ChrisA330

The lack of PY on this aircraft has been known since the day the order was announced.

The Lev

It's not the number of J seats that counts, it's the ratio of J to non-J that is key in terms of upgrades. The ratio will likely be around 8%, which is on the low end but in the same ballpark as a 788 and better than the high density 77W.

Plus presumably these aircraft will mostly be used on destinations with low J demand - otherwise they'll put on a widebody with lots of J seats, even if the back is half empty.

RangerNS

At some point various issues had me on a widebody, YHZ-YYZ, and put up in PY. I may have been the only one in the cabin, and every single seat had a UPS and inverter under it, effective leg room was less than anything EVAS flys.

I'd probably turn down an OpUp to AC PY. I'd for sure never pay for it, cash, points, or eUps. Or even someone else's cash, for that matter.

flyingcrooked

I�m not sure your first point is right, because Y and J are mostly distinct markets. If there are 14 people in, say, Ottawa willing to pay cash for J to Frankfurt, if this plane flies this route, then my upgrade chance is 0, regardless of how big or small the Y cabin is. Similarly if there are only 14 people in Ottawa willing to pay cash for J, but the J cabin is 30, it again doesn�t matter how big the Y cabin is as long as I expect to have little competition for a gate upgrade given status and fare purchased. (That�s a bit complicated because the bigger Y is, the more potential people there are who might bid for upgrades. I have no idea what proportion of Y cabin bid for upgrades so don�t know how big a complication this is. There�s also the complication that if anything in Y matters, it would be the number of people, not the number of seats, but I have no idea how much Y load factor varies by route. There seem a bunch of other complications but this parenthetical remark is already annoying enough.)

That said, what I really had in mind is that {PY + J} is small on this plane. If one sees J4 at the gate, one can�t hope that if one isn�t in the top 4, at least it�s because someone in PY is and you�ll get the seat they vacated.

I guess you�re thinking of j/-j while I am lowly enough to care more about y/-y.

In a sense that�s what worries me. They�ll put them on routes where cash demand for J is about 14. I�d much rather they put a bigger J cabin on that route!

That all said, I hope you�re right in the end. Personally I like narrow body for TATL because it�s less of a heaving zoo at the gate, etc.

CdnFlier

Ditto. Curious to see what happens to the 900s. The J product on them isn't bad - although it would be nice if the fleet had consistency in product (IFE, bin sizes, wifi) and if they had better wifi than the ATG they all seem to have. But actual product wise, wonder what it will be.

djsflynn

Just with regards to mentions here of “new business class” for Express, and in the interest of setting expectations: note that the exact quote from Mark Nasr was “new-look business class” which doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing, ie it could be a refresh of the existing product and cabin or even a more holistic ‘business class’ experience rather than a totally new seat. I’m sure some local media will follow this up.

Adam Smith

This point has gotten very little discussion, but this is actually the one that interests me the most. And concerns me. Even though it's a decade old, I actually think the J hard product on the Boeings is still quite good. I think I've flown 21 different widebody J products in the past year, and I've been thinking about them in roughly three tiers - things I actually like and am happy to fly, things I can tolerate, and products I generally want to avoid unless there's a very compelling reason to fly them. I would put AC's 787s in the top tier, and the 777s towards the top of the second tier (the slightly more cramped footwells on the 777 make it a bit worse). The ones in the bottom tier are a mix of really old outdated ones and very new ones. The biggest trend I don't like seems to be more and more densification of the cabin, which for a guy who's both tall and not thin means less and less space to sleep.

I don't give a crap about doors, and if a new seat ends up being narrower and/or having more pinch points (UA's Polaris pods narrow very annoyingly right around where my knees go, which is problematic given the pod isn't long enough for me to lie down fully and I need to bend my knees to fit) so they can cram a couple of extra seats in the J cabin, that will be a big negative for me. There are some good newer products out there - AY's new non-reclining beds on the 359 were among my favourites, and AF's 789s have a pretty nice product. I also really like the storage setup on AC's pods, although WS has the same seats but with slightly better storage. But I suspect if they roll out a new J product, it's going to be denser and worse, as far as I'm concerned (I think the new 333 pods suck, they're in my bottom tier).

