chornedsnorkack

They are not.

Have a look at B777-300ER.

KLM has 425 seats (35 World Business Class, 380 Cattle).

By contrast, Air France has 472 (just 14 Affaires, 36 "premium economy" at 9 abreast on 777, and 422 Cattle).

Who shall be the first to fly CDG-RUN with 700+ seats - Outre Mer 380 (whose frames shall not arrive before 2014), or Air France mainline?

brunos

I think that the seats were allready ordered years ago. So they were ready for the initial date, two years back. Still AF could have conceived a new seat product as QF did or SQ for F. Their A380 delivery was delayed too. But I can understand AF policy to have the same seats on all its planes. At least it "seems" that they kept the "old" Y seats, not the new sardin-like seats of the77W.

orbitmic

You're absolutely right that the CIO version of AF is an absolute frankenstein, so indeed, the day AF fly A380 to FDF if it ever comes (who knows? Mostly leisure traffic so they might decide to not fly every day but fly 'high density' A380s instead!) this will be an absolute nightmare!! The 'default' version of the 77W on AF is 325 seats though, which is still 100 fewer than on KLM and with seat pitch of 32" in eco and 61" in Affaires as opposed to 31" in KLM eco and 60" in WBC. I have found, however, the competitor which will leave our two favourites struggling for the silver medal - By 2015, good old Ryanair, by then leader of the airline world market will undoubtedly manage to destroy all records with its new transatlantic route by flying an A380 renamed the '2015' (because of the number of passengers it will fly) between London-Nottingham airport and New York-Greenland airport. The new aircraft will have a three class configuration with 150 'seating' and 450 'lap seating' on the upper deck and 1415 'standing' on the lower deck... Three toilets onboard, two rented out for £10 / €12 per minute, and one accessible to those winner of Ryanair's new Loo-ttery tickets, on sale for £2 / €2.50 each!

orbitmic

PS: just had a look at seatguru which now features a cabin plan for AF's A388. The plan looks more or less normal but the info chart looks odd. They claim suites in premiere and flat beds (not lie flats as on AF's other planes) in Affaires. seat pitch looks smaller in Affaires (55" instead of 61") than on the 77W, but seat width in both La Premiere and Affaires looks massively superior (35" and 34" instead of 24" and 21"5 respectively in the 77W!!) Am I missing something or has this been written by a wishful thinker?

brunos

The width of 34"for business makes nos sense. The upper deck is less wide than a 777 main deck. If it can accomodate 8 Y seat width 19", how could itaccomodate 6 J seat wisth 34"?

chornedsnorkack

And 47 more than on SQ. Compare the initial A380, where AF has 67 more than SQ.
I do doubt. Arrival of Outre Mer 380 frames takes till 2014 - Ryanair better order now.
Impossible.

El Al is known to carry nearly 1100 passengers on an B747-200. So 1500 passengers on an A380 is probably possible. 2000 is certainly impossible.
Nonsense, we know what transatlantic Ryanair business class is like. Beds not seats, and offers services for which there is no word in German.

TGV

Yes, but mainly because AF planes have First class seats taking a lot of space.

If you look at the maps:

AF 77W

and KL 77W

and compare what can be compared (last Eco cabin, right hand side of the aircraft, where seats go from door to door), you will see that Eco seat density is exactly the same of both aircrafts.

In the competition for the worst comfort in Eco product for the majors, the AFKL group wins hands down with their newest planes !

orbitmic

In the unlikely case this was not completely obvious first time round, my Ryanair story was a joke. They have repeatedly explained they do not believe the market needs the A380 and I should have thought that 'lap seating class' and 'loo-tery' should have given it away!

I entirely agree with you that on the whole for the 77W AF-KL win hands down for worst comfort (see all my other posts whining about it! ) but don't fully agree with you that the seat density is exactly the same. You can in fact compare the TWO last cabins where both airlines have eco only passengers (doors 3 to 5, even though the seat guru map doesn't show door 3 on the KL plan for some reason) and in fact, KL fits one more row than AF - that's the result of the even-worse seat pitch of 31" instead of 32"!

