British Airways has invested £100 million in their new first class cabin being installed on a B777, which flies from London Heathrow to Chicago O’Hare

Simply named First, the new cabin based on “classic design and understated luxury”, influenced by premium British automotive brands.

Key new features include a personal wardrobe, a 15-inch in-flight entertainment screen, a leather-bound writing table and personal electronic blinds.

British Airways will launch a luxury, all-business class transatlantic service today featuring flat beds and the latest communications technology.

The twice-daily service between London City Airport and New York offers 32 seats in specially configured Airbus A318 aircraft.

Return fares will start at £1,901 and passengers will be able to send emails and texts and use the internet while aboard.

British Airways, Europe’s third-largest flag carrier, on Wednesday said it is going to buy the French all-business airline l’Avion for 54 million pounds ($107 million) as it steps up efforts to take advantage of the recent liberalization of transatlantic travel.

The privately owned airline flies two Boeing 757 aircraft with 90 seats each between Paris and New York. L’Avion has flown 65,000 passengers since its January 2007 launch.

The deal, which includes £26m of net cash on L’Avion’s balance sheet, will allow OpenSkies to raise its Paris Orly-New York flights to three per day. Both carriers use reconfigured Boeing 757 aircraft.

The idea behind Open Skies was to capitalize on the deregulation of traffic between the U.S. and Europe that took effect at the end of March. Until then, BA couldn’t offer direct flights from Paris to the U.S.

L’Avion is the sole survivor of the four all-business class airlines launched in recent years following the collapse of Maxjet, Eos and Silverjet. But given oil at around $140 a barrel, industry observers doubted that l’Avion ever turned a profit.

BA plans to integrate L’Avion under the OpenSkies brand. L’Avion’s aircraft have 90 seats in a single-class cabin, while OpenSkies has 82 seats in three classes : 24 seats that convert into beds, 28 in premium economy and 30 in economy making it closer to the l’Avion model than traditional British Airways flights.

Think the price of your airline tickets is growing while the legroom is shrinking? Well, it isn’t for everybody. Elite travellers are accustomed to significantly better accomodations.

Newsweek is singling out what it says are the eight most luxurious airlines in the world right now, and by the looks of some of these pictures, some of these flying experiences might have you thinking hard about actually caring whether you reach your destination !

The eight most luxurious airlines in the world enlisted by Newsweek in order are:

• Virgin Atlantic
• Qatar Airways
• Emirates
• Singapore
• British Airways
• Qantas
• Thai Airways
• Swiss International Airlines

Source : universeofluxury