Deflategate; new executive pods deflating in-flight
 

The new executive pods are the worst thing to ever happen to Air Canada’s international business class.

I suspect the problem is more widespread than I initially thought, and I’ll explain this in a minute.

On November 4, I flew YYZ-MUC on a 77W. I sat in seat 7A. After landing, I got back on the plane and flew MUC-YYZ, in the same seat.

It wasn’t until an hour or so into the return flight that I started to realize I had a huge pain in my butt. The seat was completely deflated. I notified the service director, and he said there was nothing he could do - it required maintenance (I think this was incorrect). He offered me 11A, which I gladly accepted. However, it was also completely deflated! I remained in 7A, sitting on a pillow.

I wrote in about this, and was offered either 20k miles, or a $500 credit.

What a pain in the butt. Literally.

Anyway, fast forward to November 18, when I flew YYZ-MUC. Another 77W, but a different one. I was in 7K. The flight was great.

2 hours in Munich, and I got back on the plane, and approached 7A. The seat was completely deflated. I notified a flight attendant, and they reset the seat (there actually is a way to do this without getting maintenance involved). It re-inflated. The concierge and service director both said that there was an employee in business class, and they could switch us. However, the seat was feeling great, so I declined.

Before we got to cruising altitude, it had completely deflated again. I ended up moving to 8G, and that employee took my 7A. It was great! My butt was cushioned.

Fast forward an hour or two, and 8G had completely deflated. They reset the seat, and it was good for a while.

After dinner, I lay down for a nap. I woke up with - you guessed it - a huge pain in my butt. The seat had deflated again.

They reset it, and it was good until landing.

If we rewind to the first incident, you’ll note that I likely didn’t realize my seat was deflated on the outbound (I'm assuming it was deflated). I’ve found it’s not really something you notice unless you understand how the seat works. You’ll think “wow this is uncomfortable”, but not realize what the problem is.

So how widespread is it? On two aircraft, I’ve found 4 seats with a problem. And I’ve sat in 5 seats. My anecdotes are not sufficient data to draw conclusions, but the crew did say they’ve been noticing more problems lately, and I suspect that the incidents that are reported are a tiny fraction of the total number of deflated seats.

I’m going to write in again, and maybe get another $500 credit, but holy crap Air Canada. This is literally your pride and joy. And it sucks. Fix it. Even if there were a foam pad below the inflatable cushion, it would ensure that no one is ever sitting on a slab of metal.

How deflated is it? Like you can feel no cushion what so ever or?
I remember on half of my J pods flights the seat would randomly inflate and deflate at times, it didnt create too much of a discomfort for me though and frankly I just put up with it given I want to catch at least three hour of sleep
Next time I should probably write this in for some points lawl

I feel the seat with my hand before I even sit in it. Last flights I took the first leg (YYZ to YVR) it was completely deflated and felt like sitting on a metal chair. Called FA over who kind of gave me the roll eyes when I said seat was deflated. Felt the seat across the aisle and cushion was nice and thick...had a visible bounce to it really. My seat..no bounce at all.

Ended up sitting in another seat, but if the flight is full in J, then what?

Imagine a wooden park bench.

Lay a t-shirt on top of it.

Sit on it.

That's what it feels like.

When the seat deflates, you can knock on it and make a sound. That is not possible if it is even partially inflated.

It's like you're literally knocking on wood.

Ugh, imagine this.. but on a TPAC

Geez that sucks, it was not that bad for me, I can feel it going down, like my entire body is slightly sinking, but don't recall it actually ever hit the bottom.

At this point, I get them to bring a GA on board to downgrade someone else.

I say this as a Super Elite in revenue J though. It would be tougher in other circumstances.

​​​​​​Heck I'd take a PY seat over a deflated J seat.

YYZ-ICN though I didn't realize it until 2/3 into the flight and J was full so no switching. I liken it to sitting on a carpeted floor.

Do you remember the date and seat number?
Maybe we could compile a list of Fins and seats that are problematic..

It's so hard to describe it to someone who hasn't experienced it.

The (amazing) FA on my flight today said she'd never sat in a new J seat!

I told her to sit in mine. This was when it was inflated.

The next time I have a deflated seat, I'm going to ask them to have every FA sit on it so they can understand the issue better.

Perhaps I should've written in more now that I see the type of comp you're getting. I've been subject to several deflated seats ever since the DreamCabins became abundant... I've lost count but I estimate approximately 50 to 60 times this has happened. Most of the time, however, I have been able to rectify the issue with the secret code trick. I actually do a reset on everything in order and usually it works. It took some experimentation but I think I have found a way that works 90% of the time.

When I used to bring it to the attention of the crew, only a few times they have actually tried something manual to fix it but it never worked. The remaining times where I've alerted crew, I am usually met with massive shrugs. Never ask a red-scarf to help - ask the red-scarves for the SD to assist (or ask the SD directly). Almost always the SDs will at least seem to care but probably won't be successful in fixing the seat.

Until now, my high success rate is based on DIY.

To the RCHHMP here, my apologies as the deflated seats are also my fault. Clearly they aren't AC's fault. 110% my fault.

I had one deflate on me middle of night on a HND-YYZ flight. Luckily they came out with a flashlight and got it inflated.

I guarantee that the seats I sat in were fixed. They were all written in the log so that maintenance would be aware.

It didn't completely deflate in that case. You'd know.

I agree.

Is it so hard to describe so hard? :p

Excellent description.
I've had it on two TPAC's this year.

