olivedel

No, it is equivalent.

As other people stated before, the exhibition does not show the middle pair of F seats and that immediately brought the same question orbitmic and others have here: What about privacy?
So the answer was : "curtains on the aisles + physical divider", that is as high as the physical seat vertically, and expands around 70 cm after the wall. So I believe that the other PAX head cannot be seen in any position:


But as long as I did not see the final config of the central pair, I cannot say that privacy is greatly compromised.

Also, the AF/KL/AZ/DL French Travel Agent Portal confirms that the 1st equipped aircraft will run in september on the CDG-SIN-JKT route.

Zembla

Indeed. The divider from your picture is obviously an extra privacy screen for the isle side. The question is, will it be the same for the centre seats? For now that remains to be seen, and also it remains to be seen what the actual centre setup will look and feel like.

nicolas75

There is a true difference between the P AF clientele and First class passengers from Middle East company (and generally when you meet the taste for ones, you don't for the others).

Same story for haute joaillerie (Van Cleef & Arpels nearly lost its non-Middle East clientele with its creations, and had to shift dramatically to recover strong position in the high luxury business).

AF P product is typically an European offer, and I am quite sure it will gain some good positions on its core markets.

olivedel

That is what the La Première product manager told me.

orbitmic

That corresponds to my fear. What it means is that as seen here, the 'fixed' wall part between the two centre seats will be very low much like the likes of LX, and while you can raise the divider to seat height level, you can only do so at the very front of the seat and not throughout. I can only reiterate the worry AshleyB and myself have been expressing. On an open (non private) seat, that works fine. However, in the AF case, if the passengers choose to draw the curtains, those two seats will be completely privatised. Fantastic for a couple, but for people who do not know each other well, I find it highly problematic. This image will illustrate what we mean because it shows the two centre seats on LX P with a separation sensibly the same height and a comparable divider (here only part raised, it goes higher). Now just imagine that those two seats are separated from the rest of the plane by full curtaining which goes from ceilings to floor as per the AF design, and imagine that you occupy one seat and someone you do not know the other. Sorry this is not for me...

http://thepointsguy.com/wp-content/u..._48.jpg?053216

orbitmic

Sorry but what makes absolutely no sense to me here is your comparing this to EK F. As you have done the EK F middle seat, you know perfectly well that the wall between the two centre seats is much higher and that even more importantly the doors do not go the height of the full cabin, meaning that the centre island is not fully secluded from the rest of the plane. Finally, this is all the more true that on EK you have multiple rows and thus further spaced behind and/or in front of each centre pair, unlike AF where it will be only one row and thus a separation both the height and the length of the entire cabin.

For those not famliar with the EK seat, here is a picture and I think that anyone will be able to see the difference very easily in terms of privacy between the two middle seats as well as aisle doors height:

http://boardingarea.wpengine.netdna-...2/IMG_7222.jpg

That, again, is the point we keep making and you keep ignoring when you speak of 'nonsense'. When you are in an open cabin, while of course someone could always be subject to advances by a lunatic, that person would have to take the risk of doing so in full view of others. On many 'private' suites, the fixed wall between the two middle seats would be as high as between seat and aisle making it impossible or at the very least extremely hard for anyone to see or touch over between the two centre seats.

In the AF case, however, we have the worst of both worlds. The curtain drawn will give full privacy to the centre 'island'. In other words if the two centre seat pax choose to draw the curtains, it will be absolutely impossible for any cabin crew to see what happens behind the island in question, that's the whole point of those curtains and very easy to realise based on olivedel's photos. At the same time, the wall between those two middle seats is very low compared to the likes of EK - in fact as low as the LX ones as can again be seen on olivedel's photos, and he confirmed to us that it will be the same for the centre seats. So the examples that you provide have simply nothing to do with the AF situation which offers a unique combination of very low separation between the two centre seats (as in non-private seats a la LX) but extreme privacy from the aisles (even more than on EK and the likes as on AF it goes all the plane height!). This is what AshleyB has described as "the tent" effect and I still find it highly problematic based on our reporter's confirmations and photographs.

stimpy

Again, you have never sat in one of these seats and your imagination is running away with you. Why not wait til you've tried it before you condemn it? Or does logic not apply here? What am I saying? Of course logic doesn't apply here.

I do NOT know that the EK divider is higher than the AF divider. Why? Because I too have never sat in one of these new AF seats.

orbitmic

Sorry but you do not need to have 'sat' in it to see the height of the fixed wall surrounding the seats: (1) it is extremely clear both from olivedel's photos and from AF's detailed photos on their website, and (2) olivedel explicitely asked if the walls would be different between the middle seats and confirmed to us on this forum that he was told that they would be the same. We are not talking about a marginal difference that would need a tape measurer here, we are talking about one seat whereby the wall is at the level of the arm rest vs one where it reaches head level in a sitting position, so unless you believe that both olivedel and AF have fabricated the pictures, the difference in heights in the fixed wall is just as obvious as the fact that the P suite has more leg room than an average Y seat.

brunos

I am surprised by the "wait and see" of some posters to confront any criticism.
Some look at the pictures and conclude that the seat is great; and that is accepted. Some look at the pictures and get troubled by some features; and that is rejected.

My view is that this is a nice standard F seat with some characteristics that seem weird. One does not need to sit in it to make a preliminary assessment. The seat/bed itself is very conventional and the kind of seat/space that has been adopted by many airlines years ago.
The curtain looks very flimsy and I doubt that it will offer much viewing or noising privacy, but time will tell. However, the setup for middle seat with curtains does look strange. No need to experience the seat to understand why.

nicolas75

Have you ever experienced noise issue in P?

By the way, aren't Emirates' suites open-roof?

olivedel

I know the pictures do not reflect my impression, but the curtain does not look bad from both the inside and the outside of the suite, it looks very clean.
The viewing privacy is perfect from what I experienced.

As far as I know, there is no suite with solid walls that goes up to the ceiling. Again, I did not experience the suite inflight, so your statement can be true indeed.

You are right. And they were not super confident with the answers to my questions about the 2 middle seats. I even thought for a moment that it was a 1-1 config.

AshleyB

I would add only one point to orbitmic's interesting remarks. The divider between the two central seats does not run the entire length of the unit. It extends only the length, more or less, of the seat when upright. There is consequently considerable potential for annoying 'luminosity' from IFE etc. As brunos rightly points out the new cabin looks fine, if not exactly revolutionary, with one or two serious caveats.

brunos

Oh yes.
The front row (which will become the only row) is noisy because of the galley. In a few AF flights several FAs chatted noisily while having some food for part of the night.
For the same reason, I avoid CX front row in F.

Also a lot of foot traffic (FA going to the front).
Sometimes a couple (or two colleagues) sitting in middle seats can conduct noisy conversation, especially when they have their earphones on.
That's where CX suites are great.

IMO no suites are closed-roof. But it helps to have a fixed shell around the upper-body part.

olivedel

As I cannot see the middle seats physically, I tried to analyze the HD video published on AF website and captured 2 pictures :



Imagine what you want, but there seem to see a divider on the whole length on the suite in the middle.

Zembla

Thanks for this, this is the sort of reference I was looking for before giving my opinion on the center seats privacy. Actually I'll still refrain from commenting because it still doesn't show the full story, but it shows there is a LOT more to it than the isle privacy screen alone.