BA Long Haul Economy
 

As economy seats/cabin continue to change for the worse in my opinion. 3-3-3 to 3-4-3 on the 777 and thinner more basic seats. Are BA ever likely to add a Virgin style economy delight seat with more legroom (34inc) I think. It doesn’t seem to impact the use of premium economy. Virgin must see a commercial benefit so why would BA not follow suit. Appreciate a bigger fleet to change, but any reasons why they wouldn’t. Any insight if it’s in the plan.

It's a good question. It would also align with AA's Main Cabin Extra (with AA now having Premium Economy as well).

I'm sure BA have looked at it but not yet had a convincing business case and/or resources to introduce it. That may or may not change in future.

IIRC VS has always had these extra leg room seats - and branded them as such.

Economy Delight basically took over those existing seats. There was no reconfiguration of cabins for example to add them which is what BA would have to do.

My guess is this may have been considered at the time decisions were made for the cabin on A350 aircraft and densification of B772s. Alignment with AA would’ve been good. The re-configured A380 cabin for CWS and other cabins could be interesting, similarly for B779s.

Virgin has indeed always had extra legroom seats. Whether 'Economy Delight' was a way of managing to more easily sell them or not I'm not sure. Guess it packages them together rather than making someone make a conscious decision at a later stage to add them, which may deter them.

I will pay for extra legroom in Economy given the opportunity to do so, but many will not. A recent experience on QR's 777 however is that it is shoulder room and not leg room that is the main problem in many economy classes.

As far as I'm aware, AA don't sell main cabin extra as a separate option like VS does with their Economy delight. Personally I don't see it happening on BA.

They don't (currently) sell it as a fare brand but they do upsell it as an option within the seat map:

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...546da363bc.png

I guess its a market they don't want to play in, if I have to fly to the US and it ends up being economy I'll try and go AA as my gold status let's me select the main cabin extra seats for free making it more comfortable by some margin than BA economy.

It certainly would be nice - although with me it might persuade me to opt for WT over WT+.

I certainly appreciate the MCE on AA and I seem to recall Finnair also has it on their LH. It does affect my airline choice - off to Oz from the US so will choose AA over QF, not for their stunning service, but for the fact I can get 35" instead of 31" leg room.

Good point about AA to the USA. I don’t think ba will, but it’s a shame. Qantas should look at it for their UK to Oz non stop flights.

UA has had just such a product for many years. It's free for elites and chargeable for everyone else. It has survived several managerial new brooms and has now been copied by AA and DL so I'm guessing the financial numbers work. It was why I chose UA over BA as my preferred carrier for regular TATL trips in the last 10 years. The thought of suffering 31" legroom for 11 hours is horrific.

VS introduced a standard 34"inch pitch around 1990.
This was quickly reduced back to 31"inch.
Have a timetable with the details and the inflight magazine where Branson promotes it.

BA does kind-of do this already, via the seat fee mechanism.

So on both 787-8 and 787-9 there is row 30, which effectively has limitless legroom in front (it's by an exit door), ditto row 41 on the A350-1000. These attract premium seating fees and effectively status passengers get first dips on them for free - so less frequent flyers may struggle to get them.

So if you take a £260 return fare, LHR to PIT, the cheapest seat fee is £23 each way. But for row 30 it goes up to £75, so a £52 premium for the legroom.

I would actually suggest the problem isn't legroom so much as width. Unless you are in well into the final 0.5% of height distribution then there is going to room for your legs under the seat in front. But the width on the 787s and to some extent the 10-a-side 777s is going to affect rather more than 0.5% of the population.

An average long haul economy seat costs 500 (for arguments sake), and they could charge 80 quid at most for extra legroom. The numbers don't really stack up. Anything over ~5" extra starts to cost money.

Airlines like AY and AA do it because the emergency exit placements don't allow an extra row, so they may as well stretch the front few and charge extra, but BA seems adept at squeezing seats in right up to the limit.

I’m sure AA do it for more complex reasons across a number of long haul base airports with different markets.