Business Class Flights for Families: Why it’s worth it.
The thought of flying with young children, especially long-haul, can be enough to make parents run screaming at the prospect of travelling across the globe. A 16 hour flight is a daunting prospect for many solo travellers, but add toddlers and small children to the mix and you may find yourself thinking…is the trip really worth it?! We definitely thought this when we first looked at flying twenty hours with two small children, and that’s when we started looking into business class flights for families. And honestly, it completely changed our outlook on flying with kids.
You are probably reading this because you’re thinking about booking a business class flight as a family, or have already booked one and are wondering what’s in store. We have flown business class with our children several times, with three different airlines: Emirates, Qatar and Malaysia Airlines.
We first flew business class with our children when they were three and seven years old. This was after years of economy flights and one where we got a check-in desk upgrade to premium economy with our five month old on a flight from London to Perth. Dreamy!
After watching the many reviews on YouTube about flying business class and working out the ins and outs of each seat for solo travellers, we started looking into flying business class as a family on a trip from London to Bali.
Whilst the Emirates’ website had plenty of general information about how they accommodate families with children, there was nothing specific to business class flights for families. And if I’m honest, I wasn’t sure how it would all work for us.
But what I really wanted to know was whether booking business class flights for a family was worth it? Four flights would not come in cheap and with children making up such a small percentage of those who fly business class, I wasn’t sure if they’d be catered for and I struggled to find answers to my questions when searching online:
How do the business class seat configurations work for families? What does a child’s meal look like in business class? Are children even welcome in business class?
Since then, we have flown business class as a family on many different planes and with several different airlines, from multiple airports around the world. And I found the answers to my questions. Here’s what we learnt about flying business class with children.
Check-In & Baggage Claim Experience
Let’s start at the beginning. Like most airlines, Emirates, Qatar and Malaysia Airlines offer priority check-in for business class passengers in all the airports we’ve been through, which really helps get the trip off to a smooth start. Walking straight up to the counter and dropping your bags is a dream compared to waiting in a queue with little ones. You also routinely get additional baggage allowance in business class, if you need it.
And on the other side, at baggage reclaim, your cases are the first off. So no waiting around at that end either. After being the first off the plane, and with a fast pass through border control, simply go to the designated area, collect your bags and go. Emirates even offer complimentary chauffeur drive for some destinations, so your driver is waiting for you when you land.
All good so far, but let’s rewind to check-in and one of the best bits – when you’re all checked in and they hand over those lounge passes…
Airport Lounges
Business class flights for families come with the the perk of getting lounge access. When flying with kids, this almost ranks up there with the flight itself. Settle into a quiet corner in a comfortable lounge, with space to play card games, do some colouring or even take a nap. It really makes such a difference when travelling with little ones.
On long haul flights, a lounge during a stopover is essentially an all inclusive hotel!
And with children always being hungry, having access to a vast array of free food and beverages to keep everyone happy really does make for a smooth experience, especially if the flight is delayed.
And then there’s the showers. Showering on a stopover takes away the stress of the flight more than you can imagine if you haven’t tried it. And for little ones, a fun little shower can help settle them into ‘bedtime’ mode when you’re ready to get them to sleep – be that in the lounge or on the plane.
Let’s not forget the sleeping zones, which come into their own if you have a long stopover with tired little eyes.
Facilities vary hugely from one airport lounge to another but you can usually look these up in advance on the airport website. Specific family friendly facilities we’ve used include gaming rooms of all sorts with play areas for younger children and baby areas for warming food and bottles, child friendly food options, plenty of space to set up all your things, and incredibly helpful and friendly staff. You’ll be well catered for your (and their) every need.
