TCX69

From 14 July our first A321 aircraft (G-MEDU) fitted with the new seats and IFE and will commence operating on midhaul routes. The remaining 6 A321 aircraft will also be fitted out over the coming months before transferring to BA as the summer progresses.

Overview
•Business Class seat: 23 Thompson Aero Seating lie-flat beds at 45”pitch
•Economy Class seat: 131 Geven “Piuma” economy seats at 31”pitch
•IFE: Thales i5000 AVOD system to all seats
•General refurbishment of the cabin including installation of SafTgloEPL, new carpets, curtains, NTF, and lighting. The general cabin design is modern, contemporary and neutral with no branding or logos
•Conversion layovers to start June 2012 through Dec 2012

Business Class Seat
Thompson Aero Seating ‘Vantage’ Seat
•Horizontal, electrically powered lie-flat beds
•Fabric seat covers from Lantal
•78” flat bed length, 45” pitch
•Three passengers per row 1-2, 2-1
•LantalPneumatic Cushion System
•Airbag seat belts (AmSafe)

Economy Class Seat
Geven ‘Piuma’ Seat
•New generation lightweight seat @31”pitch
•4-way adjustable headrests
•In-arm tables and monitors in rows 9 and 21
•E-leather seat covers

Thales i5000 Audio Video on Demand System

•Business Class
–15.4 “seat back ‘smart’ touch screen monitors
–In-seat power supply
–Next generation PCU in armrest
–Noise cancelling RJU headset installation
–9 pin DIN connection
–Plug and play function for iPod, iPhone

•Economy Class
–8.9 inch backrest mounted touch screens
–8.9 inch in-arm monitors in row 9 and 21
–Single pin RJU headset installation

•Both Cabins
–USB connection
–Fully customised pages of bmi information including bmi destination highlights, shopping pages, airport, airline and fleet information
–3D Geofusioninteractive moving map with 10 ultra high resolution city images Full motion 3D view of the aircraft as it flies, including complete route and close up views of current position
–Full range of interactive games & specific kids section

G-MEDU's first flight with the new cabin is expected to be BD891 DME on 15July.

Kevincm

Ooh. That's nice!

As always, a bit late, but still... a nice looking cabin up front...

littlevoices

Might have to look at one of the mid-hauls for next year with this config, would be nice to see how bmi would have been. Thanks for sharing TCX69

GoldCircle

That's the SWISS setup, isn't it?

And TCX69, not a bad 100th post, may I say? In fact, for a mere 100 posts, your input round here has been a lot more valuable than most - thank for all the input! ^

jbfield

Nice , butthe irony...

Only addition I would make would be to have in-seat power in economy as well as business.

BrianDromey

Great to see that the A321s are getting a further facelift. Presumably this means that they will be kept for the medium term plying midhaul routes with the 767s and 777s.
It is interesting that the cabins are getting a "neutral" look with no branding or logos. Im looking forward to seeing what they look like.

Thanks for the info TCX, great contribution, as usual.

hugolover

I thought this was happening, I guess my source was right ^. Thanks for the update TCX!

Swiss Tony

I don't think Swiss have airbags in the seatbelts. Have only ever seen that where the seat is at an angle with CX J coffins and the current UA Intl F

David-A

From memory I think they do. But I might be wrong.

layz

Is this something that is happening solely because it was already scheduled to happen, so it's just business as usual and no one from BA has put a stop to it. Then a few months down the line the aircraft will be reconfigured by BA?

Hopefully they'll keep it, but considering they're trying to make all aircraft in the BA style it just seems a little bit odd.

Swiss Tony

Admittedly it was 18 months ago when I flew LX in the new J but I certainly don't remember it.

layz

Isn't BD907 one of the flights moving to a BA code by then? What's its new flight number?

I've looked LHR-BEY on 15th July on ba.com and it only shows BA8180 as an A320. I know there's two LHR-BEY flights on some days.

Steady-EDI

I formed the impression that BA were fully behind this development, from this part of the first post:
I wonder if the mid-hauls will be marketed as Club World / World Traveller. If so, I think this will be the fourth variation of the CW hard product on offer.

While they're at it, I wish BA would install 3 or 4 rows of the old mid-haul seats in some of its 'native' A320s and start providing a decent Club Europe product to the likes of ATH, LCA and IST. @:-)

TCX69

Indeed BD907 will be BA8180. It is however an A321. It's first flight is now actually DME.

TCX69

(Removed)