bernardd

Looking at the diagram of the high capacity version I'm pretty sure it can't recline properly, if at all. Does anyone know if there is any recline on the high "comfort" version? Overall I'm afraid it looks to me like a cattle truck, their massed ranks of seats in the 773 mock up would be a very good reason to choose another airline. Hopefully my traveling career will be over before all the airlines adopt them.

bernardd

The other side of the coin is CO's minimal Y pitch is so tight that I'm never going to choose them for a transoceanic flight all the time any other carrier offers me an alternative. My guess is CO has been achieving a little less for it's BF seats because they're not fully flat, but now that's going away I expect less sales and a general hardening of the price so the Y->J differential is going to increase, and I find it hard justifying the extra cost of multiple BF roundtrips a year, so I guess I'll stick with BA, unless someone else decides to grace Texas with PE seats.

J.Edward

@:-)@:-)@:-)

CO 1E

Indeed - we seem to be reverting to the early 90's, when the business class offerings of many carriers was more like today's premium economy than today's J products.

AMF in NJ

I don't see any info on recline, or a 'forward slide' recline (ala CX). Personally the way Y is now I don't want people reclining into me. Fixed back shell is a plus for me. ^ And I don't see how it is any more of a 'cattle truck' then Y is; you can't deny how the staggered seats would give everyone more shoulder room than regular Y. ^^

rkkwan

I am still waiting for confirmed reference that DL has exclusive rights to the business class seats. If they have, then CO won't have anything to announce, right? So, that's clearly not the case.

Anyways, the Y product's main purpose is to cramp more seats. 2-4-2 in 767s, for example. The shell seats will have some "recline", just like the nenw ones on CX.

bernardd

We're probably going to have to agree to disagree, but the picture here is more battery hen than "cozy suite". There seem to be a bunch of questions that are glossed over, for example how do you get to the bathroom? Will my computer bag fit under the seat in front?

My understanding is nobody has used this in anger on a 16 hour flight, and I sure as heck don't want to be on the first one. Hopefully DL have done a LOT of research before commiting to them, but airlines have made mistakes before - as an example BA fitted some of their 777's with 10-wide seating and had to take it out because of customer reaction. Has anyone here tried 10-wide seating on AF?

AMF in NJ

If you're interested enough there's a powerpoint that has more information than the website. The gist is that the seat tips up, similarly to a movie theater/stadium seat so that if someone needs to leave the window seat, you stand up in place and they pass in front, as opposed to everyone having to exit their seat now. Obviously I would love for the high comfort layout to be installed, but I'm cynical enough to believe they all will choose the high capacity layout. Even then I would take it over conventional Y.

Wiirachay

You mean the "low comfort" layout. It's really awesome that you can increase the pitch yet increase capacity!!!

bernardd

Yup, it's right up there with "if we package up enough of these sub-pime loans they're as good as Treasury bonds".....

AMF in NJ

They're claiming a 3% increase in Y with the increase pitch (4 more out of 120), but it's not front and center in their marketing. Everything I read on the website presents it as an either/or decision (more width/pitch or more capacity).

But interestingly enough they make the same claims about J, full flat bed and higher capacity than with the current almost flat bed, yet I don't see the dubious remarks. Like rkkwan said, it's quite clever how they accomplish it. Here's a flash on how they increase J capacity and pitch.

I'll agree that I may sound like a kool-aid drinker and am taking their marketing at face value, but being trapped in Y my whole life I'm open to anything that may improving the experience.

rkkwan

There's a big difference between Thompson's solution for J and Y. For J, they manage to put in the same number of flat beds as there were lie-flats or recliners before. Its purpose is to maintain capacity. If you don't feel crowded with 32 seats in the first section of CO's current 772 BF, then you shouldn't feel crowded with 35 either. In fact, it'll feel more airy than herringbone because you won't have all these tall partitions that also block out the views out of the windows.

The Y design is for packing more people in the same space. Each person still gets the same amount of elbow room and legroom, but there are more people in the same space.

But the question about how to get out of the window seat is pointless. It's the same as current seats. You ask the other people to standup and/or get into the aisle. How else can you do it?

Steph3n

I don't see the advantage of packing more in on long haul when they are weight restricted anyway.....at least with most current seating you can have the benefit of a lay flat bed in Y if you don't have seatmates

Wiirachay

You'd really never be weight-restricted doing IAH-LHR, EWR-TLV, IAH-GIG, or even IAH-NRT. However, there would probably be issues doing EWR-HKG or EWR-DEL.

What about lowering the baggage weight to 25 lbs. and 1 check-in bag?

lensman

One possible use of the "High Comfort" vs "High Capacity" version would be to implement "High Comfort" elite seating on widebodies. The irony remains that if the coach seat were implemented systemwide, the narrowbodies would have the best coach seating of all. Then again, this might fit well with CO's utilization of 757-200's TATL. Maybe the 764 wouldn't seem superior to the 752 in every way.