The seats on the E75 are wearing out, especially in J, where on many of them they will start reclining of their own volition, so those are definitely in need of replacement. I'd argue the CR9 is somewhat dated as well, although WiFi and IFE are the biggest issues on both - old, slow ATG systems, the nearly 20-year-old XM IFE, or no WiFi on 9/35 of the CR9 flight and no IFE at all on... I forget how many. It's not at all a consistent or competitive product at the moment.

djsflynn

Well, it could be a new seat too... I'm in two minds on this, not knowing the Express product at all (being based in Sydney and with limited exposure to AC's entire network) - if it's indeed so well-worn then yes, a new business class seat (in addition to whatever other cabinwork in planned) would of course be the bee's knees.

It's just that typically when an exec is talking about a change of seat they'll call it out as a 'new seat' or 'new product', and that specific reference was missing from MN's quote, but it could simply have been the way he chose to refer to this and was focussing more on a total overhaul of Express (that part of the interview was leaning more into the 'new look' cabin, brand language etc) and this might not exclude a new seat. We'll just have to wait and see, I guess...

cooleddie

I really hope that the new premium economy class product will have movable armrests, so that if there is an empty premium economy class seat next to you, you can lie across or relax a bit more.

eigenvector

Personally, my company only looks at the duration of the flight and not whether it's intercontinental in determining whether PY or J can be purchased, but it's pretty common for companies to dictate only Y within North America, even if it's YVR-YHZ.

I can buy J on TATL flights but as the owner of my own budget I don't really see the point paying what can be $2000 extra for a lie-flat on a daytime flight returning from Europe where I'm going to be working on my laptop the whole time anyways. Although on an upcoming trip, I bought J because PY was full 3 weeks out so it was J or Y.

CanadianMike

Agree w/ Adam's comment about fearing J densification... would be bad for the pax experience.
In terms of refurbishment is it more likely they install a completely new product, or is it more economical and feasible to refurbish / re-style their J hard product with the seats as they currently are?
ie) fix hardware issues, re-upholster, deep clean, whatever they do when they remove / re-install a cabin.


Do you think (or does AC know) that PY fares are primarily purchased by companies for business travellers...?

How often are you flying and seeing the aircraft go out with empty PY seats? I genuinely can't remember seeing empty PY seats at all in my flying in 2023.
Granted I don't fly as much as many on here, but I'd estimate my sample size this year is probably > 20 flights on AC aircraft with PY cabins.

yyztozag

Etihad�s new J product on the A350 looks great. A lot of it is in finishes, storage details, etc.

As for the finishes, take a look at OMAAT�s review. The modern yet simple decor takes everything up three notches - especially the glasses, silverware, etc. A soft investment like that could really take AC�s product up, even before any substantial refurbishment takes place.

EdmFlyBoi

The A330's new seat is terrible because of how they chose to configure it, cheaping out on things like storage options. It isn't that different a product from the seat on the other wide bodies - it is narrower because the cabin width is narrower (as everyone knows). AC chooses to go with the most basic configuration - like they do with everything else (including the IT).

I would agree with you about how you classify the various products out there. Having just flown in Polaris, it was a comfortable seat, but I wouldn't have wanted to be in any seat other than the one closest to the window because they are very exposed. Qatar's Q suite is probably the best seat out there but it doesn't fit in a 787 which means that Qatar has a different product depending on the aircraft.

I would also worry about densification. United's product is probably one of the densest, but the seat remains quite comfortable. However, I am not sure it is a product that fits on a narrow body because of the way it is set up. AC has a few different choices when it comes to the XLR - it will be either herringbone, reverse herringbone, or alternating closest to the window or aisle if it is going to be 1-1 with all aisle access. My guess would be that it will be something like Jetblue's new mint suite. It seems like every airline is adding a door, so it seems likely AC would do that also. The 788's have the oldest seats and it would make sense that they would get a new cabin first unless of course they carry on with Rouge and decide to move them over.

Stranger

First, I would argue that "terrible" is somewhat exaggerated. It is not as good as in the 77 or 78x. But terrible?

Also my perception is that the seat itself has the same width as in the other planes, but it is the side table that is significantly narrower. That the cabin is narrower is compensated to some extent by the angle with the wall/centerline direction being sharper.

There was already some "densification" when going to the XM seat to the current one. Especially on the 330 of course.

Knowing AC we probably should worry indeed, especially in the current airline economy context, when AC seems to think they can get away with anything. At least until the next recession. So who knows...

EdmFlyBoi

I guess it is all personal preference - it is not a seat I like because of the cramped feeling and the lack of storage.

Your are correct about the angle.