Here’s a summary of the lounges we’ve been to:
- Emirates lounge – MAN, LGW, DXB (all terminals), KUL
- Qatar lounge – DOH, BKK
- Malaysia Airlines lounge KUL
- Amsterdam Schiphol Business Class lounge (several airlines)
- Denpasar, Bali lounge (several airlines)
Some lounges are vast, like the Qatar Al Mourjan lounge in Doha and the Emirates lounge in DXB’s terminal 2. They have everything you could possibly need including things you haven’t even thought of yet – but they can get busy with so many passengers in transit.
The bigger the lounge, the longer it takes to walk from one facility to the next, sometimes even having to pack up your things to take with you. That’s not the most practical if you’re travelling with little ones, even though the facilities are amazing.
The best lounge experiences we’ve had as a family, were in the smaller lounges, like the Emirates lounges in KUL and LGW where the kids can help themselves at the buffet or stay in their little corner whilst you go to get a drink or snack. The floor to ceiling windows in Schiphol’s lounge provide fantastic plane spotting views, which make up for the lack of variety of food options and rather busy space.
Biggest does not always mean best.
Some lounges like in DXB’s terminal 2 allow you to board the plane from the lounge, which is real luxury indeed, especially with freshly showered kids in tow, and that brings us nicely on to aircraft….
Best business class flights for families?
Now we certainly haven’t flown them all, but we have been lucky enough to fly in a few different business class cabins as a family, including: Emirates A380 and 777, Qatar 777 Q-Suite and 777 non Q-Suite configurations, as well as Malaysia Airlines, although this was a limited experience on two shorter flights from Bali to KL to Penang. Hence the focus here on Emirates and Qatar.
Top Tip: Choose your carrier wisely when booking. Business Class ranges from essentially Premium Economy to almost First Class.
The ‘Business Class’ label on a flight doesn’t mean everyone is getting the same bang for their buck. When booking your business class tickets, be mindful that the hard product varies considerably from one aircraft and one carrier to the next and so you should look into the detail to see what you’re getting before you book and to see if it really is good value. For example, if you have a night flight with children, is it worth paying the extra if the aircraft doesn’t have lie-flat seats?
The Middle-Eastern carriers have a strong reputation for their business class offering and for good reason, this is where our experience lies. Here’s our review of the aircraft we’ve flown as a family and our thoughts on each one.
Emirates A380
A family friendly 1-2-1 configuration means that you can sit next to the little ones in the middle seats and lower the privacy screen. These seats are side by side and forward facing, which for families is preferable to the common herringbone configuration where seats face away from one another. There’s plenty of room in front of the seat for children to get up and move around, as our three year old did as she danced to ‘The Wiggles’ mid flight.
The TV system was excellent, easy to operate and with a huge choice of entertainment (more on that below). The only downside to these seats is the lack of window view, in my opinion.
The best seat for solo travellers is the window seat, which may be an option for your family if you’re an odd number. That said, our seven year old was happy enough to sit alone here for the flight, and there is good visibility to the middle seats if you do this.
Top Tip: Check out the seating configuration for your aircraft before you book to make sure you’re happy that your seats meet the needs of your family.
With lie-flat seats, a thick mattress topper and luxurious blanket for sleeping on the plane, the only reason not to get a great sleep on this plane is the fully stocked bar in the lounge at the back of the cabin.
I know a bar and children don’t necessarily sound like the perfect pairing but this design is genius! The bar area is actually perfect for little ones with space for them to move around when they get a bit bored of the view from their seat and need to stretch their little legs. This was a huge bonus to us when flying as a family as we could get out of our seats and enjoy the many drinks and snacks (kids’ favourites being the tubs of ice-cream and packets of M&M’s) which all come included in the fare.
Summary: The lounge area alone makes this a winning product for families, but combined with the family friendly seating and comfortable beds, you certainly won’t be disappointed with Emirates’ A380 for a business class family flight.
Emirates 777
We flew on the old version of this cabin in 2017. Since then, some aircraft have been upgraded but not the full fleet as yet. The seating configuration of 2-3-2 that we had on our flight would actually better suit a family than a solo traveller and it gets many poor reviews because of this configuration (due to that middle seat). However, even with the partition screen down, the style of the seat did make it more awkward to reach over to help the little ones when needed.
