QatarA340

Good Afternoon Doha Time!

My friend recently traveled to Oman, and flew on a Qatar Airways A330 Business Class with the new 787 seats! My friend does not know anything about aviation; the only thing he told me was the "old' planes have been fitted with the "new" seats. From the pic I saw, the plane was A330, but I am not sure how many J seats were fitted or if the economy sections have been fitted as well.

QR has been very quiet about this news ever since they quietly announced that some A330 were going to be refurbished. I think they should announce this and promote it even.

What we know is 7 A332 are due to be refurbished:

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/art...vation-392630/

Anyone know any more information? Any QR community member here onboard?

QatarA340

InternationalLiving

Do you have the flight number and date? Then we might be able to figure out the aircraft reg

Maybe QR1130 on Jan 27th?

jousis

A7-ACF flown QR1130 @ 27/1 has being to maintenance in Zurich back in 2012. So probably is not that because the news would be out before.

My guess is A7-ACA flown QR1130 @ 17/1 who positioned to Zurich at 10/11/2013 according to theqatarsource.

A7-ACA is also the oldest A332.


But again... I'm just guessing

InternationalLiving

I'd put $10 on you probably being right there
The question is... did they also refurb the Y cabin?

However, I'm guessing that the A330s with First will not be refurbished, given they have not yet announced the new First product...

N1Rotate

The CEO has made statements to the press (Flight Global / Business Traveller mag) that some of the A330s and A320s will be reconfigured as well as the A340s. A7-ACA, A7-AEM are supposedly the first two and A7-AEA and A7-ACD are due out soon. All 3-class A330 and A340 will become two class. The A320 is getting a full flat seat. At least in the case of the A330-200 the update includes new economy seating, new IFE and connectivity.

Look at this thread on another website, user Flyboy_se has some photos of the new A320 and A330 products.

N1Rotate

Also from a previous post of mine:

From Flight Global published 21 OCT 2013

“We were supposed to [begin a roll-over] if Boeing had given us the aircraft on time. The roll-over will not begin for another two years, because we are so short of aircraft that A330s and A340s that were supposed to be phased out are going for a cabin refit,” says Al Baker.

InternationalLiving

Yea, I actually just remember seeing that and dug it up. I bet they'll keep the A330s at least another 5 years... they're not all that old, and still more fuel efficient than most other aircraft.

Interesting... I guess they will refurb some of the A330s (& A340s?) that have First only once the A380 is operating though, otherwise they would have a gap in service. Those new J seats look nice, and are presumably fully lie-flat. Also excited to try the refreshed economy... it should mean hopefully that the A330s are better than the 777s to fly in

N1Rotate

The first reconfigured A320s must be already flying as there is already a 12J / 120Y seat map on the booking system. For example VIE-DOH on 5 February.

fly747first

The F hard product is quite bad these days, looks ancient.

InternationalLiving

True... compared to other Asian/European carriers. But still better than most US offerings. I think the main point is that the hard product isn't much better than the J offering.

fly747first

Right, and even the F soft product isn't really much better than J.

QatarA340

So, 1 A332 and 1 A333 have been refitted so far? Any idea about the seat configuration? Those reverse herringbone seats surely take more space than the regular business class seats, right?

Do you have sort of a schedule or a precise number of how many will be refitted? The artcle says 7, but 7 out of 29 is a very low number. Whats the point?

N1Rotate

QatarA340,

The 7 aircraft press release is only for the A330-200 at SR Technics. I don't have a schedule as I don't work in Qatar Airways, am just going by the public sources and am very interested in knowing more as it will affect what flights I book in the next few months. In the past I have been trying to avoid the A330/A320 on longer flights as much as possible, especially the latter. The cradle seat is torture for anything more than a 4 hr day flight.

Through Flightaware/TheQatarSource you can see that A7-ACA has gone to Zurich for about a month and A7-ACD is currently there. A7-ACA used to be 3-class but after the reconfiguration it is 2-class showing a 2-2-2 business class with a total of 24 seats.

Again through Flightaware/TheQatarSource you can see that the A320s A7-AHR and A7-AHS have been reconfigured in Doha, each taking about 11 days, so it seems these are being done in-house.

Finally, through the same Flightaware/TheQatarSource the A330-300s are going to Singapore, A7-AEN and A7-AEM have already gone and A7-AEA has been there for about a month already.

The seating configuration for the reconfigured A330 on the booking system is showing 2-2-2 and not a reverse herringbone configuration which sort of matches the photos Flyboy_se have uploaded to the other website under your thread there. You mentioned that you saw a photo of a different seat from your friend that flew from MCT, did it look similar to what Flyboy_se posted?

It seems QR upgraded the A320 with a better product than the A330, one that more closely matches the 787 especially with the design language such as the grey fabric.

I just wish QR just comes out with a press release with photos and more details, as well as a section on the website describing their new products. It is so strange that they are not announcing the reconfiguration when other airlines trumpet the reconfiguration and publicise it before even the first aircraft are reconfigured.

QatarA340

Thank You all for your input!

Dont kill me please, but I reexamined the picture of my friend, and it was an A320. The reason I mistook the pic for an A330 was that he had 2 smaller pics of the seats and cabin near each other--and being a small mobile phone screen, it was hard to see what aircraft was it. But, it was definetly an A320.

AFAIK, all the A330 have the "latest" business 2-2-2 configuration which are almost 180 degrees flat. So, the ones in singapore might sport the 787 style seats.

You are absolutely correct at your concern of why they are keeping quiet about this whole thing. Perhaps they want to make a grand launch event at Hamad Airport--which they should start considering converting into an exhibition and function hall for the press since it will never open . (Im being sarcastic).

As far as the A320s, they should dedicate them to routes in Europe first (VIE should be the first destination, I think; followed by VCE, MXP, Rome)

stargold

Given the tendency for equipment swaps, you would never know until the day of travel anyway!

I'm not aware of any A330 that have the 77W/77L style 180 flat?