A bit over a week ago I wrote about how FlyDubai introduced a new business class product, which caught many of us off guard. The airline took delivery of their first of 76 Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft, and that plane just happens to have new fully flat business class seats that look great. There are a total of 10 business class seats in the cabin, with two rows of seats in a 2-2 configuration, and one row of seats in a 1-1 configuration.
This is a huge improvement over their previous configuration, which features seats that look only marginally better than what you’d find on a domestic flight within the US.
I’ve been tracking the tail number of the first FlyDubai 737 MAX, and it looks like it has largely been flying around the Gulf. FlyDubai had said that they planned on using the 737 MAX aircraft for their longest routes, including to Bangkok, Prague, Yekaterinburg and Zanzibar.
Well, as noted by @airlineroute, FlyDubai has now updated their schedule to reflect the 737 MAX aircraft that they intend to take delivery of over the coming months. Specifically, as of now the following destinations are scheduled to have at least one daily 737 MAX service per day, and therefore, will also feature FlyDubai’s new business class:
- Asmara as of March 19, 2018
- Bangkok as of November 16, 2017
- Belgrade as of March 16, 2018
- Bucharest as of January 5, 2018
- Kiev as of December 24, 2017
- Kuwait City as of November 16, 2017
- Moscow as of January 1, 2018
- Prague as of December 23, 2017
The seatmaps for those flights should show the new seatmaps, though keep in mind that in some cases FlyDubai operates multiple frequencies, and they may not all be flown by the 737 MAX yet. I’m happy to see that FlyDubai isn’t trying to charge a premium for the single seats (not that I was expecting them to, but some airlines, like Swiss, do).
FlyDubai has attractive business class fares. I’ve already been wanting to fly with them, but now that they’re introducing this new business class product, I need to make it a priority. ~540USD for a six hour flight in a flat bed is pretty darn good, if you ask me!
Anyone have plans to try FlyDubai’s new business class?
@ Deo and @ Rob
But, but, but... this is a narrow-bodied aircraft that is specifically designed for LONG HAUL flights.
I suppose if you want to argue that narrow-bodied aircraft should always, as a matter of policy, have a shittier hard product, then I would argue that narrow-bodied aircraft would always be unsuitable for long haul flights.
It doesn't have to be this way.
What I'd suggest is that a consistent way of looking...
@ Deo and @ Rob
But, but, but... this is a narrow-bodied aircraft that is specifically designed for LONG HAUL flights.
I suppose if you want to argue that narrow-bodied aircraft should always, as a matter of policy, have a shittier hard product, then I would argue that narrow-bodied aircraft would always be unsuitable for long haul flights.
It doesn't have to be this way.
What I'd suggest is that a consistent way of looking at appropriate hard product minimum standards for longhaul might be a better approach than adjusting your standards based on the, er, width of the fuselage. If we took that approach, we could argue that, say, the Dreamliner really should have a worse hard product than an A350, and that's absolutely ok because it is, er, narrower. WTF? No. Just no.
Actually American air on the A321T does have direct aisle access first class in a 1-1 config in the revese Herringbone seats if I recall
I think The nice Paul is being sarcastic. (because Lucky loves direct aisle access in business class)
@the nice paul - Deo has a point, but also because its a low cost carrier... so what more could you expect?
flydubai, legally Dubai Aviation Corporation, is a government-owned low-cost airline with its head office and flight operations in Terminal 2 of Dubai International Airport. Source - Wikipedia
The nice Paul - Because no airline has direct aisle access for all business class seats in a narrowbody aircraft as of today?
A flat bed with no direct aisle access? Why would we welcome that in a brand-new product?
@BenjaminJTravel - book on the Emirates marketed codeshares instead and earn marginally better Skywards Miles :)
The cabin looks really great, especially for a 737!
But I'd end up stuck with flyDubai OPEN reward points that would be hard for me to use again.