In 2003 Virgin made clear it was competing for British
Airways’ (BA) business class flyers in an aggressive
fashion. Truly aggressive, as Sir Richard Branson –
dressed in dungarees, in the style of rapper Eminem –
demolished a polystyrene model of a BA seat during the
reveal of his Upper Class Suite, in a not so subtle
metaphor for his commercial intentions.
This was far from Branson’s first run-in with BA,
with the 1990s seeing him accuse the airline of libel,
add ‘No Way BA/AA’ decals to aircraft in opposition of
the proposed merger between BA and American Airlines,
and introduce union flags on Virgins liveries in response
to BA’s world art tailfin scheme, complete with the
tagline ‘Britain’s Flag Carrier’.
Branson clearly had no love for BA, but the chainsaw
stunt was not just flamboyant defiance: he was filled
with confidence by the design of his suite, a £50 million
investment that superceded the J2000 angled lie-flat
design launched just three years previously.
The suite answered criticisms that the J2000’s bed
was inferior to those launched by other airlines,
especially BA’s Club World seat, which rocked the sector
in 2000 as the first fully flat bed in business class. In
response to BA’s seat, Virgin worked in secrecy to bring
a rival to market as quickly as possible. Some names
central to the project may still be familiar to you:
programme director John Palmer (now a senior figure in
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Boeing’s European operations); Joe Ferry, head of design
(now design director at luxury travel group, Belmond)
and his design colleagues Luke Miles (now at New
Territory) and Adam Wells (now at Virgin Galactic).
The team saw the key to a sector-leading design
as having both a luxury leather seat and a bed
surface with a mattress, with the two ergonomically
optimised surfaces enabled by a flip-over design.
The team also devised a herringbone orientation with
the aim of maximising passenger space, with a 1-2-1
LOPA that gave every passenger direct aisle access.
“This configuration also meant that no suite faced
backwards,” recalls Ferry, possibly referring to a certain
rival airline’s LOPA.
A clever idea is one thing, but making it airworthy is
quite another, so an engineering team was assembled
in-house to keep a reality check on the project. Design
and engineering don’t always work in harmony, but Ferry
says that the team helped them explore new ideas – and
also verified the viability of attaching the herringbone
layout to the seat tracks.
The seat launched in 2003 on Virgin’s B747-400s and
A340-600s, and key design touchpoints of the suite have
survived several evolutions. Indeed only now is Virgin
fitting an all-new layout, with the launch of its A350s.
Funnily enough, at the same time BA is introducing an
all-new business class seat on its A350s…
TOP: THE LAYOUT WAS UNUSUAL
AT THE TIME, BUT VIRGIN
DEVELOPED FULLY FUNCTIONING
PROTOTYPES AND CARRIED OUT
STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS AND CRASH
SIMULATION TO VERIFY THE DESIGN
BEFORE APPOINTING
A MANUFACTURER (BRITAX)
ABOVE LEFT: AMSAFE’S AIRBAG
BECAME AVAILABLE LATE IN THE
PROJECT, ENABLING OCCUPANTS TO
REMAIN RECLINED DURING TTL
ABOVE MIDDLE: COMPANION DINING
WAS A REAL NOVELTY IN BUSINESS
CLASS AND ADDED TO THE AIRLINE’S
SOCIABLE IMAGE
ABOVE RIGHT: PASSENGERS COULD
REQUEST THAT CREW FLIP OVER THE
BED SURFACE AND FIT BEDDING – A
FEATURE NOT SO NECESSARY WITH
THE 2019 A350 SUITES (SEE P34)
R ETROSPECTION
2003 Virgin Atlantic Upper Class
/aircraftinteriorsinternational.com