13901

A year after the first 787-9 was introduced, I was lucky enough to fly on duty travel to someplace with the new F seat and my cabin eligibility was, indeed F. These scruffs were already visible. I was working at the time in Engineering and I went to see the chaps in Cabin Engineering to highlight that issue. It was nothing new, they'd heard it before, but it was an interesting insight in the glacial pace that these things take to be sorted out. The short and sweet is that there's a design fault that's also very hard to fix because the bit that get scruffy is a part of leather stitching that runs the length of the seat, if I remember well: the solution designed by the manufacturer was to modify it with a sturdier band on the edge that gets scruffed the most. That would appear (or at least this I was told before leaving) on new builds and would be retrofitted back on the existing frames as they went for a lengthy cabin input. A bit like the metal frame that, at some point, has appeared on the edge of the 777/747 First seats to prevent them from being chipped away by bags and stuff.

Bottom line = need.more.testing. But when I joined BA I was told the story of the old old First, the one with velvet: everyone - engineers, cleaners, you name it - was begging those in charge not to introduce velvet as it's impossible to clean onboard and hard to fix and... voila, here's velvet!

Swanhunter

Not to mention the white carpet in the first iteration of the Anya Hindmarch upgrade 😂

babats

That would cost money

London21

Says it all about BA.

First class with very tatty interiors

bafan

Masking tape ???

sb1982

Does anyone know if the new 787-10 First will be exactly the same as the existing 787-9's?

I understand from reading online that it will be 'similar' to the current Dreamliner First cabin, but I wonder if BA is improving it in any way quality-wise? I've seen some awful pictures of the wear-and-tear.

pennineuk

Pretty poor F experience on 787-9 today (LHR-ATL, aA227), Booted out of 1A because seat stuck in upright position, despite aircraft passing through LHR with 4 hour window. Standard scuff marks in 1K and 2A (Mrs P). Poor IFE that required reboot and then lots of background noise which made programmes unwatchable and finally very tired looking food...rolls inedible...very dry, a slab of smoked salmon and a not very attentive cabin crew who seemed to go through the motions but without engaging,

Perhaps I’m in a bad mood because yet again I’ve been single out for the SSSS treatment!

MarkedMan

Usually quite happy to get SSSS, it's like pre-pre-boarding

Jokes aside, it's a pity you had a poor experience, at the moment I suppose you'd expect things to be quite tense, but think that lower loads and the "need to impress" would lead to higher than usual service standards. Let's hope it goes better next time for you.

Jimmie76

Duck tape would be my choice I've got some in a fetching pinky purple colour if BA don't have any of their own.

navylad

Happy to report my suite on JNB-LHR this evening is spotless, no evidence of any wear at all, come to think of it neither did my flight out.

kileysmom

Looks to me like an elbow patch from a nice wool cardi would be a good "fix." Bet a decent leather worker could come up with something that could be done in a short time and look fairly okay. A decent repair would look less offensive than the tear and raw materials.

13901

Don't forget that your decent leather worker must be approved to work on airplanes and his leather must be passing all the requirements for being used on an aircraft (e.g. being fire resistant to the utmost degree, not emit any dark smoke when it finally gets ablaze etc). It's the same reason why cleaning a plane is trickier than cleaning your own home: can't use bleach or any detergent that can emit vapours.