This is only really a problem when the seat is in bed mode and there’s not enough room to get up and move around to their side. For example, when trying to manoeuvre around in my seat and reach over to our three year old, I knocked my glass of red wine all over her whilst she was asleep!
We booked two rows of two window seats for our flight and this worked really well. The seats were angled lie-flats, with the head being slightly higher than the feet. This meant that the children, whose feet didn’t reach the foot rest, slipped down to the bottom as they slept! They found this quite entertaining and it wasn’t a huge problem.
The bonus with these seats (for the parents) is that you don’t have to squeeze your legs into the footwell like you do on other configurations (like the A380) so it’s easier to move around when lying down.
The TV was clunky to operate, with old remotes that weren’t particularly responsive and with the touch screen being too far away for the children to reach, we spent plenty of time trying to get them settled with a film, which could be rather annoying if you’re flying solo with three children.
Generally it is a good product for families, but it does fall short in a few areas. The updated cabins look far more sleek and seem to have ironed out some of the issues. We hope to be able to try them out soon.
Qatar Q-Suite
The Qatar Q-Suite is marketed by Qatar as being ‘First in Business’ and having flown it three times, it’s hard to find anything wrong with this slogan. It really is such an excellent product and that’s all topped off with outstanding service from start to finish. It’s a real game changer for family travel with a completely private central ‘quad’ that allows you to sit a family of four together with seats that convert into a double bed on one side and two singles on the other. Add to this a central table area and an incredible entertainment system, all enclosed with sliding doors – it feels a bit like a spaceship when you first get in!
In terms of seating and flying as a family, this offers the ultimate in comfort, practicality and experience, since you can sit four people together in the quad for the flight. You can be there to help the children with meals and entertainment, but we didn’t really need to as the crew were by far the best we’ve known on any flight. As we sat down on boarding, the flight attendant said to our children ‘If you need anything on this flight, ask me not your Mum and Dad. I’m in charge here.’
Top Tip: Family of 3? Try booking 3 of the Quad seats for a family of three and hedge your bets that nobody books the fourth seat so you can open up the quad. If the seat gets booked, you can still enjoy the double bed side and use the partition for privacy on the other side. Family of 5? Book the quad and an adjacent window seat. There’s enough room in the quad for you to all get in at some point…at one point, we ended up all four of us sitting in two seats!
The beds are incredibly comfortable when converted and combined with Qatar’s signature business class pyjamas, it makes for a perfect sleep. The pyjamas don’t come in children’s sizes, but they were happy to give us a small set for the children, so we could keep them for when they get bigger!
The entertainment system is so easy to use that we didn’t need to help the children at all, and if they had any problems, the crew were quicker than we were anyway. The Q-Suite boasts a super sleek hard product with no flaws and a soft product that is both luxurious and family friendly.
The Q-Suite really does offer the very best of what we’ve seen for any business class flights for families and I promise that you’ll only be disappointed when you have to leave the plane at your destination.
This one gets a gold star from us for the best business class flights for families.
Qatar 777 standard cabin
We flew this old configuration Qatar 777 due to an equipment change on one flight. We were really disappointed having deliberately booked the route for the Q-Suite experience. But even though the Q-Suite was a far superior product, this flight turned out to be a favourite for the experience that came with it.
The 2-2-2 forward facing configuration is great for families and the seats are wide and comfortable with impressive leg room – the most we’ve seen on any plane. With three windows to each row of seats, the cabin is light and airy and offers spectacular views en route. We flew on a day flight from Bangkok to Dubai and the overland views were breathtaking.
The reason this flight was so good was down to the fact that we were almost the only ones in the cabin. We literally felt like we were floating on Cloud Nine. The Qatar service was incredible, the daylight was magical and we hardly saw the girls for the whole flight as the crew took care of everything.
