The Finnair Website mentions a "Full-flat guarantee" on certain routes. How does the guarantee work? Is it along the lines of "under normal conditions we would expect all of our aircraft on these routes to be equipped with our latest seat" or is it a real promise, i.e. "If you get the old seat you will be compensated". I don't believe Finnair will be able to rule aircraft changes completely, won't they?

Absolutely not. The odds are high but it's not written in stone.

AFAIK, guarantee in the sense "it is our ambition to provide full flat on these routes, but if we fail, we'll fail'. I haven't seen any promises what they will do if no full flat is available at any given point.
You should call AY and ask (not that you will get a better answer but just to make someone realise that if you call it a guarantee, there need to be a "pay-out" of some kind in case of failure)

OTOH, they have more full flats than they have routes with guarantee, so maybe in reality it will be very rare to fail on this promise.

If full flat means the seat in bed configuration is horizontal then AY doesn't have full flat seats. They are at a slight angle. Not much and it doesn't bother at all. The old fully angled are terrible.

Full flat does not imply fully horizontal.

Cheers,
T.

I thought the word "full" would imply 180 degrees? Otherwise those are called "lie flat" seats or "angled lie flats"?

So AY doesn't have fully horizontal seats EVEN AFTER REFITTING?!

Correct Sir.
But air planes cruise with a slight angle of attack, and to some degree that compensates.

I believe Zodiac UK (vendor) calls then full flat horizontal. Maybe they aren't, I have no idea. What is it that makes you say they are not horizontal? Would you mind point us to another business class seat that is horizontal in you view so we can compare?

I actually stand corrected, at least according to Finnair web site:
Cheers,
T.

Well, they say they are horizontal but I don't think they are. The headrest is a bit higher than the footrest.

Compared to the floor that is. As mentioned, the plane flies at a slight angle of attack which compensates. Maybe the advertised "horizontal" is just that? I hate to sleep when my head is lower than my feet... with the current setup it doesn't feel that way and I sleep just fine.

When they announced the full flats on the HKG route, I decided to check how Finnair J compares against CX business class and made a mistake of booking a AY long haul ex HEL for my summer holiday in June.

This promise for full flat is the usual Finnair "promise". I took a flight on 5th of June to HKG and that route was promised to have full flat. When I entered the cabin I noticed that it was the old torture J instead. I spent the entire flight thinking that I could have taken the Cathay instead. Naturally my comparison ended with CX 6 - AY 1. Only the wine list was marginally better in AY.

I would treat this promise of full flat on "promised" routes with great caution. Play safe, take CX. After, its the best business in OW.

On HKG route, it is not so much they don't live up to their own gurantee as that they went 180� on including HKG in the gurarantee. They initially said HKG was on the A-list, and only later backpaddled and changed it to "winter season".

So even if it was marketed as guaranteed at the time you booked, it wasn't when you flew. For you that is probably no consoliation, but it would be interesting to hear from one of the true full-flat-routes what AY does when they fail to fulfill the promise.


In regards to CX, no new seat could save the game for AY. Servicewise AY is clueless in comparison. For anyone that can afford CX it is a no brainer.

Thank you...that's what I thought. If full-flat doesn't mean completely horizontal then they could say their lavatory is full-flat too, because its wall is completely flat at 90 degrees against the floor.

Anyways, does anyone have the seat maps for refitted 343s? The ones on AY website and SeatGuru seem outdated.

Yea, broken promises and bypassed regulation. That is the AY I know

However, service on CX was over the top again. I dosed of during the taxi and wokeup 1 hr later. The same second I opened my eyes, the FA folded the table, handed over the menu and 2 mins later I was eating dinner.^

The airfoil does, the fuselage is kept as horizontal as possible during cruise. As the plane gets lighter with fuel burn, the angle attack needs to be reduced and hence the fuselage will be horizontal at the end of cruise. This requires it to pitch mildly upward at early cruise.
The seat would need to change attitude of you wanted to compensate for this effect.