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Broken Seats - Regional Business Class

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Broken Seats - Regional Business Class

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Old Jun 17, 2011, 1:13 am
  #1  
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Broken Seats - Regional Business Class

Please be gentle as it is my first post, but is it just me or are the seats reaching the end of their miserable existence. Every flight I go on seems to have at least one seat that is unusable.

It may have been covered on other threads, but when are they redoing regional business class? Hopefully when they do get round to it, the roll-out will be somewhat more speedy than the new long-haul J class!!

Some interesting stuff on here, I look forward to participating!
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Old Jun 17, 2011, 1:35 am
  #2  
sxc
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Yes they are reaching the end of their life...and actually did a few years ago when they tried to introduce a new regional business class. Unfortunately the feedback from those new seats was so bad that they stopped the rollout, but haven't seemed to be able to find a new product to continue the rollout. I don't know why it's so hard to get a decent product as there are plenty of "out of the box" solutions offered by the seat manufacturers for short haul business class.

This is the stillborn regional business class that you'll find on some planes:

http://www.cathaypacific.com/cpa/en_...0021d21c39____
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Old Jun 17, 2011, 1:48 am
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Yes indeed it's a poor show and to be fair the broken ones I see are always the older manual seats. I also think that given their current profitability levels, they really do need to step up to the plate and get on with a refresh, but then I guess the occupancy rates are high enough at the moment for them to be pretty complacent.
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Old Jun 17, 2011, 9:20 am
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I think better convert them to the Olympus product asap.
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Old Jun 17, 2011, 10:20 am
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Originally Posted by sxc
Yes they are reaching the end of their life...and actually did a few years ago when they tried to introduce a new regional business class. Unfortunately the feedback from those new seats was so bad that they stopped the rollout, but haven't seemed to be able to find a new product to continue the rollout. I don't know why it's so hard to get a decent product as there are plenty of "out of the box" solutions offered by the seat manufacturers for short haul business class.

This is the stillborn regional business class that you'll find on some planes:

http://www.cathaypacific.com/cpa/en_...0021d21c39____
Wow, did not realize CX had tried to introduce new seats before. But you are right. There are so many "ready-to-go" regional J seats out there that CX is really dragging its feet here.
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Old Jun 17, 2011, 11:01 am
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Originally Posted by derek2010
I think better convert them to the Olympus product asap.
The olympus product is not really practical for regional routes. You lose alot of seats. I would like too see even a generic J class (likes of KE, SQ, QR) to replace those old regional seats. Bigger screen. better seating, etc.
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Old Jun 17, 2011, 5:29 pm
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Originally Posted by sxc
Unfortunately the feedback from those new seats was so bad that they stopped the rollout
what was the problem with those new seats ?
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Old Jun 17, 2011, 8:09 pm
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Originally Posted by marcuslai
what was the problem with those new seats ?
They are simply uncomfortable....I far prefer getting a plane with the "old" regional J than the "new" regional J (in reality both of them are quite old). The old one is more comfortable, you fall into the seat easier. The new J is quite rigid, and I find my neck and head always uncomfortable when sitting in it.

You can tell even CX knows it sucks, read their description for the regional business class on their website. All complete over-the-top bollocks, sounds like an infomercial where you know you're going to get screwed
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Old Jun 17, 2011, 8:35 pm
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Originally Posted by marcuslai
what was the problem with those new seats ?
A lot of people found the new seat's seat cushioning to be firmer and less comfortable. I don't have a problem with them myself. I like the brighter cabin of the NRBC (due to the lighter coloured seat fabrics) and the nicer television. ORBC dates back to about 1994 if not before!
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Old Jun 17, 2011, 10:09 pm
  #10  
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The main benefit of the "newer" RBC is of course the screen which is slightly better and bigger than the old one but even, both are a disgrace for an airline making as much as Cathay are at the moment.

Obviously the food on both is dreadful or am I just being a complete whinge-bag??!!
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Old Jun 18, 2011, 8:11 am
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Originally Posted by derek2010
I think better convert them to the Olympus product asap.
Nobody really needs a fully-flat bed on a one-hour hop to Taipei, or 3-hour flight to Beijing.
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Old Jun 18, 2011, 8:31 am
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Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Just use JAL domestic First Class seat and I guess no one will complain :-P reduce a bit of the seat's width and remove the over luciriuous table will do

O and add back the missing PTV :-P

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...class-jal.html

http://www.jal.co.jp/en/inflight/dom/f/
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Old Jun 18, 2011, 11:10 pm
  #13  
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The JAL suggestion is a good one. Also something akin to the SQ "intermediate" business class offering would be excellent (not their rubbishy short haul business class which is no better than CX). SQ's business class confuses me a little as there seem to be 3 types of business class product.
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Old Jun 19, 2011, 2:26 am
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I vote for VX style F seat for CX regionals.. Its that much better and I think kind of similar to JL's Domestic F product..

VX First
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Old Jun 19, 2011, 2:58 am
  #15  
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Nice, but I think the new SQ medium haul is a bit better because it is a shell design so people in front can't encroach on your space by putting the seat back. In reality I don't know how many seats in business class would be lost using this design, but I would think at least 1-2 rows, and you may not be able to maintain the 2-3-2 configuration on some planes. If this is right, then it will never happen.
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