Qatar Airways boss hopes to bring ‘world’s best business class’ to Scotland

The “world’s best business class” could be coming to Edinburgh Airport, a top executive of Qatar Airways has revealed.

Travellers departing from Scotland might get to enjoy the luxury of Qatar Airways’ acclaimed business class. According to Vice President Sales for Europe at Qatar Airways Eric Odone, it is his “personal objective” to upgrade the Edinburgh-Doha route following its 10-year anniversary last month.

In an exclusive interview with the Scottish Daily Express, Mr Odone said that he hoped to bring the Airbus A350/1000 to the route. This would not only allow passengers to take advantage of the ‘Qsuite’, which includes sliding privacy doors and 21.5-inch touchscreens, but also increase capacity.

Qatar Airways has previously been recognised as having the best business class in the world, taking the title at the prestigious Skytrax awards in 2023, and once again at the AirlineRatings.com 2024 Airline Excellence Awards.

Speaking to the Scottish Daily Express, Mr Odone commented: “Traditionally it’s about upgrading the aircraft and making sure we can provide the best products so I think the next step for Edinburgh would be to get the top, top aircraft, potentially the A350/1000 with the Qsuite on, which would be wonderful for Scottish passengers.

“It’s not planned but I’m hoping that in the future we’ll be able to do that. Add extra capacity, particularly in business class. We are always looking at optimising and adding capacity.” Asked if he thought Qsuite business class would be coming to Scotland, he added: “That’s my personal objective, I would love to.”

The popular Qsuites can be single, double, or quad suites. In addition to their privacy doors and touchscreens, features include a large storage area and movable panels that allow guests to modify their suite into either a social or sleeping space at 40,000 feet.

The adjustable seats can either lie flat, upright, reclined, or in ‘take off’ mode. Meanwhile, each suite comes equipped with a large countertop that serves as a dining space for the luxurious food and drink offered on every flight.

On the Edinburgh-Doha route, launched in 2014, Qatar Airways has transported roughly 1.4 million travellers. Of these passengers, 58 per cent were outbound and 42 per cent were inbound.

This makes it a highly favoured route not just for Scots heading onto Australia and the Far East, but also for incoming visitors who contribute millions of pounds to Scotland’s tourism industry.

Mr Odone continued: “The diversification is much stronger from Edinburgh than it is from other destinations. We really sell the entire network from Edinburgh, and there’s no pocket of communities or diasporas that fill up the plane in a big ratio. That’s quite useful, because some routes are very dependent on one community and Edinburgh isn’t, it’s a very solid, steady network contributor.”

He also reflected on the threat of turbulence due to two recent notable events. In one terrifying incident last month, a Singapore Airlines flight from London to Singapore experienced such severe turbulence that it caused the plane to plummet 178 feet in a single second, leading to the tragic death of a 73-year-old Brit from a suspected heart attack and injuring others.

Only days later, a Qatar Airways journey from Doha to Dublin hit turbulence during its flight over Turkey that left six passengers and six crew members injured. Unlike the Singapore Airlines, which was forced to make an emergency landing in Bangkok, the Qatar plane landed safely.

Mr Odone commented: “Those incidents are very unfortunate and obviously what matters is the care to the passengers and the crew, of course, because they were equally impacted. Ultimately there are a lot of international regulation on what should happen and that was followed so unfortunately it occasionally happens but it shouldn’t be a major area of concern because it remains very, very rare.”

Responding to the question on whether passengers should brace themselves for more frequent turbulence due to the increasing likelihood of violent storms and erratic weather patterns linked to climate change, Mr Odone said: “There’s enhanced technology to detect potential turbulence, there’s things like shared initiatives on optimising flight plans and route planning to make sure that turbulence is identified and in most cases they actually are, that’s why the incidents are very rare.”

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