Turkish Airlines Unveils New Crystal Business Class
Turkish Airlines is one of our favorite airline brands, offering one of the best business class experiences in the world. This is despite the fact that Turkish doesn’t have a particularly good business class hard product, at least not with any consistency. Fortunately, that’s expected to change next year when we’ll see the first planes flying with new business class cabins.
The airline has just unveiled its new business class at the Farnborough International Airshow, and we're sure passengers will be very happy to see what’s headed their way.
Turkish Airlines Unveils New Crystal Business Class
Turkish Airlines is introducing a new business class, branded as “Crystal.” The airline has put out a promotional video about the new product, which we must say is very well done.
Turkish Airlines’ new business class features direct aisle access and privacy doors at all seats. The cabin is in a 1-2-1 configuration and has a staggered layout. In the center section, every other row of seats has “honeymoon” suites for those who want to sit close to one another.
Middle Seating of the new Crystal Business Class (Source)
There’s great attention to detail with the cabin finishes, like 22″ high-definition entertainment monitors, wireless charging, and the use of real marble (which seems a bit excessive?).
It’s not yet known which seat manufacturer Turkish Airlines selected for this project. While this looks very similar to the Safran Unity seat, we’re not sure that’s actually what was chosen, due to some key design differences. Admittedly a high level of customization is possible with many products, but the tray table setup makes us think that it isn’t this product.
The Safran Unity seat is proving to be a popular “next generation” business class seat. You’ll find this staggered product on Japan Airlines’ new Airbus A350-1000s. This is also the seat that Qantas will offer on its Airbus A350-1000s, and that Air India will use as its new business class.
Turkish Airline’s current Business Class on the A350 (Source)
Currently, the product that’s most similar to this at Turkish Airlines is the carrier’s A350-900 business class, for jets that were initially intended for Aeroflot. These feature business class seats in a 1-2-1 configuration with doors and good tech. That’s the Collins Aerospace Horizon seat, which is also an excellent product.
Turkish Airlines Plans New Business Class for 777s & A350s
So, when should we expect Turkish Airlines’ new business class to debut? We can expect it to be retrofitted on existing planes starting in 2025 and delivered on new planes starting in 2026.
The airline plans to initially retrofit all existing Boeing 777-300ERs with these seats, starting in 2025. The airline has 33 of these aircraft in its fleet, and they’re an average of around nine years old, so they still have quite a bit of life left in them.
This new product is long overdue for Boeing 777s, which currently have a 2-3-2 layout in business class. When the 777s are reconfigured, the expectation is that the business class cabin will be reduced in size from 49 seats to 44 seats. So it’ll still be a good size, but not quite as big.
Turkish Airline’s current Business Class on the B777 (Source)
Then the plan is also to install the new business class product on Airbus A350-1000s that are delivered starting in 2026, as part of Turkish’s recent Airbus aircraft order. However, there are no firm plans to retrofit this product on existing Boeing 787-9s or Airbus A350-900s, as those planes already feature direct aisle access from all business class seats.
Conclusion
Turkish Airlines has finally revealed its new Crystal business class product. This is expected to be retrofitted on Boeing 777s starting in 2025 and installed on newly delivered Airbus A350s starting in 2026.
The new product will be in a 1-2-1 configuration, with direct aisle access and privacy doors at each seat. This should really take the Turkish business class experience to the next level.
