Spaceseat axed from Boeing 777-300ER
 

Long speculated and much expected, now confirmed by AirNZ: the Spaceseat gets the chop in favour of the Boeing 787-9's more conventional premium economy seat.

The Boeing 777-300ERs will be refurb from February 2017 to 'late November' 2017, with the revamped premium economy cabin going from 44 seats to 54.

[That's the need-to-know info, but more at http://www.ausbt.com.au/air-new-zeal...nomy-spaceseat]

Sad but totally expected..

Interesting to see the speculation of a "US" config for the remaining 789's is true.

boooooooooooooooo

That's the line about BP going from 18 to 27 and PE from 21 to 33?

So that's 3 extra rows of BP, but adding 2 rows to PE would give 35 instead of 33...where do those 2 seats get lopped off?

Are they not going to do anything about their Business seats seeing what DL have done?

One assumes they're going to use the PE space for BP and then move PE into the Economy space. The current economy seat map has a row 34 only on the right hand side. I haven't actually flown on one, but I presume this is because of the galley/bulkhead? If so it'll explain how you could end up with a strange number.

Disappointing
 

I love the space seat and have been paying to use it. I flew the 789 last week and was underwhelmed. I won't bother to pay to sit in it again. I wonder if NZ asked customers about this before making the decision?

As for Business Premier, surely a redesign must be under way as it is far from top of the class. Maybe not though if NZ is planning this change? I'm disappointed.

Air NZ BP is great for the likes of me whom is taller, when bed mode is in place. But compared to other business class on alternative airlines, it is rather lack lustre sadly. But if sleeping is your thing, which it is for me, hard to beat Air NZ BP.

Current layout has been around for a few years now, will be interesting to see what the next iteration is like

The 789 config has "....proven to be extremely popular with customers." Or, loosely translated as "a likely limited volume of some positive feedback has been cherry picked to prop up our blatantly thin spin as regards the swap out, that we are pushing through because it will inflate our profits further, regardless of whether a significant amount of HVCs like the Spaceseat." ;)

I wonder if this will be the end of the run of awards for best PE? I wonder if the value of that has been factored into the calculations?

Well if they had asked me about ripping out the spaceseats, I'd have said 'go for it'! I didn't hate the spaceseat, but all in all I find the new PE better, and it's clearly more economical in terms of footprint.

Sure, it doesn't have the same uniqueness value as the spaceseat, but I doubt that can make up for the vastly superior economics of the conventional seat.

21 PE seats are the worst idea for the 789 from availability standpoint. I hope that person was fired.

I've always liked the spaceseat but it seems most people who have posted about it here have not, so hopefully some happy people?

This was always going to happen, the 787 PE seat is pretty good.

I actually like AirNZ's 787 premium economy seat – found it quite comfy on a very long flight, and decent legroom also.

+1000 :(