In 2014 Air France launched their ”Best & Beyond” project, which marked the beginning of the airline installing new cabins on their planes, including their new reverse herringbone business class seats, as well as their awesome new first class cabins.
Continue reading: Air France’s New 472 Seat 777-300 Cabins
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
430 seats in economy sound horrible
more seats then other airlines have on an entire A380
@Lucky - Do you know what these extraordinarily high number of seats come at the expense of? What do you think will be lacking in this 777 vs a typical one besides La Premiere?
@ Sarthak -- It comes down to the very small premium cabins. Business class and premium economy will be between doors one and two, meaning there will then be three massive economy cabins behind that.
The Polaris-style seats are nicer for families, since there is there option of sitting right next to each other in the honeymoon seats. Whereas if you're traveling with a child in the reverse herringbone seats, there's no way to be close enough to help them.
Maybe this is part of the reason to use them on leisure routes?
Or maybe it was simply about availability of the seats from the manufacturer, or cost.
With this level of density, do they have additional restrooms? I feel like the aisles would be absolutely filled with people queuing after meal service.
This has to be the new densest internationally-flying (so Japan excluded) 777-300, with only 1 fewer seat than a Singapore Airlines A380!
AF to Bangkok also suffers the awful old recliner seats so am happy to hear this news!
On their current version of this, there's already 422 economy seats. It's not increasing by that much.
AF economy 777 was already tight as f***. Gave up 2 hours in an indicated i would be willing to pay anything to get out of that seat.
Air Canada has similarly configured 773s that they fly to leisure destinations. I agree that the bathroom situation is hands down the worst part of these aircraft.
Why oh why did they not use the same PE seats as installed on the A350, they are much more comfortable compared to this shell ones.
Did AF shrink the overall size of their new business seats, it appears so. Next flight SEA to CDG in the spring looking forward to seeing the new biz
That economy cabin (which is where 90+% of the passengers will be stuck) looks like torture! Truly awful; you're packed in like sardines. And to be packed in like that for 9-10 hours? It should be illegal under the Geneva Convention!
Hard pass on this.
Air Canada has been cramming 450 people into a 777 with just six bathroom for years.
A330-200s with 2-2-2 seating in Business Class is a loser, not “similarly comfortable” to reverse herringbone on other A330-200s, like AAs or DLs with a 1-2-1 configuration.
It’s nice to see recliners being replaced by flat beds, though I must say that this is my second least favorite all-aisle access seat, better only than conventional herringbones. Their footwells are quite restrained and half the seats have no privacy at all. Flew them on TAP A339 and arrived with some bruises on my shins, from moving around during sleep. Maybe it will be better in a 777, with its wider cabin, but I don’t think that they are in the same league as reverse herringbones.
Lucky:
I did not see any mention of seat pitch of the PE and Y seats in your post. Any idea what it's going to be, as it's a major factor in how many seats you can cram into the cabin
What I find shocking is the ability to add more seats in economy using the same space.
I can't see how this density can pass the evacuation constraints in real emergency not certification charades.
It makes sense for high density economy since the destinations the plane will be flying is not business destination instead leisure or vacation destinations and people travel as family in those destinations, they dont have that much premium cabin demand for those routes since vacation is always budget conscious for most folks so economy class they can have more revenue
Air France's CEO should be severely fined and removed for retiring large aircraft and using twin engines.
well its a 32 inch standard economy pitch right now they could find a few spare inch's maybe drop half an inch per seat and there you have a new row added.
Let us know when they figure out a way to stop losing business class luggage -- or at least some way to tell you where it is. Maybe then I'll fly AF again. No matter how nice they make the business class cabin, it makes a miserable trip when they lose your luggage.
The A330-200 business class seat you show seems to be akin to the old Continental 2x2x2 business class which is okay but has little to no storage. The 777 by contrast has the side table and a cabinet to put things in which seems preferable. Am I mistaken? I mean any airline that is putting in "new" seats (A330 one unless I am mistaken in what the picture appears to show) without all aisle access seems destined for failure.
I still dream of one day trying La Premiere but otherwise will say non merci to Air France.
Over 400 in the back sounds ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE SARDINES COME TO MIND...NUTS AND ONLY 14 BIZ seats crazy,,,,,hope i never have to see this personally.
It will be interesting to see omhow comfortable the seats are on the refresh. I have only flown economy and PE on AF and without question the Current AF 777 economy seats are the worst I have flown on any airline. The thigh support is short and slopes forward. Torture on a long haul flight. Next flight is in la premier in July from SFO to CDG (looks like AF will no longer send the A380 to SFO in the summer as they had due to the impending retirement). I’m eager to see if I’ll get the refresh or current business class, but regardless looking forward to the dining experience and service. There’s just something about AF and the aire of sophistication when flying them.
Air France chose to have a completely different product on their A330's because they mainly operate leisure routes and routes to parts of Africa. While there is demand on those routes it's mainly focused on economy so there was no real incentive to introduce a whole new product when there isn't incentive.
Is there an update on how many of the planes have been reconfigured with the new seats?