The 'soft product' encompasses all the consumable and service-related elements of a flight, including the food, beverages, amenity kits, bedding, and the quality of the flight attendant service.
What Is Soft Product?
The soft product encompasses all the consumable and service-related elements of a flight, including the food, beverages, amenity kits, bedding, and the quality of flight attendant service. It is distinct from the "hard product," which refers to the physical seat, cabin layout, and in-flight entertainment hardware.
Airlines and travelers use this term to separate what can be touched and measured — seat width, recline angle, screen size — from what is experienced through service and taste. A carrier can have an excellent hard product but a mediocre soft product, or vice versa, and premium airlines are judged on both. Skytrax and other rating bodies weigh soft product elements like meal quality, wine selection, and crew responsiveness heavily when awarding airline rankings.
Key Features
Soft product components typically include: multi-course dining service with chef-curated menus, premium amenity kits (often designed by brands like Bvlgari or Ferragamo), pajamas or loungewear on ultra-long-haul flights, high-thread-count bedding and duvets for lie-flat seats, curated wine and champagne lists, and pre-departure beverage service. Crew-to-passenger ratios in business and first class are often higher than in economy, enabling personalized service such as made-to-order dining and dedicated cabin managers. Amenity kit contents, meal course counts, and bedding quality vary significantly by airline and route length.
Where to Find It
Singapore Airlines is frequently cited for consistently high soft product standards, pairing its 1-2-1 business class cabin with refined dining and service execution. Qatar Airways' Qsuite pairs its enclosed-suite hard product with soft product elements that have helped the airline earn multiple Skytrax World's Best Airline titles. Emirates, operating from its Dubai hub across more than 140 destinations, delivers soft product touches including onboard chef-prepared courses and curated amenity kits on its A380 and 777 fleets. Air France's Business cabin on transatlantic routes from JFK, LAX, Miami, and Washington Dulles into Paris is known for a distinctly French approach to in-flight dining and wine service.
Traveler Tip
When comparing business class fares, ask about soft product specifics — course counts, amenity kit brand, and bedding — since these vary more between airlines than seat dimensions. A strong soft product can make a shorter flight feel far more comfortable than a wider seat with weak service. CEOFLIGHTS specialists can help find discounted fares — call (888) 851-6897.
