Dynastar

I have a seat booked on ANA 1077 SEA-NRT on October 10th, and when I logged in to change my seat today I received a popup that said "The aircraft of your schedualed to be changed. Kindly please be advised that the seat you pre-assigned through the current seat map may change." I searched the forums but didn't see anything about this flight changing. I'd hate to miss out on the 787, does anyone know anything about this change?

armagebedar

This is a standard disclaimer in case an aircraft needs to be swapped due to weather, mechanical trouble, or other operational requirements -- though ANA also puts this up if the route is scheduled to have a change regardless of whether it impacts your reservation.

BalbC

Might be a possible hi/lo density 787 swap as sometimes happens.

dmodemd

787 was swapped to 3-3-3 version with the very tight seats. You lost your seat assignment and they picked a new, likely less desirable one. See my post on the thread about that config.

Dynastar

Luckily I'm front so my seat was unaffected, thanks for explaining the message though.

bocastephen

Oh, calamity!

Just checked our return flight NRT SEA next week and it's been changed to the new HD config. We need to work the following day and there is no way I can see us sleeping in these seats as they are barely 17" across with that tight 31" legroom.

I don't think our fare class allows for upgrades, so we are waffling between resigning to try it, or one of the following:

1. refund the entire r/t ticket and start over - Air Canada would be $200 more, but they are now operating 767s to NRT from YVR and their seats are not much bigger, maybe only slightly.

2. find an award seat on another airline, but so far there are no saver awards open anywhere

3. Asiana has space for the same price, but I don't think their A330 seats are much better, and it's a short 1hr connection at ICN which adds risk. Going to HND via YVR is no better on ANA because the 767 seats are super small on that aircraft too.

We are not happy about this and it will probably put ANA on our permanent do-not-fly list, but we need to survive the flight back in these tiny seats somehow.

armagebedar

Just to clarify -- the seat pitch in Y on these aircraft should still be 34 inches.

dmodemd

everything documented online including with ANA says 31 inches.
Please email customer service to tell them about your dissatisfaction. If the product changed is different enough for them to give it a new product name (premium economy) then they should give us what we paid for!

bocastephen

As mentioned, these seats are slimback with 31" pitch. This change eliminates ANA as a TPAC option for us, permanently. We are actually considering canceling the tickets and rebooking on Air Canada.

At my TA, we were trying to move our unhappy UA Y traffic to NH on TPAC flights, but now there is no way we can do this if the 787 seats are going to be the same size and comfort as a CRJ200 - for 10-12 hours?? Are they insane?

armagebedar

Sorry, it does indeed seem that the 3-3-3 layout of the 788 has 31 inches of pitch. I've asked ANA HQ for clarification as it is nowhere on their website; moreover, they're using similar (the same?) seats on their 77Ws, but I would be very surprised if they're reducing the pitch of those as well.

BalbC

It is on the website
the new slimline seats on 787: https://www.ana.co.jp/wws/japan/e/as...seat/787_8_02/ these are ones in the 3-3-3 config and listed as 31". Though it isn't clear to the causal viewer. (also pTV screen reduced 10.6"->9" and footrest changed versus the previous sliders)
Whereas the slidey seats are listed as 34" or 31", for previous long haul layout and regional 787 respectively.

The pitch reduction let them put in an extra row on the int-HD-788, which made up for the loss of Y seats due to PY being put in. There are no extra rows on the 3-4-3 77W seat map so presumably the seat pitch remains at 34" (no page on the website yet about the slimline seats on 77W - though the one for the 788 took 6 months to appear). With slimmer seats this should mean increased legroom room on 77W, so might suit narrow long people

armagebedar

I always thought that page referred only to the intra-Asia short-haul configuration and not the long-haul version. How naive I was...! (Guess I should spend more time down the back of the plane )

ANA responded to me with similar information. Hopefully customer feedback will encourage them to revisit this decision. I've seen several comments in the Japanese blogosphere that have decried these new seats.

BalbC

The CAs usually enforce the curtain, so we don't get any riffraff wandering down from the front. And I'm not sure there is room for any more people back there anyway

It definitely isn't obvious from the website, unless you know that the slim seats are only on the long haul 3-3-3 788 (and now 77W too) so far. I can't imagine they want to refit the ones delivered as 2-4-2 (including the intra-Asia) too soon as they must already have piles of barely-sued slidey seats lying around from the early dom788 conversions. But it will be interesting to the layouts of new deliveries of intra-Asia 788, as it's a bit of an anomaly to have more a spacious layout on the regional config. To be honest, I'm not sure how bad the narrow seats are though as I still haven't sat in one. The fact that they are putting them onto the 77Ws suggests that their loads haven't suffered with them on 788s.

bocastephen

Can anyone offer advise as to how one can survive a 10hr redeye in these horrific new seats?

dmodemd

I am on NRT-SEA Thursday with my wife. I am going to be begging to every agent to get into PY but if unsuccessful, I will share any advice after I get home and make up the sleep I know I won't get on that flight.