Originally Posted by
T8191
I find the technical discussions very interesting. It will certainly be a challenge to present ‘fleet commonality’ from the customer’s viewpoint. The FT discussions about ‘which seat’ will presumably evolve into ‘which aircraft’.
There will certainly be several years worth of overlap. At the rate things change in these things fleetwide commonality might be a silly thing to aim for - BA have this now and are oft attacked for being "behind the times". Introducing an updated design every few years at least allows one to claim one is "up to date" even if few actually fly in the latest and greatest. And if the expected life of the seat is less than the expected life of the aircraft, then they can be brought up to spec at whatever interval that happens to be [10 years seat v 30 years aircraft...?]
The new seat is going on the A350 and a couple of refitted 777s to start - but has it been mentioned whether the 78Xs will get the new seat too...? I think they're due from 2020?