Top of the class

Flying non-stop to Australia is a dream ticket, thanks to Qantas’ slick new Airbus A350 cabins

Designing an aircraft that ensures 238 people feel as good as can be expected after spending the best part of a day at 39,000ft could be something of a daunting challenge. It was a task set for David Caon, who was commissioned by Qantas to design the new cabins on its Airbus A350 jets, which, from 2025, will fly for up to 21 hours non-stop from London and New York to Sydney and Melbourne.

Caon recently redesigned Qantas’ Airbus A380s, adding a bar, but his work on the A350 jets, 12 of which the airline has ordered at a combined cost of almost half a billion dollars at list prices, could not be more different. Its cabins need to be as lightweight as possible to minimise fuel consumption on their 11,000-mile journeys or, as he puts it, ‘You’ve got to be trim to go the distance’. This means no bars with heavy tables because ‘hydration, exercise and sleep are more important on these flights than alcohol, slap-up meals and socialising’. No full leather seats because ‘leather weighs more than fabric’. No fancy detailing or frills. Luckily, these guard rails suit his purposes.