These are the world’s best premium airline cabins in 2025
December 12, 2025
The DesignAir Awards have returned for their 13th year, celebrating the most creative, luxurious and well-executed achievements in airline design, drawing on more than 30,000 public votes and the insights of TheDesignAir’s judging panel.
The 2025 winners reflect a blend of aesthetics, engineering, and hospitality, delivering a more sophisticated travel experience.
We take a closer look at the winners, redefining passenger comfort and brand expression.
ANA takes top honours in business class with THE Room FX
The standout winner of 2025 is All Nippon Airways (ANA), whose new THE Room FX business class captured the title of Best New Business Class and Design Innovation of the Year.
ANA already set a high bar in 2019 with the original THE Room, but THE Room FX builds on that concept with a lighter, more efficient structure designed to make the seat viable on additional aircraft types.
What distinguishes THE Room FX is its sense of residential calm paired with engineering ingenuity. The suite maintains ANA’s signature ultra-wide footprint, while introducing refined materials, simplified structures, and improved storage. Soft lighting and a more organic material palette make the space feel warmer.
The result is an evolution rather than a redesign, but one that significantly improves weight efficiency and makes the cabin feel both familiar and fresh. The design blends practicality with elegance while redefining what passengers can expect from business class in terms of privacy and space.
Air France reinvents luxury with the new La Première first class suite
If ANA dominated business class, Air France set the new standard at the very top of the travel spectrum. The airline’s newly revealed La Première suite won Best New Premium Business / First Class, and it’s easy to see why.
Air France’s latest first class product shines with understated luxury, using a minimalist aesthetic to create an intimate, cocoon-like environment. The suite features a long, flowing curtain system rather than hard partitions, helping passengers feel at home in their surroundings.
Lighting is deliberately soft, warm and architectural, giving the entire cabin a sense of serene exclusivity. Materials were chosen for texture, tactility and warmth rather than flash, and the layout ensures every seat feels like a self-contained sanctuary.
TheDesignAir described the new La Première as confident and mature—a design that relies on calm sophistication rather than ostentation. It showcases what a modern premium experience can be when an airline fully commits to craftsmanship and emotional design.
EVA Air wins best new premium economy
In the increasingly competitive premium economy market, EVA Air emerged as the 2025 leader with its latest cabin refresh. The airline pioneered the premium economy concept in the 1990s, and it has since been adopted by major airlines worldwide.
EVA Air’s latest iteration reflects the premium economy product’s maturity. The airline’s new design enhances its legacy of cabin innovation with improved ergonomics, greater personal space, and a carefully curated colour palette that reduces visual noise.
The new seats offer improved recline mechanics, sculpted privacy wings, and thoughtful storage solutions that address the needs of long-haul travellers. Soft seat contours and subtle texturing bring a sense of modernity, while cabin lighting cues help reinforce a tranquil environment.
EVA Air’s winning design shows how thoughtful refinements can have just as much impact as dramatic redesigns.
Cathay Pacific named global design airline of the year
One of the most significant honours of the DesignAir Awards is the title of Design Airline of the Year, which in 2025 went to Cathay Pacific. The airline was recognised for consistent excellence across every touchpoint, from cabin interiors and lounges to branding, uniforms and digital interfaces.
Cathay Pacific’s approach emphasises cohesion: a modern, calming aesthetic that ties together the carrier’s lounges, long-haul cabins and customer-facing design language.
New and refreshed spaces introduced over the last year—particularly the carrier’s updated lounges and iterative cabin enhancements—demonstrate a continued commitment to a premium travel identity rooted in contemporary Asian design.
TheDesignAir highlighted Cathay’s timeless elegance and ability to evolve without chasing trends, a balance that helped it secure both the Asia regional title and the overall global win.
Regional winners set cabin design trends
Other airlines also earned recognition as regional design leaders: JetBlue for North America, LATAM for South America, Turkish Airlines for Europe, Air Mauritius for Africa, Air New Zealand for Oceania and Etihad Airways for the Middle East.
Each carrier was acknowledged for strengthening its design identity and improving the passenger experience through brand-aligned cabin and lounge products.
Air New Zealand wins best new crew uniform
In addition to cabin design, TheDesignAir also closely tracks crew uniforms, reflecting how airlines express identity and culture through design. This year, the award went to Air New Zealand. The carrier’s new look, created by New Zealand designer Emilia Wickstead, is a contemporary reinterpretation of the airline’s brand heritage.
The new uniforms blend modern tailoring with subtle cultural references, including patterns and motifs inspired by Māori artistry, giving the collection a sense of place without artifice. The colour palette incorporates rich charcoal and plum, with prints and motifs that reflect Aotearoan culture. The fabrics were chosen with durability, comfort and sustainability in mind.
The airline’s new uniform strikes a balance between national pride and global polish, with garments that have a distinctive character while meeting the functional demands of long-haul crew life.
The collection reinforces Air New Zealand’s strategy of embedding cultural storytelling into every design touchpoint—from aircraft cabin finishes to onboard service—and showcases how uniforms can become a core element of brand identity.
Airline trends: ‘Warm minimalism’ and colour, intelligently applied
The 2025 awards collectively underscore several industry trends. Airlines are increasingly embracing residential styling over traditional aircraft aesthetics, prioritising personal space, soft materials and flexible privacy solutions.
The use of lighting as a mood-shaping design tool continues to mature, as does interest in sustainable materials that deliver both performance and a refined tactile feel. Weight reduction and modularity are now guiding principles, influencing everything from seat shells to storage design.
“I think that some of the design trends we’re seeing are storytelling in a big way right now,” TheDesignAir’s founder, Jonny Clark, tells AGN. “Explaining why an airline exists through product language, lighting and sound design and utilising regionally rooted design motifs—Air New Zealand’s uniforms are a prime example of that.”
Clark identifies a trend of “warm minimalism and the softening of premium spaces,” as exemplified by Air France.
“We’re looking at more biophilic, softer curves and finishes embedded into the passenger experience,” he said. “Also, design is now tapping into emotional impact, not just functional improvement, which is key in building brand loyalty and a subconscious connection to the consumer.”
One overarching trend among the winners “is a return to colour—but used in an intelligent way,” Clark notes. “A few years ago, luxury became monochromatic and utilitarian. It seems that the airline industry is now swinging in the opposite direction with a clear brand promise delivered through considered colour palettes.”
This year’s winners bode well for the future of premium air travel
TheDesignAir Awards 2025 reveal an industry that is more ambitious, more design-focused and more emotionally attuned to passenger expectations.
Whether through ANA’s re-engineered and beautifully calibrated business class, Air France’s tranquil vision of first-class luxury or EVA Air’s thoughtful premium economy enhancements, the winners reflect an ongoing effort to make air travel genuinely pleasurable.
Featured Image: Air France
