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. We know British Airways' first A350 will be flying within…
Continue reading: British Airways Revealing New Club World Seat Tomorrow
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
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.
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.
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...
"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.
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.
@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.
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).
It looks as good as BA's F, although the soft product in F will still be much better.
@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.
Their tax = Negative. Not the way to fly.... no matter how perfect the seat may be.
Excited to see this seat on their new 777X, which will likely fly routes that the 747 and A380 currently do.
@ 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.
@The Nice Paul. Yes. The tax to keep tourists out of the UK is working. I will travel to Portugal or France instead.