Status of 777-200 fleet refurbishment/replacement?
 

Just looked back through 10 pages of threads and couldn't find one on the status of KE's 777-200ER fleet cabin refurbishment or aircraft replacement. IIRC, bobbybrown had good info on this, and the plan was to refurbish about half of the 772 fleet cabins to new fully flat in J, then let the rest get retired without doing a cabin refurbishment (not sure what would replace them).

Any current info appreciated.

I am scheduled on IAD-ICN-vv later this year, currently showing 772, likely Prestige Plus seats, pending refurb/replace.

It might actually be the Prestige Sleeper, at least in late Sep (which I happened to check because of some prospective travel on my part). What are your dates?

My dates are actually American Thanksgiving.

You're right. Come October, regardless of aircraft, all flights to N/S America other than Honolulu and Canada will have Prestige Sleepers and Kosmo Suites. HNL, YYZ, YVR will still be getting Prestige Plus and Kosmo Sleepers.

So now I'm just curious. What is KE's plan for refurbishing or replacing the half of the 772 fleet that was initially not going to get the refurbishments?

Those half 772s (9 fleets) still don't have any upgrade plan. Moving lavatory isn't what KE normally do when refurbishing, and angled flat to lie flat requires this job. They are used for less competitive or lower business demand routes such as HNL, Canada, SYD/AKL, and many European routes. Some of them are exclusively used for short hauls out of Gimpo airport.

In fact in last year, KE announced that some of 772 will be sold in 2014 or 2015 as a part of supporting parent company's financial trouble. Total 13 fleets (mix of 747 and 777) will be sold and KE is expecting to cash out 250M from it. No more detail has been announced yet.

Thanks, bobbybrown.