I was playing around with some fleet data, comparing the aircraft with Club Suite vs the historic fleet with the old Club product. NB this is LHR only.




it’s not a like for like comparison, as we don’t know the config of the 787-9 and 380 post Club Suite retrofit, and even the 777-9 is not yet set in stone. I’ve also taken out the 380 from the “old” list just because it was skewing the numbers a bit too much. Based on this comparison, then, I think we can draw the following conclusions:

1. The reduction in F, and to a lesser extent in J, has been offset by a significant increase in W.
2. The fleet is a lot less complex: in the “old” world we had five aircraft types with less than 230 seats, now there’s one (well 2 once the 787-9 config lands).
3. The 216/219/226 seaters of old have now become 235/256 seaters.
4. The 77W is the new 747 Hi- and Super Hi-J, but not quite. It carries 10 less J seats than the 74S and the same as the 74H.
5. There aren’t, in the new Club Suite world, as many planes carrying 65+ premium seats that isn’t quite as big as the 380. Back in the pre CS days there were the 74S, 77G, 74H and 74V. Now there’s just the 77H. This is a hole that I think is quite felt in the airline, on premium heavy routes where in the past you used to have 2 74Hs or a 380 and a 77G, or many 74S (think SIN, HKG, JNB, LAX, JFK, HND) and so on. This is the sort of hole the 777-9 should theoretically fill.