And I completely agree that the 34" business width (and probably even the 35"5 in first) sound like a big mistake from seatguru... As far as I know, they use the same narrower seats as before...

italian7

Hahaha, wow great.
More reconfig's. More different configurations... more "will I get the new business threads...".
Things never change!!

TGV

"Good " to know.

My experience is limited to AF 77W (and will not be repeated !), but I have difficulties imagining how it is possible to go further down in the space, especially when considering these planes are generally used on flights during more than 10 hours !

orbitmic

I couldn't agree more - I systematically avoid flights operated by 77W when there is a choice, and in fact, if there isn't, I now choose to fly another airline (even easier since 1 April!) So typically no more AF for me to go to Singapore (and/or Australia via Singapore) for instance. This is an indecent plane to fly in this configuration.

chornedsnorkack

Easily.
A 10 abreast 777 with 230 inch cabin width has 17,0 inch seatbacks, 17,0 inch aisles and 2,0 inch armrests. See
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/air...s/777rsec2.pdf
page 15.

Compare MD-11 at 10 abreast. Which you can enjoy on Finnair, though not on KLM. The total cabin width is about 224 inches, 6 inches narrower than 777, and it has 16,5 inch seatbacks, 16,5 inch aisles and 2,0 inch armrests. See
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/air...s/md11sec2.pdf
page 16.

I can tell you that 9 abreast 330 and 8 abreast 767 are more cramped than 10 abreast MD-11.

It is hard to install coffin seats on A380, because the main deck is about 248 inches wide - about 18 inches wider than 777, so the extra width benefits the cattle class travellers somewhere.

Unless the A380 is configured 11 abreast. In which case, I think roughly 16,9 inches are available for each seatback. Slightly narrower than 10 abreast 777, but much better than a 10 abreast MD-11.

orbitmic

Sadly, I have no doubt that sooner or later someone will find a way of trying the 11 abreast lower deck (hopefully not the 9 abreast upper deck because of the plane curve). Does any legacy carrier fly 8 abreast 767s or 9 abreast 330s/340s though? I have fortunately never come across those yet!!

chornedsnorkack

Compare those two:
http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/KLM..._777-300ER.php
http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Air..._777-300_B.php

In the front end, the exact same cabin (between doors 1 and 2) holds 35 World Business on KLM, 14 Affaires and 36 Alize on AF.

Between Door 2 and 5, KLM has 390 seats, AF has 422. Where do the extra 32 go?

Between Doors 4 and 5, AF has 13 rows of 4 seat blocks, and 10 3-seat blocks, 4 2-seat blocks each side, total 128 seats. KLM has 12 4-seat blocks, 9 3-seat blocks each side, 4 2-seat blocks on left, 5 on right. Total 120. So 8 fewer. Two more middle cabins to compare... but the 8 missing seats here are 4 in front middle (where KLM has galley, but not AF), 2 rear left (KLM has toilet but not AF) and 2 third seats at the front of tailcone.

Come to consider it, the 32 seat difference is attributable to the total lack of galleys on AF except for those ahead of door 1. Are those for the exclusive use of Affaires and crew, or do Alize passengers also get food?

And do not fear the day CIO A380 flies to FDF. That is shorter than 7000 km (and CDG-CAY is only slightly longer than 7000 km, on a great circle). CDG-RUN easily beats that at 9500 km distance, in a cattle seat, without galleys. At least A380-800 does not have the range to fly CDG-PPT.

orbitmic

I did not dispute that the special version used by AF for the CIO is the worst - historically, for commercial reasons, AF seems to have always considered that the DOM-TOM clientele are a captive audience which can be offered and anchovy tin instead of a sardine tin - but I was comparing the 'regular' long haul versions of the 77W for KLM (your link) and AF (this link: http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Air..._777-300_C.php), and in that last case, AF is marginally less inhumane than KL (see above).