Back in mid-2014, Air France begin installing their new business class product on their 777 aircraft. This was long overdue, as previously Air France exclusively offered angled seats in their longhaul business class, which no longer cuts it. Air France's new business class product consists of reverse herringbone seats, which is my all around favorite…
Continue reading: Air France A330 Aircraft To Get New Business Class Product
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Great news, this makes Air France have a great all round business class product. I really enjoyed flying this seat the other month.
Running a rough calculation, 147 seats * 9-abreast / 8-abreast only gets you to 165 seats. Going from 32-inch pitch to 30 gets to the rest of the way there. 30 seems too low, though.
I wonder if the business class cabin is indeed shrinking.
When they refurbished the 777s, was the ratio of old seats to new in the same space about 4:3?
I don't think that would be necessarily true. If you compare the old and new seating for Air France's 777, they fit 35 angle flat seats in the same space as 28 reverse herringbone seats, PLUS a small galley on either side. Now 35 angled seats is 2-3-2, but on the A330 it would be 2-2-2, and they will probably still put in 1-2-1 for the new seats, which reduces it to 30 angled seats in the same space as ~28 reverse herringbone seats (again PLUS galley space). So they could be reducing the space currently allocated to business to make a few extra rows in economy. 9 across in an A330 would be incredibly tight.
Just to let you know that Philippine Airlines (PR) is a full service carrier that uses 3-3-3 abreast seating on their A330's and no IFE (Well WiFi streaming but that's about it)!
I think this new - crazy- configuration regarding economy will allow AF to replace A343 on routes like CDG-YUL... to compete with Air Transat!
AF is considering deferring deliveries of its A350-900 and B787-9 fleets and quickly retiring A343.
Also Business class is not full on this kind of routes so they can reduce it from 40 to 30 seats.
Air France must also then refurbish the first class cabin on the a380. It probably will be the same as the 777.
Air France might also consider lowering the seat count of La premiere from 9 to 8
Maybe not the fanciest airline, but not truly low-cost, Philippine Airlines already operates 9 abreast A330.
Hi love reading your articles. Any information on the schedule on upgrading air france A380-800? As we are scheduled to fly air france from lax to paris at the end of April 2017? What planes have the new business class and what do not. thank You for your information.
Hello, we are flying from msp to paris on an a330 in May 2018. Any suggestions on how to check progress of retrofit of business class? Thank you for your article!
We are in Mid-2018 and 777s (lots of ‘em) still flying with the old biz cabins. It’s relatively comfortable but 2x3x2 is tough!