Originally Posted by
Bullspread
For your information, 7 AF-77W will be retrofit with 8 P seats !
These 77W are coming from the COI and 42J stock.
I have no info so far on the exact design of the 8P cabin.
I’ll write when and if I know more .
Good to hear. Actually, when I checked for JFK on some random dates next summer (just to see what they plan in theory) the Air France site mentioned "8 seats left" - but showed a B777 as operating. That mentioning has since disappeared.
What does that mean though for the COI fleet? Less planes, less flights? Switching of COI destinations to non-COI aircraft?
Originally Posted by
matmatlr
But that would mean at least 8 to 10 J seats reduction which seems a lot.
Maybe they just push them backwards, taking out some Y rows. Or a mix between eliminating J and Y seats, for premium heavy destinations. Already today they have different configurations for their 777 fleet, some with more J others with less. Also BA had a 747 subfleet with a "J heavy" configuration, and Lufthansa had or still has some planes with a signficantly higher J proportion.i
Interested to know on which destinations these planes will be used as it will require a high P passengers demand to get a reasonable occupancy rate
Aren't we all? Lovely topic for armchair CEO discussions on a forum. I wouldn't be surprised if they first and foremost decide on which destinations get P and which not. Then they can deploy the 4P and 8P planes interchangeably, where we can expect some destinations to never see the 8P planes and some to see them almost all the time. Since we are at the speculation game, here are some thoughts. Obviously this is a view for a time post-Covid
- High premium routes, with potential to see 8P more often than not: JFK, LAX, SFO, TYO, SIN, PVG, PEK. In Winter during vacation time also MIA.
- Less premium, but warrants P: GRU, IAD, IAH, ABJ, LDA, to a lesser extent also BOS, MIA during other times
- Inbetween high premium and less premium: MEX, HKG, DXB
- Cities I am surprised that they don't get P on a regular basis: ATL, DEL, ICN
- Historic P destinations with doubtful potential: BEY
- Cities I would love to have added to the P network, but alas are unlikely: GIG, EZE, ORD, MLE, YUL, YVR, SEA, PTY, MRU