Originally Posted by ijgordon
To be fair, the photo was significantly more information than we had before, which were some vague descriptions and concept drawings. If it turns out this new piece of information was misleading, so be it (I'm personally hoping that is, in fact, the case, as your contact indicates).
Here's some info and corrections (the corrections of my guesses as well!)
• the LH pitch is 58, 59, 60, AA's new cabin is 59 throughout, it is essentially the same as LH (AA's old/current cabin is 60). The space behind the seat between the shell and the backrest is essentially the same, AA's is about 10-12" and theirs is no less than 8", but they also have 3" more recline in the upright position.
• The pattern and fabric are identical to the current seat, AA just changed the color, the gray was to lighten and brighten the narrow 15' cabin which was necessary given all the additional furniture that comes along with a seat like this. The dark blue made the cabin feel very tight and small. [this color instead of dark blue] makes a world of difference in opening up the cabin spatially.
• With regard to 2x2x2 seating in a B767, with a 15' wide cabin you are never going to get the seat width of a 17' A340/330, or the 19' of a B777, or 20 on 747. Having said that, AA increased the B767 seat width from 18.5" to 20".
• LX is made by Contour which is the same seat as that ANA link, which is also the same as the Cathay seat. AA had that one in the R&D room - very uncomfortable with a pretty steep bed angle like 13 deg.
•IB is the Sicma seat. Same as Finnair and South African and Lan, though the latter two lie-flat. AA Didn't like that one either.
• Note that almost all fully flat - horizontal seats - , BA is the only current exception that comes to mind, are two-class carriers. Granted AA have a two-class 767, but AA have a 3-class B777 and 1) fully flat on a B767 would cost too many seats and 2) can't have a Business Class products that are too different between 767 and 777. Putting fully flat on B777, in a three class configuration, would cost too many seats. Consider AA have 247 on B777, BA has 229 even with eight abreast in B/C.
Going fully flat is going to cost a row somewhere, either Business, or a couple of coach rows. In other words tens of millions of $$. Generally speaking, a fully flat cabin is only about 85 to 90% as dense as the angled flat cabin.
In the final analysis, going flat is all the rage, but every bit of data AA collected suggested that was not most important and the blind ergonomic studies we conducted literally had respondents generally rating fully flat geometries no better than angled seats, BA marketing spin notwithstanding.
•So, consistent with [jon's] reporting as well I believe, AA decided to go with a seat that would do well in lounge / Z positions, very flexible, near infinite as [jon] noted. Notice that most fully flats that focus on horizontal are lacking these features. Five motors to BA's one, I think Virgin might have two. BA does not even have a legrest, the same is essentially true of Virgin/ANZ.
• Incidentally, it is just the one aircraft, 396 for the next couple of months. Through the fall, and into 1Q07 the rest will be produced. It does not pay to have too many aircraft out of service during the busy summer months. The plane was only in LAX-HNL for a few days, since it allowed the aircraft to fly during the day and overnight at the maintenance base in case there was anything we wanted to work on.
For the next couple of weeks it is supposed to fly LAX-ORD-BRU-ORD-GLA-ORD-MAN-ORD-LAX. After that it will be released into the system.