New seat trial on ATR

I flew CHC-DUD this morning (before the fog closed the Airport) and the ATR I flew on had two rows of new grey seats (17AB 16AB). I was allocated one of the old seats but overheard the flight attendant talking to those seated in these that they were trial seats that AIR NZ were considering for the ATR. Those seated in them were asked to complete a questionnaire with their opinion of the seats. I must say, they are an interesting design, a lot thinner than the current style with a curved back that allowed for at least a couple more inches of leg room. normally row 17 is very tight, however the average height guy sitting there had plenty of room between his knees and the seat back in front of him.

Unfortunately I completely forgot to grab the rego of the aircraft I flew on as I was in a hurry to get into the city. Has anybody else encountered these seats?

The new A320 seats are supposed to have a curved back that give extra legroom...

They announced at the roadshow that they would be trialing new seats on the ATR before refitting them with the new seats. I usually don't fly on the ATR's, and try to avoid them if i can :P

I was on the same aircraft this evening CHC to DUD.......

According to the Flight Attendant this is the only aircraft with the four seats on it, 16AB and 17AB..........

Didn't have time to try them out, but they looked a step IMHO.

Am flying in the ATR on saturday from wellington and have just selected row 17 so hopefully I will strike my luck!!

Was on a DUD-WLG flight on this ATR. Didn't sit in the new seats but saw the man in row 17 trying out the recline, which wasn't that many inches but is better than nothing I assume row 16 had recline capability too but didn't see it used. I'll hopefully get a chance to actually sit in the seats this sunday.

Just had a normal atr today, unlucky. But, a guy sitting opposite me got removed from the aircraft for not matching the name on his ticket, ground staff actually came onboard asking him to step off and removed him. he had 'no' ID and was on a females ticket haha he didn't have time to change the name on the ticket , even though airnz told me you couldn't do that with them

so much for gate security. how did he get to the plane in the first place?

ZK-BEU

I wonder what happens to these people? Like do they get the cops invloved?

I'm guessing the attendent scanning the tickets would have picked up on it when boarding and rather than they confront the man, wait till he was on the plane and get some security to go with incase it got nasty? Gee that woulda been a walk of shame.

From what I can gather, the guy had just printed the e-ticket out. He scanned it and just walked through. The man at the scanner thought it was weird, male on female ticket, and noted his seat number and wrote the proper name on the ticket on a piece of paper and the FA came along and asked the two people sitting in the row if it was either of them, and he's like no, and when asked if he had id he came out with all these excuses, and then after the FA talked to ground staff, the guy completely freaked out. FA comes back and says ground staff would like to have a 'little' talk with him inside, and then we left

Got a chance to sit in these new seats on a DUD-CHC flight tonight (17B). There's definitely more leg room - I can extend my legs maximally whereas that would not be possible in the old seats. There is a good amount of recline, but the flight attendant said that they might not include recline in the end because the the passenger sitting behind would be absolutely sandwiched if they had their tray down. Perhaps they could just include it for the last rows on the plane. One of the flight attendants had the new uniform on too. The colour really is much nicer than in the initial photographs released that generated such a hoo haa. She wished that they would get the new uniforms more quickly but they are going to have to wait a year.

I just got off ZK-MCJ, IVC-CHC. Sat in one of the new seats (17B). I've never liked the old ATR seats, so was looking forward to trying the new design. Interesting shape, it sort of curves forwards towards the bottom of the seatback. The benefit is a lot more knee room. The drawback was I found my back to be unsupported because of the angle of the upper half. Even sitting back in the seat, it somehow felt like I was sort of slouching. Also there was a fairly poorly padded metal bar in the headrest which wasn't ideal, though not too bad.

Overall very different to the status quo, though I'm not sure it's an improvement. Give me a Q300 seat any day!

I couldn't agree more.

Tried one of these seats a few weeks back and not at all impressed, especially the head rest as commented.

Not a step back, but not one forward really.

Interesting update to the seat trial...
I just flew CHC-NSN, and at Chch domestic this week there's a little room set up with a "Chooseaseat" sign outside. Inside, they have four different seat options set up - the status quo, the four seats which used to be on ZK-MCJ, and two other new options. If you try them all and fill out a survey you go in the draw to win 500 airbucks.

The lady manning the room was very friendly, we had a good chat about all the options. It turns out that the Q300 seats aren't certified for the ATR aircraft, which is why they aren't using the same seats, about which they get good feedback. The good news is that one option they have in there, which apparently is the most popular, I found to be a LOT more comfortable than either the existing seats or those grey ones they were trialling on ZK-MCJ ^