Globaliser

The whole deck

My main conclusion was, sadly, that there are no outstanding upper deck seats. Every option that would normally be good on other aircraft is compromised to some extent here.

There are side bins under the windows along the full length of the upper deck. This means that all window seat passengers have side bin storage to use. However, I think that these are a bit smaller than the side bins on the 744 upper deck, plus they are angled rather than vertical.

The curvature of the crown of the fuselage means that headroom is limited above the window seats. You don’t have to be very tall to risk hitting your head on the ceiling, so you do need to be careful. I found getting into and out of the Club World window seats to be more of a problem in this respect than the WT+ or WT seats. In particular, you almost have to reverse into the Club World seat, which could challenge one’s coordination when stepping over an aisle seat passenger in the middle of the night.

The curvature also has implications for men using the toilets at the sides of the upper deck. If you’re standing up, it can be difficult to get as close as normal to the actual toilet without deploying some spinal flexibility. The consequence: drips, including drips on the floor. You have been warned.

Club World

50AB and 50JK
The B and J seats don’t have anyone climbing over them. These pairs are a little way from the front toilets, which in any event are a good size with the actual toilet some distance away from the seats. There’s a curtain which will screen light from the toilet, but the toilet itself is pretty dark whenever the lock is in the open position. There’s nothing else ahead of these seats, so this area should be fairly quiet.

However, the A and K seats have a fairly large area of blank sidewall, and these passengers would have to lean forward a long way to look out of the single window serving this row. Good if you like having a very private space and don’t mind stepping over someone to get out. Bad if you like looking out of the window.

53AB and 53JK
The window seats have direct aisle access, so in theory these would be a lot like 64A and 64K on the 744. Unfortunately, the fact that this aircraft is so quiet means that there is a lot of noise from the galley, and some could find it difficult on a night flight. This wasn’t a crew being noisy – it was simply the ordinary sounds of galley equipment being used and normal conversational volumes. For perspective, my impression was that this area of the aircraft was quieter during the cruise than the 744 upper deck is when stationary on the ground. I think there are likely to be similar issues with row 56.

59AB and 59JK
The window seats here also have direct aisle access. However, as others have mentioned, because the CW and WT+ cabins partly overlap at this point, these seats (and particularly the heads of the 59B and 59J passengers) are directly in line with the WT+ centre bulkhead bassinets, and these seats are also immediately ahead of the side bulkhead bassinets. There is only a curtain dividing the cabins.

Now, I’ve seldom encountered a baby in WT+ that has been noisy after takeoff – a benefit of the quiet calmness of the WT+ cabin – but this is a distinct risk. Also, if WT+ service times are different from CW service times (eg breakfast being served earlier to WT+ than the CW cabin is woken up), these seats could suffer the most disturbance.

Those who don’t like looking at other passengers on board should note that 59A and 59K will be looking not only at 59B and 59J in CW but also at 60DEF in WT+ whenever the curtain is open – and I think more so than on the current long-haul fleet because of the cabin overlap here.

Middle seats
I didn’t find these to be claustrophobic or confining, in large part because of the extra space to the right of the right armrest. However, because it’s asymmetric like that, couples who are using a middle seat will probably be better off choosing an EF pair rather than a DE pair.

World Traveller Plus

This is a large cabin in comparison to the WT+ cabins on the other long-haul aircraft, and has lost the sense of intimacy that they have. (Ironically, that can still be found in the aft WT cabin – see below.)

The legroom (foot-room, really) in the bulkhead rows of 60DEF, 61AB and 61JK is fairly good, but I’m not sure that I would take these for a night flight as you can still get closer to horizontal in the rows behind. If that’s your favoured sleeping position, the absence of leg-rests in those rows won’t matter too much.

The quietness of the aircraft will mean that the toilets at the aft of the WT+ cabin are much more likely to be disturbing in this area (particularly to 67AB, 67DEF, 67JK and 68DEF) than, say, to 15AB on a mid-J 744.

World Traveller

The size of IFE boxes is most critical in this cabin. Unfortunately, the window seats have IFE boxes that make it difficult to sit facing straight forward. Your feet are pushed towards the centre of the aircraft, so you're inevitably at an angle if you stretch your feet forward under the seat in front. I don't know what this will do to your back if you're sleeping for several hours, but I wasn't impressed with this - particularly as this difficulty could have been avoided if the IFE box had been mounted on the inboard side of this foot space.

The centre block bulkheads (70DEFG and 80DEFG) have tables in fixed armrests, as one would expect. This noticeably constricts the width of the seat. However, the armrest between D and E is a conventional lift-up armrest – so if choosing these rows, D and E are better than F and G.

Another thing about these bulkhead rows, which are in line with the exits, and the adjacent exit rows (70AB, 70JK, 80AB and 80JK), is that there is a noticeable hissing noise from the slipstream. I don't know whether this is because of the disturbed airflow around the edges of the door, or simply because the door means that there is less sound insulation and the slipstream noise simply enters the cabin here, but it's again the quietness of the aircraft as a whole which makes this more audible than on other aircraft. Fortunately, I think that this is the sort of noise which can be reasonably effectively screened by good earplugs.

The 4-row aft cabin has, ironically, the small intimate feel of the WT+ cabins on the rest of the long-haul fleet. However, there are two downsides here. The first is that the aircraft is distinctly less quiet here, as one would expect. However, it’s still not too noisy to mask the galley noise from immediately behind this mini-cabin, and I think that this is likely to be the bigger problem. Again, not a noisy crew - just very audible normal galley sounds and conversation. This would put me off the mini-cabin for any night flight.