Tag Archives for business class.
American Airlines announced this morning that they’ll be moving to new business class suites with doors, putting more premium seats into planes, and eliminating their Flagship First Class product starting in 2024.
Installing doors on business class seats actually requires more than just FAA approval – the way nearly everything on a plane does. It requires an actual 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.
Air Mauritius business class isn’t something we see reviewed often, so I was happy to hear from reader Doug Hess after his recent trip. I can count on one hand the number of contributors I’ve featured on this blog. I write every post myself, but over the course of 20 years have had three people share trip reports with experiences very different than my own that seemed really interesting. Doug is one of those, sharing his experience flying African low cost carrier Fly540 and Flying Air Tanzania’s Airbus A220 from Lusaka to Dar es Salaam. Why You Want To Know Air Mauritius Although better known to Europeans than Americans, Mauritius is a remarkable destination. Beautiful beaches, incredible mountain hiking, great scuba diving, and all the adventure sports one could wish for (sky diving, wind surfing,…
They’re considering putting doors on their narrowbody lie flat business class seats. And this seat would balance their desire for a top shelf product without taking up a lot of real estate on the plane – they could literally manage to offer less than 35 inches of pitch (distance from the same point on two seats) because of the angling of the seats even as they do just one seat on each side of the aisle since each seat turns into a bed facing outward at an angle from window to the aisle.
The seat would basically back up against the window. That means passengers would all ‘have’ windows but it wouldn’t be easy to look out the window. Instead their back would largely face the window with their feet facing the aisle. Seats would be positioned at an angle in a herringbone pattern. The Collins Aurora seat resembles the Thompson VantageSolo seat which JetBlue uses for their new Mint product.
Boeing is delivering 787s again and American Airlines has 25 of the 787-9 variant originally slated to start entering the fleet in 2023, but delayed. These 787-9s are exciting because American Airlines will debut a new business class seat with doors on this aircraft, and the plane will have more premium seats, and fewer seats overall.
I’m amazed at this LinkedIn post that is making the rounds on social media for its combination of humblebrag and pop wisdom, that still manages to come off as disingenuous and lacking self-awareness at the same time. Truly this discussion of traveling in business class on vacation, while leaving the kids in coach, is an impressive viral morsel.
Introducing the Thompson Vantage XL seat in 2016 was fantastic in 2016 when doors in business class was still a novelty. In 2022 it’s… okay, but something of an also-ran. The seat is tight. Not quite as tight as United’s Polaris, but certainly not spacious either. In terms of passenger space it compares unfavorably to American Airlines.
In spring 2019 Virgin Atlantic unveiled a new business class product that would debut on the airline’s new Airbus A350 aircraft. It was a leap forward compared to their existing seat, but hardly revolutionary, and lacked doors.
Now Virgin has unveiled yet another new business seat which will debut on Airbus A330s. They have 16 A330-900s on order, and 3 of them are expected to be delivered between September and the end of the year. With a narrower fuselage than he A350, their old new seat wouldn’t fit and they needed another.
At the end of 12 days in Australia, my wife, three year old daughter, and I were set to fly back to the States on United award tickets in business class, Sydney – San Francisco. Flight UA870 was operated by a Boeing 777-300ER, the airline’s largest aircraft, and every seat was booked.
Here’s the experience in a nutshell: United Airlines business class is (usually now) a better seat than the airline used to offer, but one with less space than you’ll find on Delta, American, Air Canada or Air France. United has good bedding, an the wifi worked on my flight, but the rest of the soft product from food to service was subpar.
Air Canada offers an excellent if dated business class product and is very competitive between North America and Australia. Food lacks somewhat on the post-11 p.m. departure and service was somewhat indifferent but it was a good flight overall.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
