Airbus has submitted a request to the FAA. to allow it to put business class suites with doors on Airbus A321neo narrowbody aircraft.
The proposed cabin for the A32neo ACF (U.S. operator) is a three class cabin layout with respectively 16 Business Class seats / 12 Premium Economy Class seats / 120 Economy Class seats (148 passenger seat layout).
Current DeltaOne Suite
Installing doors on business class seats actually requires exemption from federal regulations that are in place banning doors inside passenger cabins.
- There are no doors between coach and business class cabins, there are curtains, for a reason – facilitating evacuation of the aircraft.
- And doors on business class seats are… doors inside the passenger cabin.
This is clearly for Delta to install its DeltaOne product in the cabin. Neither United nor American will be putting lie flat seats into the neo:
- American Airlines plans to put lie flat seats with doors on its Airbus A321XLRs when those are delivered.
- United Airlines plans lie flat seats on its A321XLRs and on some Boeing 737 MAX 10s, possibly with doors.
American Airlines Narrowbody Suite
JetBlue has lie flat seats on Airbus A321neos, however:
- JetBlue doesn’t offer premium economy, and Airbus is outlining a plan for a plane that does
- The filename includes “DAL” which is clearly Delta Air Lines”
If Delta gets the neos ETOPs certified they might use these for short transatlantics from New York or Boston. However I’d expect that they’ll be used on domestic premium routes, especially to replace Boeing 757s currently operating there.
This will improve the experience on BOS to SFO and JFK to SFO, which are currently flying A321neo in the 2X4 first class and 757, respectively…
@Anthony
Delta previously served BOS-SFO (and BOS-SEA) with flatbed-equipped 757s but pulled them. So there’s no guarantee those routes would see Delta One service again when the new A321neos arrive.
United will also be pulling flat beds from BOS-SFO (spring schedule is loaded as all 737Maxes from BOS to both SFO and LAX) so DL may not feel the competitive need for D1 on that route- only B6 is running flat beds there.
Doors are popular but I find they are not necessary to have a great business class. It’s not like I want to masturbate behind a door.
If the designers want curtains, it would be fine with me.
When there are doors, the seat area becomes a bit more private but is small. I wonder if there will ever be a market for a first class room.
@ Gary — Wow, something potentially premium from Premium Airline.
Hmmm. . .DL following AA and UA lead. Climbing or following?
I’ve never understood the need or desire for doors. Especially when the airline can simply offset the rows. (E.g the window seats are 1/2 row ahead of/behind the middle seats).
What are people doing on their flights? Why do they think they are so interesting that someone wants to look at them?
The only time I find doors to have value is when a person has their shade open and the sunlight is blazing a hole into my eyeballs.
Because Delta is competing with some really good airlines. 🙂
Sunviking82 how is Delta following AA and UA, they will only offer it on international flights, Delta’s would be domestic.
This may sound silly but I sometimes wonder why they can’t install some kind of curtain/blind if people want privacy. They would be far less complex and lighter than doors and achieve the same level of privacy (in fact more if they were full height) and also not require this FAA exemption talked about.
It’s good to see layflat seats in narrowbodies.More airlines should be installing them.
DCA-LAX flies the b757s daily which offers Delta One which I’m flying in a few days . Super excited for the new config of neos.
@Michael that’s incorrect. AA’s 50 XLR aircraft will be flying both domestic transcon & international routes as they’re replacing the 16 321T sub fleet. I would think UA would be doing the same thing replacing its 75S & 75B with XLR’s.
It appears to me that DL is setting up the A321neo for some thin international flights as well as prime domestic. However I did not notice any seats allocated to Comfort +.