Virgin is keeping its 737 business class ‘shower curtain’
The much-derided cabin divider between business and economy is here to stay.
By David Flynn, August 21 2025
When Virgin Blue relaunched as Virgin Australia in 2011, the airline’s upmarket playbook included not only introducing business class seats to what was an all-economy airline, but adding an air of exclusivity to the business class cabin.
That was no easy task within the limited footprint of the single-aisle Boeing 737 already flown by some 200 airlines around the world.
Yet Australian brand designer and Virgin’s then-creative director Hans Hulsbosch developed some innovative solutions.
Virgin's original business/economy cabin divider.
First was a tall hard-shell divider between the second row of business and the start of economy, topped by a sheet of on-brand purple perspex.
Virgin's original business/economy cabin divider.
To further mark the turf of business travellers, and keep economy passengers from visiting the loo reserved for those flyers, Hulsbosch added a thick, white magnetic ‘rope’ to block the aisle.
Snake on a plane? The aisle-blocking rope kept economy passengers out of the business lav.
Both of those elements have been scrapped in Virgin Australia’s $110 million revamp of its Boeing 737s, which centres on new business and economy seats.
In place of the aisle-blocking ‘snake’ so well known to Virgin Australia’s frequent flyers is what’s been mockingly described as a ‘shower curtain’.
Virgin's new "cross-aisle curtain" between the 737's business and economy cabins.
Ross Anderson
Ross Anderson
Virgin Australia refers to it as a “cross-aisle curtain,” and says this is being progressively added to the upgraded 737s as the new seats are installed.
The airline also promises that new-look cabin dividers are on the way.
“From early next year, divider panels will be mounted underneath the overhead bins on either side of the curtain, providing a more defined partition between cabins,” a spokesperson tells Executive Traveller.
These types of divider are used by many airlines – Qantas also has them on its Boeing 737s as well as the newer Airbus A220 and A321XLR jets.
(For the later, this is based on what we saw during a tour of the first A321XLR at Airbus’ Hamburg facility in April this year, although at that time the business class cabin had yet to be fitted).
The business/economy cabin divider on Qantas' new Airbus A321XLR.
The dividers will be translucent, so that cabin crew can maintain a clear line of sight throughout the cabin.
The business/economy cabin divider on American Airlines' Boeing 737-8.
And being more space-efficient than the previous floor-mounted version, removing them helps Virgin recover space so the reconfigured 737s have more economy seats.
Ditching the bulky floor-mounted cabin divider makes room for more economy seats.
However, that curtain isn’t just some make-shift temporary measure which will go away when the new divider panels are installed.
Virgin Australia has confirmed to Executive Traveller that the curtain will remain in place “to help manage guest flow” on the refurbished 737s.
Also read: How to double-dip points on Virgin Australia flights
01 Dec 2012
Total posts 88
Good that you've outed Qantas on the A321XLR plastic hangy-downy "divider", David. The product that'll be unveiled to customers is quite different to the packshot of an apparent hard divider and opaque curtain in the published QF images.
03 May 2013
Total posts 712
What an amateurish attempt - seriously VA?
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
12 May 2022
Total posts 33
Pretty standard on most major airlines around the world now, for single-aisle aircraft. Much more efficient use of space. As pointed out, Qantas also has air dividers installed on its 737's, newer A220's, and A321XLR's.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
26 Nov 2012
Total posts 136
Did anyone seriously think they were replacing it when they were installed? For the price of VAs J fares, I really don’t care. There is such a chasm in price between VA and QF for very little onboard difference so I say keep the low fares and keep the shower curtain.
20 Oct 2015
Total posts 279
Yes, a lot of people thought this was just temporary. Don't forget that Virgin launched its 737 MAX jets without any cabin divider, and said cabin dividers would be added "soon", and then when the first shower curtain appeared Virgin said the real ceiling-mounted cabin dividers were coming in 2026, so the impression at least to me and I reckon a lot of other people was that the shower curtain was some temporary Temu job until the proper dividers arrived.
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
12 May 2022
Total posts 33
Yep, at no point did I get the impression this was temporary; it was well known that air dividers were coming as well as the curtains. Most of us just thought they would be installed at the same time, air dividers and the centre curtain.
11 Sep 2015
Total posts 274
I'm sort of divided on this, no pun intended.
I really liked the original divider arrangement, it was very practical and looked good, and the 'magnetic snake' worked really well. But I can get that Bain found it hard to resist adding another one or two rows of economy seats, after all they want their $$ and this means 6-12 more passengers per flight.
