Dear FTers
We recently had a lot of discussions in other threads about J cabin retrofits for AF fleet (seat types, planning). I had the opportunity to discuss recently with a person working at AF on the technical aspects of the seat choice and deployment and would like to share with you some information. I first want to thank this person for the time he spent with me, and all the information he gave me about the cabins, seats, constraints and opportunities ^. I want also to precise that, prior to post this on FT, I validated with AF that I was allowed to disclose those information here. So here is a summary of the current and future cabin equipments and retrofit + tentative planning.

B772
All B772 are already retrofitted with the BEST cabins (Zodiac Cirrus seat)

B77W
- version with P : they are already all retrofitted with the BEST cabins (Zodiac Cirrus seat).
- COI version (14J) : their retrofit was officially announced last week by AF. The seat will be a Zodiac Optima (same as chosen for the A350), similar to the UA Polaris seat. The config will be 1-2-1 and will remain at 14J. Planning : start around beginning 2019, end around end 2020.
- rest of the 77W : we are talking here about the 12 planes in NEV4 "loisirs" config (42J). You likely know that some of those planes were delivered very recently with NEV4, while AF was already retrofitting other B777 with BEST and we were all very surprised of this. The reason was that Zodiac had many manufacturing problems and delivery delays at that period, and AF needed absolutely those new planes, hence the decision to install NEV4. They will be retrofitted but after all other planes. The study has just started and AF will not make the final choice of the seat before some years, depending on new seats models which will be available at the time of te choice. Planning : around 2022-2023.

B789
Direct deliveries with BEST cabins (Zodiac Cirrus seat, slightly smaller than the 777 one, due to fuselage width limitation)

A332
It was already announced that they will be retrofitted in 2-2-2 with the Stelia Equinoxe seat. A similar seat can be seen in the UX B787. AF said that the seat will be very nice with storage compartments and a proper removable divider to ensure privacy. Planning : from beginning 2018 to 2019. Also, the W seats will be replaced by the same as in the B789.

I questioned the choice of the 2-2-2 config. The answer was that it was needed for the economical viability of the flights to be operated by the 332, due to the cabin sizes and galley locations.

A350
Direct delivery with Zodiac Optima , similar to UA Polaris seat (see above B777 COI). Config 1-2-1.

A388
You know that, for us on FT but for pax in general, this plane should have a high priority for the retrofit as this is the one in which we have the oldest and completely outdated NEV3 J seat (on 6 planes, the 4 others having NEV4). Unfortunately, this plane is very complicated to retrofit technically. The choice of the J seat is not made yet, they just started to work on it.

The P cabin will finally remain on the lower deck (it was rumored at one point that P would move to UD).There will be 2 or 3 rows of P. The future P will be very similar as the B77W one (curtains, etc) but likely with some significant differences (options are currently studied. Choice will be done according to the feasibility / cost. It is too early to make any statement about the final configuration). Also there might be new seats available on the market at the time, so they will make the decision based on what will be available at the time of the choice, but they will keep all main aspects of the 77W P seat which has made its success.

Planning : start beginning 2020 until 2022.

For the W seat in the A380, B777 and future planes, either they will choose the same seat as in the 789 or they may chose a recliner-type seat as SQ, LH, etc. Everything is open

JOON
I asked also questions about JOON. I can confirm that JOON will have 3 cabins (J, W and Y) - there were recently questions about J or no J, now we know for sure.

The A340 going to JOON will keep the NEV4 seats for J, but will have new W and Y seats. The IFE will be brand new, including in J NEV4.

The A350 for JOON will have new J seats (of course), and will be different from the AF mainline ones.



I, of course, expressed the customer concern about the very long time it takes for AF to retrofit the fleet and the inconsistency of products/configurations for the J cabins. AF is fully aware of this and admits that they could not go faster due mostly to not enough budget available. But they see this long timing also as an opportunity as they can choose newly developed seats and avoid the trap to finish a complete fleet retrofit with a single seat type but somewhat outdated at the end of the project.