British Airways' New First Class Coming To 787-9 Later This Year

Seeing as how BA F is already 4-across on the 777 and the 787 cabin is narrower, I'm guessing the final product will be underwhelming. They really should have introduced a completely new F cabin on the A380. I find the A380 seats do not make good use of the provided space.

Is BA seriously doing 3 across the middle in business on the 789?? That seems like they're going backwards, not forwards.

@ Graham -- I mean, this is the airline which also loves eight across seating in business class, so suppose that's not all that surprising.

@ Arcanum -- I certainly could be wrong, though it sort of sounds to me like these may be forward facing seats rather than reverse herringbone seats, in which case they could be more spacious. Again, I may very well be wrong.

@Lucky- I guess I'm more surprised to see this occurring with a NEW delivery given the airline industry's move as a whole to herringbone and reverse herringbone, which in turn, typically gives us the 4 across config. Oh well.

Aww no tip of the hat for me letting you know on twitter 🙁

@Lucky - I'd be VERY surprised if these were forward-facing seats. Again, 4-across is what most airlines have for F on the 777, and that's in a wider cabin. If you look at Etihad's 787 F cabin (which I believe is the only 787 F out there) they've got 4-across seating, but they alternate forward- and rear-facing seats, with the seats narrowing at the feet in order to fit. That's the only model I can see working besides the reverse herringbone, which as you said is really more of a J product.

I flew BA First yesterday on the 777 and the 747, from Dubai to Heathrow connecting to JFK (on one of the Austin mistake fares.) The 777 is tolerable but the 747 is reallllly poor. Almost no overhead storage in rows 1 and 2, and an ancient, glitchy IFE system with a much more limited selection than on the 777 (I was bummed I couldn't finish the second half of the movie I'd watched on the previous flight.) BA's service is all over the place. Outstanding on the first flight from a burly Scot named Gordon, but terse and schoolmarmish on the second.

Ah well. It was worth it for the flight out in an Etihad Apartment 😉

Eh....I'm a pretty big guy, and I loved flying first on a BA 747 last year.

I was on a completely full JFK-LHR flight in F with all 14 seats filled, and felt the service was fantastic. Granted half the passengers went to straight to sleep, which probably helped things, but the crew was extremely attentive, and seemed to enjoy interacting with the passengers that were awake. Compared to a LHR - SFO flight that I did with only 5 passengers in F, I did not notice a difference any difference in service standards on a daytime flight. While I agree it's not the glitziest product, I feel that BA has a solid offering, that at least outdoes any US based carrier.

The eye-level locker sounds an awful lot like the AA/CX reverse herringbone business class seating configuration, so it wouldn't be surprising if they maintain something like their reverse herringbone-ish design. Though, that design isn't a very efficient use of space in a 2-row cabin, so maybe for that reason alone they've decided to do something more rectangular.

Boo, more BA bashing! They are pretty much the only airline in the world which runs a profitable First Class cabin, largely thanks to the denser configuration and less extravagant soft product than other carriers who run First Class at a loss because of the supposed halo effect it has on the rest of the business. BA's First Class fares are also comparatively lower than the likes of Lufthansa, Cathay, Air France etc and there is MUCH more award availability and it is more easily accessible.It's never going to be the most extravagant or luxurious First Class but that's not what they're going after and you won't see them largely abandoing First Class as AA, TAM, etc have.

@PT

No it's as Lucky says a very good J, not a F.

It's very easy to sell a product for a lower price than your competitors when your are selling is in really life a different class of product. If BMW sold as their top model the 5 series and claimed that it was the same as MB S-Class their price would also be lower, but the product sold would be not as good even if the 5-series are great cars.

Seven across on a 787 is what Norwegian uses for their Premium economy. To put a J cabin like this into a new fleet of 789 in 2015 is crazy, can understand a airline that already have a large fleet of a aircraft type doing this if they just have a few planes left on a order. But on a complete new fleet? No way.

@PT - I think the profitable F cabin has more to do with BA's wealthy customer base. Having all those rich expats and City boys with their cushy expense accounts probably goes a long way towards filling the cabin, especially since those types prioritize non-stop flights over product. It's the same reason F sells well on CX out of HKG and SQ out of SIN.

@ PT -- What makes you say their first class cabin is profitable?

@EthaninSF - "that at least outdoes any US based carrier"

I love BA, but you're setting an awfully low bar here. 🙂

Ugh, they're keeping their horrendously outdated business class where you have to crawl over a sleeping stranger to get to your seat, and risk getting a middle seat too?!

They need to update their business class more than their first class. They need to move to reverse herringbone.

Soooo, basically they're going for a nicer version of AF new business class seat?

It's easy to say X number across is business, is the same as X number across in another airline's premium economy... but X across means nothing on a seat map. What is the total area that the cabin occupies? Have you compared that? Clearly, the head of each seat in BA Club is not aligned. Yes, both Club and FIRST are dense configurations, but comparisons need to be a bit more logical!

I have mixed feelings about BA's business class. On one hand, I love the privacy of the window seats. Nobody can see you. On the other hand, I hate having to climb over somebody to get up and go to the bathroom.

I'm expecting to see it turn into more of a qantas first layout, however a bit narrower than that, but wider then BA's current first.

I guess it's the same one that CZ and CA uses for their 1st class cabin on 77W. (Actually I hope..)

Thanks to the mistake fare from Germany to KUL I just booked a trip on the new 787 F for New Year's. So let's hope those seats turn out great!

I booked ewr-lhr for July in 789 first, seat map on ba.com shows all 8 seats forward facing hope it's a great product.