I just wish there was a classier way to implement this, the curtain looks so cheap and trashy.
Etihad - Etihad Guest
21 Jul 2019
Total posts 229
In a word: terrible. Carriers in the U.S. have this see-through curtain arrangement. I thought that was a bad look, but this home-grown version is actually worse.
One final point: it's interesting that this VA bad news story is treated as a comment enabled 'story'. But the following QF bad news story (about the removal of 8000 points) is comments-disabled 'news' piece...Not the first time I've noticed a certain trend here.
QF
11 Jul 2014
Total posts 1095
I'm amazed no one has pointed out row 2 has lost it's previous legroom in these changes. They need to discount row 2 on price and call it Crampy Business
20 Oct 2020
Total posts 16
This just looks so tacky…
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
11 Nov 2016
Total posts 71
Why do Australian carriers struggle with the cabin divider on narrow bodies? This is hardly ever an issue on European and other airlines. Iberia, for instance has a hard divider and a curtain; it works perfectly and there's never pax from Economy heading up front for the toilet.
09 Aug 2013
Total posts 2
The issue is and always will be the number of toilets.
Would like to see how that curtain complies with the 90 second escape requirement? Or can only business class use the front doors? Irrespective of the airline given there is no attendant on area as per much larger airframes.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
14 Jan 2015
Total posts 46
At least they've got something, I was very worried there for a while that they would continue to have nothing at all.
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
04 Sep 2015
Total posts 32
We now know we are on a budget airline, shower curtains, less leg room in Bus Class and no hard divider,
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
06 Mar 2015
Total posts 240
What a shame that VA no longer have their A330's. Their Business Class product on the A330 was extremely good with wonderful seats and such great service. Unfortunately their current fleet and product is vastly inferior to the A330's still I guess that's all they have to work with. It would even be so much better for Trans Continental flights if they had a small fleet of A320 Neo's that can have vastly better seats than VA's B737's . Alas , we will probably never see such great service on VA again domestically!! Perhaps Qatar might one day take over VA then we might see a game change!!
11 Sep 2015
Total posts 274
Have to agree, those transcon A330s were amazing. Proof that competition really works! A shame we never saw the 737 'premium product' which John Borghetti was planning for when the A330s moved out of Australia and into NZ and Asia, it was rumoured to be the same flatbeds as JetBlue Mint back in the day.
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
07 Dec 2014
Total posts 175
Yes its a downgrade from what was there previously on Virgin ... but as mentioned Qantas 737s just have the 'air divider' hanging from the ceiling too, and no curtain at all.
My question is, how long does it take to install a piece of silly plastic from the ceiling that it has to wait until 2026? Given Qantas has them its not like they presumably have to have some special certification?
05 Dec 2017
Total posts 23
Ooph. So a very mediocre business seat with not PTVs. Tacky cheap "divider". And the weakest lounge network going, including international. Why would you bother paying a premium or pursue/keep status on VA anymore?
24 Jul 2017
Total posts 8
Dividers I don’t care do much about but the purple plastic one looks best. I only wish we’d have 12 J class seats instead of 8 😫
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
23 May 2018
Total posts 31
much prefer the hard separator in virgin so the fool behind me cant lean on my seat to get out and his kid cant kick my chair.
Then there is the rush to disembark first and the queue of economy passages for the toilet
29 Jan 2012
Total posts 225
The curtain - what is corporate thinking!
Do any of our readers remember Ansett's A320 solid "wooden" wall dividers with the nautical analogue circular clock mounted on them. This solid floor to ceiling barrier, along with the dark blue full length curtain for the isle access completely divided the First and Economy cabin. Wish I had a photo to include, was very professional. This showed a full divider can be installed, perhaps at the expense of a row of economy seats, but finished the aircraft beautifully.
20 Oct 2015
Total posts 279
"This showed a full divider can be installed, perhaps at the expense of a row of economy seats, but finished the aircraft beautifully." And that's why Virgin is NOT doing a proper cabin divider, it's all about the number of economy seats and the revenue from those. Virgin is getting rid of the old divider so it can squeeze in an extra row of economy seats. And you're talking about the old Ansett "solid floor to ceiling barrier" which looked great but would be "at the expense of a row of economy seats", so this takes up even more space? The economics of 2025 are very different to the late 1990s, and Virgin is very different to Ansett.
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