, and 30 Boeing 737-800s. The latter will be phased out within the next 4 to 5 years as more MAX jets will enter the fleet.