Qatar Airways has spent three years sending mixed signals about first class, and the latest message is the vaguest yet: maybe, if it's good enough.
The airline's position on the cabin has shifted with each CEO. Longtime boss Akbar Al Baker, who left in 2023, openly wanted to kill first class entirely, arguing that Qsuites business class already delivered everything first class offers — a debatable claim from the same executive who once dismissed the need for premium economy. His successor, Badr Mohammed Al Meer, reversed course. In a March 2024 interview he said a new first class was 70-80% developed, a product meant to combine commercial flying with a private jet experience, needing only final touches like colours before announcement.
Then Al Meer was gone too, replaced in December 2025 by Hamad Ali Al-Khater. His take, quoted by Executive Traveller: a new first class is "under serious design," but the airline would only build it if it's genuinely worthwhile and appealing to customers. Read that alongside the earlier "just finalising colours" comments and the conclusion is hard to avoid — very little real progress has happened, and the project has slid from definite back to aspirational.
What's actually at stake? Qatar Airways currently flies long-haul first class on a tiny footprint: its Airbus A380s (brought back from early retirement thanks to the Airbus dispute) and a handful of Boeing 777s inherited from Cathay Pacific, still wearing Cathay's old cabins. On regional flights, what's sold as first class is effectively business class seating. So the real question is what goes on the Boeing 777-9 — 60 of which are on order and will become the airline's flagship jet.
Rivals aren't hesitating. Emirates keeps betting big on first class, and Cathay Pacific is developing its own new first class for the 777-9, rumoured to resemble the private-jet-style Peacock Suites concept. Qatar's large 777-9s offer plenty of room for something ambitious — if the airline commits.
The timelines matter for anyone hoping to book it. Best case, 777-9 deliveries start in late 2027, and any first class would only appear on later batches, not the first ones. So even in an optimistic scenario we're talking well into the next decade. The more concrete upgrade coming sooner is Qsuites Next Gen business class: delayed off the 777X, it will instead debut on newly delivered A350s from mid-2027.
For travellers, the practical takeaway is this: if you want a true Qatar Airways first class experience, your realistic options remain the A380 on routes like Doha–London or Doha–Paris, and the ex-Cathay 777s where they fly. Don't plan award redemptions around a shiny new 777X first class — it may never happen, and if it does, it's years away. Business class travellers, meanwhile, have something definite to look forward to with Qsuites Next Gen from 2027.
