Etihad's New Business Class Gets Almost Everything Right

India to the Gulf is one of the most competitive stretches of sky anywhere. Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad all run dense schedules into Mumbai and Delhi, IndiGo and Air India fight them from the other side, and a huge share of the passengers are connecting onward to Europe or North America through one of the three Gulf hubs. That means the short flight to Doha, Dubai or Abu Dhabi is often the first impression of a much longer journey, and the airlines know it. It's why you'll find widebodies with full long-haul business cabins flying sectors that barely clear three hours.

I flew Etihad's A350-1000 in business class from Mumbai to Abu Dhabi. I was excited for this one, and the aircraft delivered. The seat is one of the better business products I've sat in. The crew is where it fell a bit short.

Ground Experience

First, a complaint about the schedule. Almost every flight between India and the Gulf leaves at a genuinely awful hour, and even my driver acknowledged it. A departure at 4:40 in the morning is worse than a midnight or 1am departure, because at least with those you can sleep first. This one has you awake from midnight until five.

Getting into Chhatrapati Shivaji is a process at that hour. There was a large line for economy check-in and bag drop, but hardly anyone in the business queue, which is exactly what you want to see. The check-in agent was professional and handed me a lounge card.

Security was quick. Immigration was slower and became a real bottleneck, and I didn't see priority lanes for business passengers at either.

Business Class passengers on Etihad get access to the Adani East Lounge, which overall is a solid space. It was decently crowded but still felt calm, and I liked that it's actually decorated rather than feeling like a sterile room. It's a good place to wait, though I wouldn't arrive early for it.

The airport itself is good, with decent shops and food, though everything is crowded at that hour and the bathroom lines were long even for the men's. The gate area looks nice with fun energy, but there are nowhere near enough chairs.

At 3:40, which was the scheduled boarding time, staff came around to everyone standing at the gate and announced a twenty minute delay, then asked everyone to sit down. The problem is that there was nowhere to sit. They suggested seats at neighboring gates, but an IndiGo and a Virgin flight were departing next to us and those were full too.

When boarding did start, everyone simply stormed the gate lanes. The boarding line setup was nice and there were plenty of staff, but none of it survived contact with the crowd.

Boarding and First Impressions

Illustrated for The Contrail

Etihad Airways Airbus A350-1000 · A6-XWG

Drawn by Caleb St. John · Caleb's Aviation

Every Contrail review carries an original drawing of the aircraft flown, made for us by Caleb St. John, who draws aircraft to raise awareness for young people in aviation living with health conditions.

Things started out well with good boarding music and mood lighting, at least until the music glitched and started sounding genuinely demonic. That killed the atmosphere, and it's an odd fault on an aircraft this new.

The crew welcomed me by name and took my meal order before takeoff, which is a nice touch on a short flight. They came across as professional and competent, but reserved rather than warm.

The pre-departure beverage was orange juice or lemon mint. The cabin was hot on boarding and there are no air vents, so there's nothing you can do about it. Not unbearable, but worth knowing.

Seat

Business on Etihad's A350-1000 is 1-2-1 across rows 5 to 15, 44 seats in total. I was in a window seat around row 10.

These are excellent seats. They're comfortable, they feel genuinely spacious, and the storage is strong. The screens are massive, and there's a genuinely smart detail where they've left a dedicated gap for cables to come out of the cabinet. Another nice touch is that the reading lamp switches off automatically when you recline the seat.

I'm a fan of the seat material, and I like the armrest on the left side, though it comes with the flight's most persistent annoyance. The leather extends out beyond the plastic, so your arm catches on it every time you raise or lower it. It's minor, but I noticed it repeatedly, and it makes the seat feel tight when you're just sitting and eating.

The bed is the standout. It's genuinely cushy, and from a pure softness standpoint it's among the most comfortable I've slept in. There is a gap between the cushions that makes side sleeping awkward, which is my recurring complaint with this seat type, though sleeping on my back solved it because your spine arches over the gap anyway. Even with that, it's a well above average business class bed. The footwell is fine, which is to say average.

A few oddities. The middle cabinet shelf won't close if you just push it; you have to press a button and push down. There are no electronic window shades. And there was an eye mask sitting in the footwell, which I'm fairly confident was left over from a previous flight rather than a deliberate way of presenting it.

Here's my honest read on the seat overall. It's excellent, and it plays it safe, and in this case those two things sit happily together. There's no single feature that feels revolutionary the way Qatar's Qsuite or ANA's The Room do. What there is instead is a suite that gets every fundamental right: a door, a huge screen, real storage, and a bed I'd happily sleep in again. Not every seat needs a gimmick, and I'd take this one over most business products flying.

I do wish there were more color in the cabin. The light scheme reads as desert, which makes some sense, but a bit of Etihad gold on the outside of the suite walls would go a long way.

Amenities

The screens are the standout. They're huge, bright, and extremely responsive, and watching the tail camera on one of them is genuinely great.

The Wi-Fi appeared to be free. I connected without entering any information about my cabin, and I never saw a charge, despite the portal advertising paid plans starting around $9.99. I don't know why it was free, but it was quite good, and I was even able to stream video.

The blanket is one of the most comfortable I've had on any aircraft, and the pillow is good too. Credit to Etihad for putting proper bedding on a route this short.

There's no amenity kit or slippers, but on a three and a half hour breakfast flight I wouldn't expect either, and the rest of what's here is more than the sector needs. The one thing I'd actually flag is the lack of air vents, which mattered on a cabin this warm at boarding.

Catering

Meal service started fast after takeoff, which I appreciated. It came on a tray rather than course by course, but on a breakfast flight this short that's entirely reasonable.

I ordered the masala omelette with chicken cutlet, chatpate aloo and cherry tomato. The food was excellent. The chicken was flavorful and very good, and the omelette was soft and well made if a little quieter on flavor. The mango juice was also outstanding.

It's one of the stronger breakfasts I've been served on a plane.

Service

This is the one part of the flight that didn't match the rest.

The crew were professional when conducting service but were seldom seen for the entire second half of the flight. There were no refills and no check-ins during the meal and nothing at all after it. The trays sat for a while before anyone came to collect them. A hot towel arrived near the end of the flight, and then sat uncollected for a long time.

There was no thank you for flying, and no gesture of any kind at the end, which is surprising for this class of product. The result was a competent but hands-off crew experience, on an airline that usually sells itself on the opposite.

The Verdict

Etihad's A350-1000 business class is a genuinely strong product. The seat is one of the better ones I've flown, the bed is excellent, the screens are superb, the Wi-Fi worked and was free, and the breakfast is among the better ones I've had onboard.

The suite plays it safe rather than chasing a headline feature, and I don't hold that against it. What does hold it back is the crew. Outside a handful of good moments they were hands-off, and on a product this good that's the thing standing between a very good flight and an excellent one.

Getting a widebody on this route is a real advantage, and Etihad has clearly worked to bring long-haul service elements to a short-haul flight. It's a strong way to travel between India and the Middle East.

I just wish the crew had seemed as invested in the flight as the aircraft clearly is.