redslert

Looks like it still has a downward slope.
Not looking forward to it at all.

yerffej201

the visualization always looks better than the actual product lol.

sqyf

I have a flight SYD-SIN coming up in early December.

This press release from 29 Aug 2013 says that the new seats on the A330 will be introduced in "late 2014".

http://www.qantasnewsroom.com.au/med...b717-interiors

Have there been any further announcements on when the new seats will be introduced? Would anyone know if there are any A330 flights in December which will be operated by aircraft with the new seats?

Thanks in advance for any info.

serfty

I would think your chances are slim ... there may be one or two 330 flying around with the new seats but there would be plenty more still with the older products.

sqyf

Thanks, serfty!

If there are one or two, at least there is a small possibility. I was wondering if there was a formal announcement of the launch date that I missed. I also notice that there are no seatmaps of the new config available at qantas.com either.

expatboy

AusBT suggested that the SYD-SIN route would be a strong contender for an international launch. This is just idle speculation of course

QF seem to switch the A330s from route to route but I wonder if they will market and operate the new seats preferentially on one or two of the higher profile routes once they get a few airframes' refitted.

sqyf

Thanks for the link to the article, expatboy -- appreciated.

Agree it makes sense to market the new product on certain fixed routes, rather than making it a game of chance. If I knew I would get that product on SYD-SIN, it would definitely influence my choice of carrier.

merice107107

What do you guys think about possibilities of PER-SYD having this in July of 2015? I know these things don't happen over night but that seems like a good flight to have a nice new seat.

og

I would expect QF would prioritise the new 330 seats on international flights (eg HKG) to maintain market share (or minimise the reduction). Therefore, I would assume domestic flights to be the last to see the new seats.

djsflynn

Domestic will be first to see the A330 business suite, shortly followed by international (source = QF PR).

og

OK, that's interesting. Is the logic behind this to make sure all the seats work properly and then having a coordinated fleet-wide introduction - for a consistent product across many aircraft rather than the lottery that happened when SkyBed 1 was introducted? Good move if that indeed happens.

moa999

Or PR reasons,
Shorter flights with high aircraft utilisation (SYD/MEL-PER or even SYD-MEL) and front door boarding means lots more people get to see the new product.
And people talk.

djsflynn

I'm not privy to Qantas' rationale for this.

It could be operational, timed against availability of the domestic A332s vs international A333s for the refit.

It could be that the refit is faster on the 332s because it involves only the J cabin, whereas the 333s will also get new Y seats.

It could be because you'd expect the first refit to always take a bit longer.

It could be for PR/marketing reasons, as moa999 cannily suggests, because the shorter domestic legs can make for more flights as well as to more ports and thus much higher PR impact - with the upgraded jets running flights from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane on a rotated 'surprise and delight' schedule rather than being locked into a single city pair.

It could be for any combination of the above, or some other factor/s.

serfty

I would suggest it's more to combat VA Coast to Coast service - their 332's have better business seating than any Domestic Qantas service (including Skybed) at the moment; and VA's is only going to improve with the introduction of the 'Zodiac Cirrus' seat.

More here: Cirrus - Virgin Australia | Velocity - Flyertalk Forums

djsflynn

Well, the VA coast-to-coast angle seemed to fall into the realm of the bleeding obvious to me... And their alleged adoption of the Zodiac Cirrus seat remains unconfirmed at this stage, let's not promote it as 'fact' until Virgin does its reveal and we know the truth of it.