BA6948

Apparently BA has applied new patents for seats designs for CW, WTP+ and WT. According to this new patent, CW will keep the ying/yang config but give everyone a direct access to the aisle by adding space between rows. Another novelty is a private family cabin in WTP+.

http://skift.com/2015/03/03/new-seat...pe-will-fly/#1

themapelligroup

CW looks a good improvement to me, with direct aisle access and more space.
WT is good as well, but hey that's economy and I don't think it will be a huge pleasure to fly on no matter how the seat is. Actually if they removed the IFE boxes, as I think they're doing or going to do, that would be a good improvement of passengers' comfort.
Regarding WTP I'm not sure ying-yang is the best option: it's not like CW where you have a divider, so when reclined you would face a stranger if flying solo. Let alone the proposed, and I'd say unlikely, "family box" would be a huge waste of space and a cause for problems: there's not a personal foot space, each time one would need to fight for his. It's unlikely a family of four will always be on board and since BA isn't going to fly empty seats I wouldn't particularly pleased to sit at a table with strangers for hours.

aceman

Interesting, I wonder how many CW seats they'll lose with this. I assume though they'll still fit in more then herringbone. Seems like a good compromise.

I assume the 'table for 4' thing will never make it off the ground, or they'll have to incorporate some sort of conversion thing for the two rear facing seats, which I doubt since they'd have to faff about with it each turnaround.

KARFA

There has been a lot of discussion about this one and other BA patent applications in this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...vealed-21.html

As you can see there are many different designs covered by a number of patent applications which are gradually being published and open for us to see. Also there may be further applications as yet unpublished (they can remain unpublished for the first 18 months).

Who can say which one will actually make it to a seat which actually appears on a BA aircraft.

windowontheAside

The family group design has been mooted by several airlines but I struggle to see how it could work in practice.

It's bad enough negotiating shared legroom with a stranger on a train for 2 hours - I can't imagine how it could work on a longhaul flight.

And what happens to the family of 5? or 3?

As airlines are under increasing pressure to fill every seat this seems like a pretty pointless complication. It seems to create more problems that it would solve.

TeflonMan

Note the 72" bed length on the line drawing of the business class seat.
That'd be 4" too short for me personally and certainly not an improvement on the current product.

Internaut

Regarding IFE boxes, I suspect a lot of airlines will start replacing the seat back monitors with network/power connected Android tablets. This has been Brussels Airlines approach, and it works quite well (and is probably cheaper than the nasty little screens you get in Y, on BA).

UKtravelbear

BA might not be planning on introducing this at all and have applied for the patent to stop other airlines from implementing it.

Internaut

More business for the district court of West Texas?

DrBernardo

The patent as I understand it is actually about a more flexible system for installing seats on aircraft, rather than the seating arrangements per-se. There's a whole load of guff about extra mounting rails etc at the beginning.

An argument might be that they could flexibly configure a cabin at reasonably short notice for customer demand on the day.

I suspect that what is in the patent would still be too complex/time-consuming to be adjusted on a per-flight basis, but might be more easy to do overnight/during an engineering input, or during some planned downtime at the start of eg a holiday season.

I'm curious whether they ever considered implementing a sort of revolving seat approach, similar to what you get on the shinkansen in Japan, where at the touch of a handle a bank of three (or, on an aircraft, maybe 2) seats could revolve to face the ones behind. Obviously on the train this is done so that everyone can face in the direction of travel, but it works equally well to accommodate family groups...

Suspect the mechanism might be a bit heavy for an aircraft though.

dddc

By issuing all these patents, does it effectively stop any other airline from using these types of seats - unless of course they pay BA royalty rights?

KARFA

They are only applications so far so not yet granted. The process from filing to grant typically can take 3-5 years. This doesn't prevent you working your invention in the meantime. You can't take any action against anyone else until the application gets granted. The scope of protection is not set until the applications are granted, typically you need to restrict/amend when the application is examined.

The general idea is that once they bget examined and granted they would stop someone else doing waht is defined in the claims in a country where you had the patent. One way to overcome this is for a third party to obtain a licence for access to the patent. An example of this are teh NCW and NGCW patents from BA which were granted, are currently in force, and do prevent others from doing what is claimed:

This looks like the patent family covering NGCW - NGCW - will run until December 2026 if they keep renewing it.

There was an earlier patent NCW (original CW flat bed seat), will run until October 2019 if they continue to renew it.

MarkedMan

That would be East Texas, Marshall to be precise

kanderson1965

Perhaps the reversible seating they used to have on old trams is more BA.

corporate-wage-slave

To avoid showing your age, it is best to refer to the seating on Hong Kong ferries - including the Star Ferry - which if you push the top section in a particular way reverses the direction of seating to face either direction. This practical design is still in daily use.