A brand new business-class cabin is coming to Air France’s fleet of Airbus A350s — or a minimum of, a few of them.
The airline launched a brand new business-class seat for its A350 in the course of the Plane Interiors Expo in Hamburg, Germany, this week; it’s a nearly similar product to the one it just lately launched for its Boeing 777 fleet.
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The brand new business-class cabin will characteristic 48 seats, specified by a 1-2-1 reverse herringbone configuration, in response to the airline. Compared, the airline’s present A350 business-class cabin has 34 staggered business-class seats.
The brand new seats characteristic sliding doorways, loads of space for storing and automatic window shades.
There is a catch, although: The brand new seats are solely coming to newly delivered A350s from Airbus. The airline doesn’t plan to return and retrofit the fleet it already flies.
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The airline presently flies 20 A350-900s and has 21 extra on order. The primary will likely be delivered and put into service in July with the brand new cabin.
This complicates issues for passengers who might want to look intently to see which sort of A350 their flight will likely be on. The brand new configuration holds a complete of 292 passengers — 48 business-class seats, 32 premium financial system seats and 212 financial system seats — in comparison with 324 passengers within the present cabin — 34 business-class seats, 24 premium financial system seats and 266 financial system seats.
With such a big capability mismatch, that might be a logistical nightmare within the occasion of kit swaps. This means that the airline will likely be unable to make use of the brand new A350s interchangeably with the previous ones. It’s unclear whether or not Air France plans to function the brand new jets as a separate subfleet.
Regardless, the brand new premium-heavy configuration means extra business-class and premium financial system seats coming to some routes, so there will likely be extra alternatives to chase award flights or upgrades.
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