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Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Air France's lousy update of business class

Air France has launched a new business class (L'Espace Affaires) seat on its latest Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.  The publicity material indicates the following improvements on the existing seats:
- New integrated fixed footrest;
- New relaxation positions allowed for takeoff and landing with footrest extended;
- Softer headrest;
- More storage;
- Easier to use seat controls;
- Longer structure (over two metres in length) and now 61cm width;
- New 15 inch 16:9 ratio inflight entertainment screen (which also launches a new AVOD entertainment system with USB interface);
- Improved hard shell design with more privacy;
- Multi-standard power sockets.

Air France new business class in full sleep mode

The video is here showing the layout of the new business class on the 777.

All very nice right? Well, except for one point.  It remains an angled lie flat seat.  
When will Air France catch up with its competitors?  With US carriers such as United/Continental and Delta moving towards fully lie flat business class, fully lie flat now being rolled out among the big Gulf carriers like Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways, fully lie flat on Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific, let alone the likes of British Airways, does Air France think this remains competitive?  Is the soft product that much better?  I don't think so.

Admittedly, continental European airlines have been slow in moving to fully lie flat seats in business class, but today Iberia, Swiss, Finnair and even Alitalia have either fully or partly rolled out fully lie flat in business class.  Is it that Air France has the French-based premium traffic so well sewn up in terms of corporate contracts that it can continue to be sub-standard in business class seating?

The aircraft to be retrofitted includes the 777 fleet (those with business class), Airbus A380s and A330s.   Airbus A340s are not to be retrofitted, nor are Boeing 747s (the latter are due to be replaced with A380s).

So a nice upgrade, but Air France still can't be said to be up to the standards of many of its competitors.   Will it take Lufthansa (which also has an angled lie-flat product) to go fully lie flat for Air France to do so?  Will it take a lot more of Air France's customers to choose competing airlines?

Air France has a reasonable soft product, reasonable lounges, including an arrivals lounge at Charles de Gaulle Airport, but if business class for you is about getting a good night's sleep, then you might be looking at other choices.

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