We didn’t even try sleeping on this flight but did put the seat in bed mode to try it out. It was really comfortable, and I’m pretty sure we could have got several hours sleep if we’d tried.
In comparison to the newer Q-Suite, the cabin looked a bit dated, but there was nothing wrong with this cabin at all. It does go to show how the service makes a flight and is more important than the aesthetic look of a cabin, so bear this in mind when doing your research for business class flights for families.
Emirates & Qatar Business Class Child’s Meal
A question I spent ages trying to find an answer to before we flew was…..
What is a business class child’s meal like?
And the answer….there isn’t one. If you select a child’s meal, they get the same as they would in economy class, with perhaps a few extras and a nice plate. Once we figured this out, we decided to just go with the normal menu for the children too. There is so much choice and so many sides that they easily found something they wanted to eat and the quality of the business class menu was far better than a child’s economy meal, especially the dessert!
Qatar have a particularly great service where you can dine on demand. This is great when travelling with children who may sleep through scheduled mealtimes and means you can order many times in one flight.
The lounge (bar) on the Emirates A380 also comes really well stocked with snacks, from sandwiches to pastries, fruit and cakes. So the little ones certainly won’t go hungry!
Top Tip: Both Emirates and Qatar gave us kids’ snack boxes which came in really handy for the onward trip. We also filled up our bags with the cans and bottles in the Emirates seat minibar, and this saved us so much time and stress when transiting to our next stop.
In flight entertainment ICE & Oryx
Both airlines offer a great in flight entertainment service for kids. Not only is there a huge range of movies and TV shows, on a par with Netflix, they also have music and games to keep little ones entertained. With high quality noise cancelling headphones, we simply plugged them in for take off with their choice of film and peace was ours!
Top Tip: Qatar Oryx One allows you to browse the selection of entertainment for your flight before you travel and using the app, you can make a favourite list before you fly, saving you time and energy on board.
Amenity Kits and Kids’ Toys
On every business class flight we have taken, the children have been given both a business class amenity kit and a kids’ toy, as they would in economy class. They were even given extra toy on one flight by some kind cabin crew. Talk about making them feel special!
And that’s what they remember….the toys! They also loved the socks and eyeshades, lotions and potions. The Emirates animals and kids’ packs and the Qatar spy pens kept them busy for ages! So rest assured, there’ll be plenty of treats heading their way to keep them entertained for the long flight.
Customer Service & Experience
This is where the magic happens. Business Class cabins have fewer passengers per cabin than economy class so it’s instantly quieter and more relaxing. But factor in cabin crew to passenger ratios being lower than economy class and this means each passenger gets more attention – adult or child.
But when you are a parent flying long haul with children, every helping hand is welcome.
When you fly in business class with Qatar, it is almost as if you have a full time nanny on board to look after your child’s every need. I cannot praise highly enough the level of service we were greeted with at each stage of our journey – from check-in to lounge to plane. A flight attendant to assist every time the children need a drink, a snack, to change their movie…it’s unreal.
And this is what makes business class flights for families so good.
It’s not for the kids. It’s for the parents. An actual helping hand when you need it the most. A way of removing the stress from what can be the most insanely stressful situation. And doing it all with grace and style.
And this is essentially why we paid the extra money for business class flights with kids. There are some great flight fares to be found if you really search for them. But, please do your research – and choose your airline wisely.
Business class flights for families are never going to be cheap, you’re booking several tickets after all. But it can give you excellent value, especially is you have miles to use.
The least expensive flight we took was actually in the Qatar Q-Suite, which is incredible value when you break down all that’s included – extra baggage, lounge access, complimentary food and drink, lie flat seats and state of the art hard product, luxurious soft product, outstanding service and Mary Poppins in the form of a flight attendant. And all at about the same cost per hour as a low budget carrier in high season.
Are business class flights for families worth it? Absolutely.
But choose your airline wisely.
You can read more on that here in my blog ‘Business Class with Kids‘.
