I’ve written about American’s process for selecting a new business class seat to debut on the Boeing 787-9s slated for delivery beginning in 2023. I’ve argued that the most likely seat is their current Super Diamond seat, adding doors. And a second option – the Adient Ascent seat – leaked.
However it seems that people who are part of customer focus groups looking at American’s new seat options are reporting that there are actually 3 seats under consideration, and some may even be suggesting they’ve been shown four seats. (I have to think that if a fourth option is being shown but only to some of the groups that it’s like some kind of control rather than a real choice under consideration.)
This, at least, is according to plugged-in American Airlines leaker JonNYC:
(Sorry; total of 3-4 seats all inclusive)
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) February 7, 2020
With this many people seeing the seats, if there’s a third option it won’t be long until we know what it is. Perhaps they’re showing more than one variation of the Adient Ascent seat.
By the way American is also demoing seats for coach and premium economy, and I believe this is the first time they’ve ever shown coach seats in advance to customers. (The current Oasis coach seat certainly wasn’t previewed this way and I was shocked when they brought it out at media and investor day.)
I hope they don’t go to black and grey like in the photos – so dystopian
The current beige and blue is soothing and upscale feeling
There are 4 seats being demo’d – two Adient Ascent formulations (one herringbone, one staggered), the existing Super Diamond (for control, I assume), and another Collins product that is reminiscent of Q-suites. All the option (save the the existing SD) have doors.
Adient seat is very clever. Agree that people are probably seeing 2 different configs of the Adient, plus the control seat thus getting 4x