A340 refurbishment
 

Does anyone has any update on progress of A340 refurbishment? Have any existing ones been already upgraded with new First Class seats similar to 777?

no details on the timeline yet, but the First and business seats will be very similar to the 777, economy will have a new design. Obviously they will replace the entertainment system...

Any "enhancement" to the coach experience expected?

Same seating as in the A330, and a new IFE. The A330 has 8F/45C/183Y, the A340 'only' 8/47/164, so they will most certainly try to get in 10-19 extra Y seats.

was it intentional to keep 5 A340?
I thought they would have gone for an all A330+777 fleet for longhaul....

The A343 probably has the right mix of range and capacity for some routes, either where the B77W is too large or where the A333 doesn't have have the range. JNB might be a special case where the 4-engines allow LX to fly without payload restrictions.

Exactly! ^

Since LX, in contrast to LH, does not have any other 4-holers it could use on very long routes to/from hot and/or high airports, it makes sense to keep some of the A343, which also have about one third more range with maximum payload and thus can be used where the A333 don't have the legs.

And I personally like the idea of 4-holers over areas with few good alternate airports en route (like Africa) and over big bodies of water (like the South Atlantic).

Any updated news on the refurbishment schedule?

Just keeping this alive.

I understood that this would only happen 2018.

https://www.swiss.com/corporate/en/m...-20161007.html

"[...] The five remaining A340s will be so equipped in 2018, as part of their cabin refurbishment."

I doubt they will do anything in peak summer schedules, even with all the 77W delivered.

With OS now starting to fiddle around with Premium Economy soon (see http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/28525359-post588.html)

Any plans on LX's side to introduce PE on their longhaul planes, too?

There is for sure a market for that, especially in Switzerland. I doubt though that they'd risk cannibalizing the money making business class... But that is just IMO.

If they had such plans they'd have surely implemented it in the new 77W.

OTOH, the new 77W currently has one of the widest comfort gaps between Y and J.

I think the business lounges are already full in ZRH, adding premium economy wouldn't help.

Anyways, they won't add premium economy to just 5 planes. The 777s won't be refurbished for a while.