Originally Posted by
notsofrequentflyerbutwanttobe
What!? Surely not! I mean, how common is this? I thought any of the planes that aren't updated have been officially retired? Surely, it's too risky to take out an older plane for a long haul journey?
Sounds like you are a nervous flyer. There's nothing to fear.
Every major airline is going to have a few extra planes hanging around. At any one time, a few are undergoing major maintenance. And if there's a technical fault on one or two, nobody is going to accept "oops we've run out of planes" as an excuse.
But at the same time, the airline might not bother with investing to install the new cabins in the backup fleet. And there's no reason to believe that those planes are actually older than the ones in service - they're more likely to be the least fuel efficient but with the range to cover the entire route map on short notice.
Anyhow, long story short... there's not necessarily any correlation between the age / airworthiness of the plane and the type of seats installed inside it.