I've had a deflated seat on AC5. For the entire flight. I didn't write in and now seeing cow's comp, I hate myself for not doing so.
Funny thing is I figured I was lucky to be in J and just took it in the butt... the flight was fine.

Thank you AC for making my butt a star attraction with my friends of the opposite gender.

Had it happen to the lady across from me SYD-YVR this summer. They moved her behind me, which was the only empty J seat in the cabin.

Happens to me fairly often, and not just on AC...happens on OS and LH too, a not-insignificant number of times, either. Seems endemic these sorts of seats in general. FA's reactions vary from "oh this again" to complete bewilderment to calling maitenence before the doors shut.

I've had AC pro-actively offer me $500 after I brought it to the FA's attention on one occasion this year, only. Nothing on the rest, and nothing from LH or OS this year.

Unfortunately I don't know the secret AC seat codes, since even after coaxing a re-inflate, they seem to deflate again in a while. So, I usually end up using a makeshift pillow seat.

When it happened to me (I fly J TCON or longer very rarely), I had no idea that that wasn't what the seat was supposed to feel like, so it did not occur to me to complain or ask for a fix. But every body part in contact with the platform ("mattress") was numb and painful, and I ended up basically whirling around continuously for the duration of the flight, and did not manage any sleep. Mr. FQ had a great flight, so his seat must have been not-deflated-yet.

Flew an AC 789 TPE-YVR. 1/8 of the J seats were deflated and unfixable. That I know of. If I had paid P/Z/J prices I would expect a lot more than $500 compensation if I was stuck in one for 13 hours.

Based on this thread, I calculate that AC owes me at least $25,000 (Canadian Funds).

However, because my buttocks were made firm and lovely by these seats, I'll call it a wash.

What is the point of inflatable seats in the first place? Never heard of it before.

You can set the level of firmness/softness of the seats on the seat menu display.

This isn't coach we're talking about.

I would suggest that those of us that regularly fly Dash bench seats know how tough your suffering is.;)

On my last TPAC Deflategate flight I was offered two extra pillows to sit on. That was my compensation.

Snideness aside, does it work well? I've flown many airlines in J and F and never wished for this feature, but maybe I don't know what I'm missing.

It allows one to modify the firmness of the seat.....or in this case not.

According to this thread, it never works.

But when it does, it's fine. I usually just keep it whatever it was when I plunk my butt down, unless it's completely deflated meaning I have to reset it.

Fascinating thread. I experienced this on a LHR-YYZ earlier this year. I thought it was just me.

When was the last time you had a Dash 8 flight that lasted more than 4 hours? :p

Or where you were in J :p

I explicitly wrote in after the fact. Nothing was proactively offered.

I'm sure the fact that it was actually added to the maintenance log book helped there.

I tend to ask for extra pillow for that exact reason. I have had flat seats, thought nothing of it. More a case of "did not sleep well" scenario.
Will most definitely pay closer attention. Off to YVR on a 787 a/c on 1st with Mrs.acysb87. Sushi run:D

It happened to me as well on the 787 Montreal - Shanghai, the seat became completely flat and it was not comfortable. The SD tried manually to inflate it again, to no avail....

He apologized and then offered me another duvet to cover the seat...

Also, not sure if others have noticed this, but the seat will sometimes inflate by itself for a few moments.

I have been too embarrassed to post about this very subject as I thought it was just me!!!!

I'm glad the original poster brought this up!!!

I was also a little concerned that it might just be my fat butt causing the deflation.

I think it came down to sample size for me.

Because it has happened on nearly every flight that I've been on in the new business class cabin, I figured it was either by design or I was losing my mind, both of which are plausible. It didn't seem plausible to me that it was actually a broken product that spans multiple cabins and aircraft!

I had the same issue on a TCON flight and wrote in about it. I was offered 3500 AE points by AC.

On another TCON I noticed the seat deflated during boarding. The SD swapped me with another passenger, but then AC maintenance showed up and was able to fix my original seat.

Just last Monday I was on another TCON and the seat was inflated, but the message function wouldn’t work. I asked two FA’s about it but nothing was done. I’ve written in about the issue and await a response.

It’s frustrating to see how often this seems to happen to everyone.

It happened to me on YYZ-HND on Nov 12. Seat was flat when I first sat in it during boarding. SD tried resetting the seat using a code entry on the seat control screen. That didn’t work. Then she reset it with a manual switch under the seat, and it reinflated. 30 minutes into the flight I realized I could feel the hard base of the seat again.

Luckily I was able to move to another seat. It had been flagged inoperable on departure (due to being deflated on the previous flight!) but they learned inflight that maintenance had fixed the seat and not unflagged it correctly. Thank goodness, as I know some upgrades were declined during boarding.

I’m about to fly HND-YYZ. Fingers crossed.... sure sounds like there are a lot of issues. I can imagine a lot go unreported.

Ok, so I wasn't imagining this on my YVR-ICN flight. I just thought the seat was bad.
Seems to me this is a software problem. Brings to mind the IFE bugs that used to cause the system to freeze and crash on my flights. How many years did it take AC to address that mess? The seat supplier needs to deal with this pronto.

I have noticed that several J "air mattress" seats seem to repressurize based on how evenly I distribute my weight on the seat. Kind of strange having it constantly add or remove a few PSI....

So it could be overly complex and prone to malfunction.
If AC's seats fail more than other carriers, maybe those carriers have (gasp) more preventative maintenance and more deep cleanings?

Or, it's user error. cow and others need to stop using sharp nails or thumb tacks to hold down their J blankets to the seat :)