The wait is finally over… almost. On Saturday morning I wrote about how British Airways was teasing their new Club World seat.
We have some very observant readers, so in the afternoon I shared what I think the new Club World seat could look like.
Could this be British Airways’ new Club World seat?
We know British Airways’ first A350 will be flying within a few months, so I wasn’t sure if we’d have to wait days or weeks to finally learn about the new seat.
Well, now we know. British Airways has posted on Instagram to say that they’ll reveal their new Club World seat tomorrow morning at 10:15AM GMT, or 6:15AM EDT.
I can’t wait!!!
@The Nice Paul. Yes. The tax to keep tourists out of the UK is working. I will travel to Portugal or France instead.
@ Ron in Miami
You do know that tax is imposed by the UK government, not BA, right? BA’s job is to collect it, as unpaid tax inspectors (just like the government has turned them into unpaid immigration officials, checking passengers’ passports and visas before they’re allowed to board).
The government imposes the tax because it says it wants to discourage flying. With your comment, it looks like that tax is doing exactly what...
@ Ron in Miami
You do know that tax is imposed by the UK government, not BA, right? BA’s job is to collect it, as unpaid tax inspectors (just like the government has turned them into unpaid immigration officials, checking passengers’ passports and visas before they’re allowed to board).
The government imposes the tax because it says it wants to discourage flying. With your comment, it looks like that tax is doing exactly what they want.
In these dumb Brexity times that’s a rare UK government success story.
Excited to see this seat on their new 777X, which will likely fly routes that the 747 and A380 currently do.
Their tax = Negative. Not the way to fly.... no matter how perfect the seat may be.
@Ben - Since the above seat is your guess, check back to 2015 when BA submitted a patent for this design and you also wrote an article covering it.
Can’t wait to see BA new F class once that’s announced!
It looks as good as BA's F, although the soft product in F will still be much better.
My guess is on Newark. High premium demand, not necessarily a route with a lot of F demand ( they fly 787-8s with out it most of the time), still a premium route out of T5 (as opposed to NBO or JNB out of T3) and some competition in UA and VS. Would all make sense (and selfishly I hope so as I’m booked to fly EWR-LHR in late July).
@Kerry - I understand your point of view, though after thinking about it, BA does have some flights from LHR to JFK without first class. Most of them have it but some don't (since they have so many flights). Since it is a premium market for them, they may fly the A350 there (but of course not all flights). Therefore I wouldn't rule out all premium routes with first class.
@Tony - Hopefully not as slow as Emirates with their 777 First Class.
It seems like BA has been improving their soft product, but their seat has always been an issue. I would love for you to share your thoughts @Ben (Lucky) for where you think BA places in your ranking of business classes once the new seat is deployed.
The seat refit will probably go slower than UA's polaris refit haha.
"So my bottom is *very* intrigued to know"
Well, I hope he is satisfied with the answer...oh wait, different type of bottom...
Hopefully even if it isn't an enclosed suite, it will be at least something like a regular reverse herringbone seat. Then again, just about anything would be an improvement.
This is genuinely exciting - perhaps the biggest new business class reveal of an international airline since United rebranded “Polaris”, and then faiked to install it in any of their planes for several years.
@JB unfortunately, since they lack first class cabins, I think it’s highly unlikely they deploy the 359 to any of their “trunk” routes like NY, Hong Kong, Tokyo or LA... but let’s see... I’d guess Premium heavy routes that don’t require...
This is genuinely exciting - perhaps the biggest new business class reveal of an international airline since United rebranded “Polaris”, and then faiked to install it in any of their planes for several years.
@JB unfortunately, since they lack first class cabins, I think it’s highly unlikely they deploy the 359 to any of their “trunk” routes like NY, Hong Kong, Tokyo or LA... but let’s see... I’d guess Premium heavy routes that don’t require first, like Joburg and São Paulo...
I think there are 4 A350's due this year plus it will be retrofitted onto a couple of 777s so it's going to be a while before this gets rolled out to the entire fleet and the 747s will not get the new seat and unlikely the 380 will either. And as the first batch of 350's won't have an F we won't see it on LHR-JFK for a while.
What's the first A350 routes?
@ JB -- It hasn't yet been revealed.
About half my annual longhaul flights are on BA. So my bottom is *very* intrigued to know what the new CW seat is going to be.