intuition

Difficult to tell, as AY's new seat maps are more of schematics - the old maps were much more detailed with every window visible and so on.

Lappe

The armrest rises to provide some isolation from the aisle, assuming the configuration does not wildly deviate from what CX is using in their LH cabin.

SPBanker

Yeah, in this pic you can see the armrest up: https://gallery.finnair.com/material...0986e7bc752e01.

intuition

Yes, it does offer some isolation.


Just for those who don't know CX old herringbone, here is a pic that might reveal what I mean by being with the head away from the aisle and being very much in solitiare


And all you ever see while seated is this..

or the FA, who can adress you facing each other.
Another + with this seat up is that you don't have your feet next to someone elses head, ie if you get a sleep-kicking neighbour, you won't notice.

ffay005

Last summer, I flew the AA 773 in J. The seat, Zodiac Cirrus III, is supposed to be the same as AY's new J seat, but AA seemed more private than what the AY pics now show. Is my memory failing me or is the AA version modified to be more private?

Benzin

I mostly agree but from a different perspective. Very solitaire. Like in a box And if you are travelling with someone, you won't see him/her either. Impossible to have a conversation. I find the service over your feet a bit unpleasant, competing head to head with the BA privacy screen service... Just a matter of opinion I know.

I have to disagree on the "all you ever see" part. (Sorry I have no account I could link the image from, I did read the FAQ.) You also see the feet of the neigbour one row in front of you. On your pic it's fine. On my flight I looked at hairy bare feet from mid thigh down to toes for hours. In my view the feet were practically floating on my plate, yuck.

(I have to say I have not yet travelled on the reversed herringbone.)

Ed Size

What would be the best seating option for a couple traveling together on the AY 350 - if one really likes to sit on the window.

intuition

The flight deck...

Seriously, there are no good options for couples and window seats, but 1A (and 1H) has a slightly lower slant (is facing more straight ahead than other seats) IIRC from the blueprints. Seated in 1A and 1D you'd be closes to each other, but you will need some serious head-twisting to see each other.

However, it now looks like the rows are not aligned - 1D is closer to the front than 1A.

I think the design mandates couples in D/G.

intuition

Even worse, I see my own feet!

(Video of CX old herringbone B747 upstairs.)



Luckily they turn down the lighting later on

remymartin

AA 77W is reverse herringbone, so by definition more private. Looking at these pics, I cannot fathom why not choose reverse?

FWIW - I flew AA 77W J last week and was very impressed with the hardware.

ffay005

I am comparing the pic in this post http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/23712252-post29.html and the seat map from Seatguru http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Ame...777-300_ER.php and to me it seems that the seating is exactly the same on both AA and AY, ie they face the same way. Is there something here that I don't understand?

The AA 77W J seat is really good – I was equally impressed when I tried it last June. AY actually canceled my direct flight and put me on AA from LHR instead. That time, the LHR transit was a breeze and the new J, which came as a complete surprise to me, actually made the reroute a positive thing.

remymartin

My bad, I was looking at the CX pictures posted above.

ffay005

No problem! I still think the AA (window) seat felt more private than the AY one looks. I wonder if my memory just fails me. What's your assumption, based on your recent AA flight + the AY pics?

remymartin

I think it's difficult to say based on professional pictures. Once you sat down, the AA seat felt private, but when arriving inside the aircraft, the main J cabin felt huge. And it kind of is - 11 rows in the main section.

AY is offering less rows, which gives the cabin a more private feeling overall. And as long as boarding is through the mid-door, it's a clear cut between walk of shame and new J

intuition

With more airlines announcing their A350 configs, it turns out that AY has one of the most dense configurations. 297 pax in total is second to last, only VN's 305 is worse. But AY also offers more seats in J than any other A350 operator, so those 297 really must be packed very very tightly.

I tried to compare seat maps (below) but apparently the airlines decided to give themselves some artistic freedom rendering their maps.
QR renders the cabin wider than AY (airplanes scaled to same length, QR's A350 is wider), probably to look more roomy.

But also, comparing the positions of the doors, AY seems to have lengthened the back part of the aircraft, while QR has lengthened the front part. Ie, AY want's to give an illusion of better pitch in Y, while QR wants to create that illusion in J.


So I arrived at this comparison, where I scaled the two seatmaps so that doors 2 and 3 aligns. This also make the divider between Y and J to align. (You can then see doors 1 and 4 misalign to create the illusion of each cabin being bigger. With any 2 doors alinging, the other doors will misaling ie none of the original renderings were true to the scale of the plane, and this is my "best fit")






With the assumption that the divider is at the same location in both planes, then AY packs 46 J seats into the same area that QR has 36. However, QR has more Galley space between door 1 and divider. AY has more toliets in the area though.

Then behind the divider, AY has 251 pax and QR 247. Not a big difference in numbers, but because AY has the "extra-legroom-Y" the normal Y will have worse pitch compared to QR.


Running a tight ship suddenly has a new meaning!