DCAproducer

Sorry, I meant to single out the 350. I was referring to the 777, 763, A330. I haven't had a chance to try out the A350 yet.

hockeyinsider

The doors don't even close all the way, which is dumb. Every other airline that has doors on either business-class or first-class seats has doors that fully close.

Bottom line: Delta's new seat, which is a complete backtrack on the much-hyped Delta One Suite, will be inferior to what American, British Airways and even United offer in business-class, at least once British Airways gets the new seat in the air, on the key Heathrow routes. It's quite possible that Virgin Atlantic's new seat will be better. I don't see Delta dropping the airfares, which puts it in an uncompetitive position -- especially when Delta has also cut catering and doesn't have exclusive Delta One lounges.

ClipperDelta

bennos

I'm pretty sure it's two different sets of people arguing that (1) it should have been a "suite" or (2) the suite is a gimmick. We tend to do that on FT because, you know, different people have different opinions.

ethernal

It's the same seat and the same product. They may make small adjustments / tradeoffs in terms of how deep the footwells are versus how wide the seats are, but the reality is it is the same seat with the same floor space being used. It will be tight. I will not be able to lie flat in these seats, just as before (if not worse since they are even narrower).

It will not be a competitive product.

Whether it has doors or not is absolutely irrelevant. The most important thing (and this is what United gets right with their Polaris branding focusing on sleep) is the ability to sleep. And these seats fail that test.

Mountain Explorer

34 seats in the space previously occupied by 40. So umm, how is that the same floor space?

ethernal

It is likely that Delta is moving the lavs forward into the current D1 cabin (as discussed previously) to help make room for the W cabin and that would explain the seat reduction.

Regardless, even in a hypothetical scenario where pitch did increase (unlikely), the width is the bigger issue here. The seat width is just too tight for anyone above probably the 80% percentile in shoulder width.

hockeyinsider

The wines are getting cheaper and cheaper.

MSPeconomist

audidudi

Let's just face it...UA has the premier product with the Polaris seats, and DL is secondary with this. Plain and simple. The three people I know who have flown on UA's Polaris setup all say that it's by far the best configuration for the B763ER, and presumably their B764s will get the same. By the looks of things, and until the first DL B764 comes of of mods at CAN late this month or early next, the jury is still out on the new D1 seats!

hockeyinsider

The problem is United hasn't gotten the "new" (is it still new after 3 years?) Polaris seat on most of its long-haul aircraft. They've admitted this won't happen until at least 2021 by which point it will be an "old" seat because the on-trend fashion is definitely business-class seats with doors.

United has also cut the on-board Polaris product since its launch. For example, the wine is marginally better than Delta, at least if you consider more expensive wine to be better, but there's less wine catered because United was going through too much. Right now, so much depends on the crew and the service they provide. And as we all know, most passengers would rather have the average Delta one than the average United crew.

Still, in concept, the Polaris seat is better and the Polaris lounges are better since Delta has nothing of the sort. Plus, unlike Delta, United seems to have a consistent Polaris service whereas Delta's Delta One varies greatly between domestic Delta One, shorter transpacific Delta One, and so forth.

audidudi

After 3 1/2 months at CAN and this being the prototype B764 for the new D1 cabin and complete new 4-class installation, N828MH had a test flight yesterday, so it should be heading back to the US soon:

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n828mh

audidudi

Update to my post above....according to another site, "the mods were completed more than a month ago. It remains at CAN due to issues with the wireless IFE system. It is not expected back to the U.S. until 5/25."

jdrtravel

Perhaps the longer term plan is to primarily shift these a/c the domestic transcon routes once more 330's come on line for TATL service. This product seems perfectly fine for transcons, IMO.

ethernal

Does anyone really care about the doors? Perhaps smaller (heightwise) people have the luxury of caring about whether or not a seat has a door, but I can't help but laugh at the thought that anyone really gives a crap about a door.

United's Polaris research was correct... the #1 most critical factor for long-haul business class is ability to sleep. Doors are not mandatory for this (and quite frankly may restrict it if it takes away space for one's body). United's 767 Polaris product is comfortable for me (at 6' 4"). Not great, but worlds worlds worlds better than the Delta 767 seats. They're a little "short" but they are WIDE and COMFORTABLE and easy to fall asleep in.

And it's funny that you say that United won't have the Polaris product across their long-haul fleet until 2021. Delta won't either - but Delta's "new" product is a recut of a more than decade old seat that everyone already knows is uncomfortable if you're even average-sized.