At times, it seems as if one of the primary impulses in the UAE — and the Gulf, for that matter — is discovering innovative ways to spend astonishing amounts of money.

“Gold” class is not enough. It must be “platinum”. The new watch, the most expensive car, the hotels that declare themselves to be “seven-star” … that is what we want, in this neighborhood.

And now, the Abu-Dhabi-based Etihad Airways is introducing a “flying hotel suite” for first-class travelers in the airline’s long hauls, beginning in December.

Costing about $20,000 per person.

One way.

“I think we have set the new standard in premium travel,” said James Hogan, the president and chief executive of Etihad Airways.

Hard to imagine someone beating them.

A personal butler, anyone? An 80-inch bed?

To get a better idea of the luxury being promised …

Check the slide show, here. Make sure you roll over the captions, to get a sense of what you are looking at.

We have video links, too!

Here is what the Boeing 787 Dreamliner will look like, in the hands of Etihad.

And here is what the double-decker Airbus A380 will look like.

Now, not to be a negative Nellie, or anything, but …

–Are any of us worth $20,000 for a one-way flight to anywhere, up to and including the moon? Really? How about slumming in business class for maybe $7,000 and giving the other $13,000 to a charity?

–If one of these big planes goes down, will it be any easier on a person who is flying in first-plus class? I suppose I would be ticked off to crash when I paid $20,000.

–And, if you noticed, at the end of each video we get back to the “steerage”
of the skies, the coach class … and it is as bad as ever, and maybe worse.

The Dreamliner has a 3-3-3 seat setup, which is fairly nightmarish, and the A380 has a 3-4-3 configuration, which is thoroughly nightmarish. (With the reality that 40 percent of coach seats are on neither an aisle nor a window.)

Give Etihad credit. They spotted a trend towards more and more frills in the high-end realm of flying, and seem to be jumping over the offerings of their regional rivals, Emirates and Qatar.

And another aspect of this is the idea that Etihad believes it can pry some plutocrats from their personal jets by giving them perhaps even more luxury than they would get in their private planes.

I can’t imagine I ever will fly first class with Etihad, nor would I want to, but the stills and video, linked, at least give us an idea of how the other 0.5 percent live.