Speaking at a press conference held by Qatar Airways and Qatar Tourism at ITB Berlin 2023 yesterday, Qatar Airways chief executive officer Akbar Al Baker could not help but mock Lufthansa for its late-to-the-party ‘Allegris’ business class product launched last week.
Responding to a journalist who had asked Al Baker what he thought of Lufthansa’s latest premium cabin and if he would sample it if invited by Lufthansa Group chief Carsten Spohr, Al Baker had the following to say:
“Yes, I have seen it, I have seen images of it. Congratulations to him [Spohr], but he is nearly 12 years behind Qatar Airways’ product improvement. And whilst he does that programme, we are now going into our next evolution with Qatar Airways product.”
“I would love to. He’s my friend — okay, we are adversaries in business — but he is my friend, and if he will invite me, I will certainly fly in his product, and I will tell him how many mistakes he has made.”
“You should always fly on Qatar Airways; you’ll always get the best product. But you know, you can always put seats, you can put, you know, fancy stuff around the seats, but you can never deliver that human touch that Qatar Airways will give you. The passion, the hospitality, the attention, that you get on Qatar Airways, you can never get on somebody else.”
Lufthansa officially unveiled its new Allegris long haul cabin products last week at a grand launch ceremony in Berlin’s Kraftwerk event space.
As previously reported, Allegris will include new first and business class suites, plus improvements to the premium economy and economy products. The major upgrade represents a total investment of €2.25 billion by 2025.
Across the four cabins, there will be 14 different types of seats available – with seven options in business class alone.
The new Allegris business class is a huge upgrade from Lufthansa’s previous offerings, with guaranteed direct aisle access for each passenger.
Qatar Airways has been flying aircraft offering direct aisle access for more than a decade now, even long before it launched its revolutionary QSuite product at ITB Berlin 2017.
Fast forward six years, at yesterday’s ITB press conference, Qatar Airways announced a raft of new routes and resumptions during a press conference at ITB Berlin.
The seven new destinations planned for launch this year include Chittagong (Bangladesh), Juba (South Sudan), Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of Congo), Medan (Indonesia), Trabzon (Turkey) and both Lyon and Toulouse in France.
Additionally, the airline will resume flights to 11 destinations including Beijing, Birmingham, Buenos Aires, Casablanca, Davao (Philippines), Marrakesh, Nice, Osaka, Phnom Penh, Ras al-Khaimah and Tokyo Haneda.
Qatar Airways Group chief executive, Akbar Al Baker, also told Business Traveller that he expects the airline’s route to Cardiff to resume this year, explaining that this depends on the speed of the repair project of its A350 aircraft.
Qatar Airways and Airbus recently settled a longstanding dispute over alleged A350 production deficiencies.
Following this, Airbus last month reinstated Qatar Airways’ order for 23 additional A350-1000s and 50 A321neos, as revealed in the manufacturer’s orders and deliveries update on 7 March.
