The new seats, cabins and onboard products for 2025

With combined and magnifying pressures of widebody delivery delays, cabin certification issues, and seat production complications, plus the uncertainty of potential looming trade wars, longtime readers of Runway Girl Network may well remember that many of the seats, cabins and onboard hard product débuting in 2025 were expected for 2024, or even earlier. 

This is very much a wider industry trend, though, and several new additions to the list, as well as a forward-look to 2026 and the 777X, means 2025 looks to be a bellwether one for the passenger experience industry.

Cathay Pacific Aria business suite

Cathay redefined business class with its 2010 second-generation refinement of the Safran (then Zodiac) Cirrus seat, and this distillation of a business class product is repeating with the airline’s Aria business class suite, itself refined from the Collins Aerospace outward-facing herringbone platform that began its life as Super Diamond.

Cathay has been cagey about which of the evolved Super Diamond seats Aria is — and in fairness Collins itself has been rather woolly in its definition between its Elements and Elevate products within this family — but what’s notable as it takes wing longhaul in 2025 is the level of refinement that Cathay and its partner JPA Design have brought to the product.

Also notable: unusually, the new product is débuting as a retrofit of existing Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, driven by the ongoing delays to the 777X programme — on which more later.

Lufthansa Allegris first and Swiss Senses, business & first

The production and rollout of the Lufthansa Group’s FICE (“Future Inter-Continental Experience”) cabins, initially deployed as Allegris on Lufthansa, has not covered those responsible in glory. 

In first, the product has only just been deployed on its initial routes, and features an innovative, beautiful, yet questionmark-filled center pair seat that can only be occupied by a couple travelling together. 

Continuing and improving the Allegris rollout is a priority for the Lufthansa group. Image: John Walton

The ongoing rollout, including as Swiss Senses, will be instructive to observe, as two more seatmakers enter the Allegris business fray: Thompson for the 777 (and 777X), Collins for the Boeing 787 and Airbus A330, with Stelia for the Airbus A350 and Boeing 747 (as Lufthansa execs outlined to RGN at launch). 

Air New Zealand new Business Premier and Skynest

Aotearoa New Zealand’s national carrier has some of the oldest seat models in the sky, with its 2003-era product designed by Virgin Atlantic (which also still flies it on its older 787s and A330ceos). 

Its slightly inward-facing herringbone update, including the front-row-business-plus Business Premier Luxe product, is expected to drop any day now. It’s the launch version of the Safran GB Visa product, and is, like almost everything else, delayed from its announced launch date, which Safran originally told RGN was 2024.

Safran’s Visa as Air NZ’s Business Premier is a good upgrade to its existing product. Image: Air New Zealand

Challenges will be ensuring a premium nature to what in the PR mockup snaps feels like a very monochrome CMF, as well as passenger response to this unusual herringbone layout.

Also on board: the Economy Skynest bunks, which will finally put a price on how much economy passengers are willing to pay for a nap.


American Airlines 787 and A321XLR

Also delayed from an announced 2024 launch date is American Airlines’ new pair of business class seats, the Adient Ascent outward-facing herringbone on its 787s and the Collins Aurora inward-facing herringbone on its A321XLRs. The 787s will also come with a Flagship Suite Preferred business-plus front row.

American’s new 787 seat and its many cocktail tables are, like other products, delayed. Image: American Airlines

Air India new business class Unity

Also delayed from an announced second-half 2024 launch date is Air India’s refurbishment of its dated Boeing 777-300ER business class seats, which are in poor physical and functional condition. After the not-taken-up Aeroflot A350s with the Collins Horizon seats received praise, Air India was planning to install Safran Unity by the end of last year. 

Air France’s new redefinitional La Première 

Even further delayed is Air France’s new La Première suite, announced in 2022 for Winter 2023-24, delayed to Winter 2024, and now aiming for March 2025. This involves some sort of seat plus sofa/chaise lounge/méridienne/duchesse brisée sort of furniture, and sounds like it will be quite the innovative product when it eventually takes wing.

Looking forward to 2026… and back to 2023

Whither, though, Flydubai’s Safran Vue product, “the Business Suite”, intended to roll out in 2023?

Looking forward to 2026, on our horizon we have the Turkish Airlines homegrown Crystal seat from TCI, which RGN experienced at Farnborough, plus the question of whether Emirates’ updated Safran Seats France Skylounge from its A350s will spill across onto its 777s and the 777X, or indeed as an update for its A380s.

Turkish’s decision to grow its own seats at TCI is a notable one. Image: John Walton

British Airways’ Tangerine-designed new first class suite and Qantas’ Project Sunrise with its new seat-and-bed first class and Safran Unity business class offer more promise.

Safran Unity, launched on JAL this year, will fly in this version on Qantas in 2026 and was due to arrive last year on Air India . Image: Qantas

It will also be instructive to see what seats are revealed before the 777-9’s entry into service, since so many of the products destined to be unveiled on this aircraft have now been implemented as a retrofit. 

A spoiler to all these seats is, of course, the prospect of trade tariffs being raised in what is truly a global industry, given that the new United States government appears set on trade wars with countries that are home to a substantial part of Boeing’s customer base, and indeed those of its supply chains.

Related Articles:

• Air New Zealand trainer prepares crew for new 787 cabin products
• American’s new Flagship Suite Preferred biz-plus: whose preference?
• British Airways reveals elegant new A380 first class suites
• Lufthansa Allegris extra-legroom seat: extra room for improvement
• Air India hones retrofit plan for 43 Boeing widebodies
• Safran’s Vue débuts as flydubai Business Suite
• Qantas’ Project Sunrise A350 first and business: that’s it?
• The new cabins of 2024 — and what they will tell us about aviation

Featured image credited to Air New Zealand

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