Originally Posted by
hfly
What on Earth are you talking about? Of appx 130 widebody a/c in the fleet, 32 have 7 middle seats each, and incidentally most of these 32 a/c (777's) also have FORTY NINE Business Class seats, rather than appx 30 on all the other aircraft, and all, bar 7 or so 330's which do not operate long haul have Flat Seats. (and I am not going to go into the fact that any person over 160cm prefers the 777's) How you translate any of this into "most" or whatever is really curious. Why even comment on the lounge if you have not actually been to it? Making a comment that it can get busy at times is a comment that can be made of almost every lounge opertaed by every airline in the world.
Wow, I guess I touched a nerve.
As another poster mentioned, when it comes to direct aisle access the equation is more than just middle seats. The 777 is in a 2-3-2 configuration which means of the 49 seats you mentioned, only 28 have direct aisle access. The A330 is a 2-2-2 configuration. Without a middle seat the chances of direct aisle access is better as only 1/3 of the seats will not have direct aisle access. If you like the window seat though you're out of luck as neither of these aircraft types will have window seats with direct aisle access.
Furthermore, the seats on these aircraft are old and do not recline to 180 degrees (but come close enough most people won't notice), I do know of a few people commenting that the slight angle bothered them. I totally agree that taller people tend to better with these seats.
Finally the 777+A330 make up 83 of the 130 plane long haul fleet or over 60% which is why I asserted the majority of their fleet does not have a modern business class hard product. For me it was perfectly suitable and I found the soft product made it better than many airlines that might have a newer hard product.
With the lounge, why would I not repeat what I have heard to save the op the trouble of having to do further research, isn't the very idea of this site to help people and reduce them having to go through the same searches that I have had to do? I clearly called out that I had no direct experience so that the op can make the decision to search further if he wants verification. Even if I had visited once or twice is that really more valuable than aggregating group feedback from multiple people and sites?