Eurowings Launches First Budget “Business Class” Layflat Seat
Joe Cortez December 15, 2017
New premium offering billed as “first low-cost airline” business class in Europe
After purchasing parts of Air Berlin in their bankruptcy, Lufthansa Group has unveiled the next step of their plan to expand low-cost subsidiary Eurowings. In a bilingual press release, the German airline operator announced the launch of “BIZclass” business class on select long-haul flights in Europe.
The first glimpses of Eurowings’ premium cabin offering were posted by the company to their Facebook and Twitter pages. In keeping with the spirit of a low-cost carrier, the seats appear to be installed in a 2-2-2 configuration, giving only the inside seats direct aisle access. Each of the seats can be reconfigured into a six-foot long full lay flat seat, which is a key differentiator from the traditional economy seat.
https://twitter.com/eurowings/status/940584956463603712
“Eurowings will…be able to offer seats with more legroom, more service and, of course, a larger seat,” their press release reads. “The existing Eurowings booking classes Basic, Smart and Best will remain unchanged.”
More importantly, the addition of BIZclass as a premium product could mark the airline’s expansion into the United States. The potential for Eurowings to fly into more American destinations with a business class product would coincide with the start of Joon, a new product by competitor Air France-KLM targeting budget-savvy Millennials.
“We see strong demand for another top product from our company on routes with a higher proportion of business travel, for example on US flights from Düsseldorf to New York, Miami or Fort Myers,” Oliver Wagner, COO of Eurowings, said in a statement. “We’ll be entering the BIZclass race with our usual budget-priced Eurowings tickets.”
Although the teaser photo shows what a cabin could look like, the airline has not announced final plans for the seats or configuration. Executives at the low-cost airline said they were “fine-tuning” the product with more to come before the debut at ITB Berlin in 2018. The first flight featuring BIZclass is expected to depart at the end of April 2018.
The quoted press release says approximately 2 metres. This is more than 6 feet and 6 inches. Perhaps you are not very tall and 6 feet sounds like plenty, but to those of us who are taller than 6 feet, those approximately 6 extra inches make a big difference.