New First class retrofit info

Old Aug 28, 2010, 12:32 pm
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New First class retrofit info

[Mod note on]For up-to-date information please see http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...it-thread.html[mod note off]


The new First class retrofit to the rest of the Airbus fleet (65 aircraft) will last up to 5 years due to 3 weeks ground time required for an aircraft retrofit.
It is not viable to pull several aircraft from the service for a parallel retrofit.

In Winter 2010/2011 only one A343 and two A346 will get a new First class.

Since the new First class cabin can not be replicated 1:1 from A380, seats will look the same at first glance, but will be slightly modified for the rest of the Airbus fleet, they will keep overhead compartments, and toilets will get a new design, but not the size (for obvious reason)..

Last edited by totti; Feb 27, 2012 at 2:12 pm
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Old Aug 28, 2010, 12:39 pm
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5 years?? Oh my God...
Other Airlines manage this in half the time.
Now F pax will have seat lottery for years to come, just like we had in C.
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Old Aug 28, 2010, 12:49 pm
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At the same time they could retrofit those planes with new C seating, so we do not have to wait 5 + 5 years to have them in all the fleet.
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Old Aug 28, 2010, 12:55 pm
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Ah, but they cannot start retrofitting C until the 748i is launched, whenever that may be!
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Old Aug 28, 2010, 12:59 pm
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Originally Posted by Rambuster
5 years?? Oh my God...
Other Airlines manage this in half the time.
Now F pax will have seat lottery for years to come, just like we had in C.
On the bright side, LH is unlikely to block their "new, special" F on the Airbus for non-status pax and *A awards if they dont know which aircraft will be used.
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Old Aug 28, 2010, 1:12 pm
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Originally Posted by Rambuster
5 years?? Oh my God...
Other Airlines manage this in half the time.
Now F pax will have seat lottery for years to come, just like we had in C.
........i wonder which airline would that be?!?
SQ or EK with who know hows many differnet products around.......i bet they don't even know.
LH has quite sizable long-haul fleet which consists of 98 aircraft at the moment and anyone expecting such a retrofit to be done in a two winter periods knows very few about aviation.

Originally Posted by saviox
At the same time they could retrofit those planes with new C seating, so we do not have to wait 5 + 5 years to have them in all the fleet.
that will most likely happen from some point after delivery of B748i
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Old Aug 28, 2010, 1:40 pm
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how long are the A343's planned to stay for?

I assume the retrofit is being done during planned maintenance periods, as I cannot see a viable business case for taking an aircraft out of service for 3 weeks just for the F seats?
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Old Aug 28, 2010, 2:00 pm
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First of all, thank you very much for once again for giving us the inside information! ^^

For the plan itself, it is rather a shame to take that long. I don't think it took United that long to get the new seats in and their fleet is certainly larger.

So this winter, they only spend 9 weeks (if one by one) to refit aircraft with new seats? Kind of inefficient, isn't it? I assume the total downtime for C/D checks for the airbus fleet during the winter period is definitely longer.

Lufthansa, once again, very disappointing. Hopefully, they will rethink and reschedule.
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Old Aug 28, 2010, 2:08 pm
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Interesting on LH F product. More importantly when is LH getting their act together & doing full-flat, 180 degree business seats - comparable to BA or Virgin?
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Old Aug 28, 2010, 2:12 pm
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Originally Posted by US-Expat
Interesting on LH F product. More importantly when is LH getting their act together & doing full-flat, 180 degree business seats - comparable to BA or Virgin?
Discussed here many times before. It will come on the new Boeing 748-i.
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Old Aug 28, 2010, 2:20 pm
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Another LH flaw: by the time they finish retrofitting the whole fleet with the new First class seats, these seats will be obsolete and LH need to come up with new F/C seats to match other airlines whom will be ahead of LH in ages with their first class seating at that time
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Old Aug 28, 2010, 3:00 pm
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Originally Posted by supermasterphil
first of all, thank you very much for once again for giving us the inside information! ^^
+1

Originally Posted by supermasterphil
lufthansa, once again, very disappointing. Hopefully, they will rethink and reschedule.
+1
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Old Aug 28, 2010, 3:05 pm
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Thanks for the info. ^

I'm glad they're starting now at least. If they'll get a good reaction from paying customers I'm sure it'll move along sooner...
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Old Aug 28, 2010, 5:20 pm
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Originally Posted by supermasterphil
First of all, thank you very much for once again for giving us the inside information! ^^
+1 ^

Originally Posted by LH/LX
Another LH flaw: by the time they finish retrofitting the whole fleet with the new First class seats, these seats will be obsolete and LH need to come up with new F/C seats to match other airlines whom will be ahead of LH in ages with their first class seating at that time
Why? I cannot see why they should be obsolete in 5 years. What new features do you expect other airlines' F seats will have in 5 years' time? LH has deliberately decided not to have suites or showers in its F cabin. Just because the current F seats have long passed their sell-by date it doesn't follow the new F seats will be obsolete in a few years.
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Old Aug 28, 2010, 11:17 pm
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Originally Posted by NewbieRunner
Why? I cannot see why they should be obsolete in 5 years. What new features do you expect other airlines' F seats will have in 5 years' time? LH has deliberately decided not to have suites or showers in its F cabin. Just because the current F seats have long passed their sell-by date it doesn't follow the new F seats will be obsolete in a few years.
Agree, this will be the F seat for 10+ years and not obsolete in 5.

Lets see how quickly the conversation really goes. Obvisoulsy with 50 A34X they need to do 10 a year to be finished in 5 years. If they really only can do one at a time then the theoretical minimum time they could do would be a total fleet conversation in 3 years.
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