2027. I haven't seen anything yet that narrows it down more than that. There are no BA aircraft showing on the publicly available production lists.

"Still" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. It can be made to work in the same way a piece of paper can be made to fly. But to lose 25% (or is it 33%) of J toilet capacity for a good deal of the time in the air is a far stretch from saying it works. It may be made to work from a crew perspective, but a telling a customer who really needs to go that they need to walk to the middle of the aircraft is far from ideal, or premium.

I know if there is an A350 operator where crew don’t complain about the front galley. Qatar crew mentioned it long before BA had the A350 and from what I’ve heard, Virgin crew aren’t particularly enjoying it but make it work. The biggest difference carriers can make it the location of the toilets and some stoawages but the galley itself is pretty standard, with the equipment varying based on operator desires (ovens, coffee makers etc)

I mentioned, i believe somewhere on a thread on this forum some time ago (about 3+ years ago now), when BA had put forward their A380 refurbishment plans i was shared a little inside info. As with any plan, there were a number of possible re-configurations mooted. In these discussions there were 2-3 main contenders to base the business case from. One of these included an increase in capacity to the World Traveller cabin and a slight overall capacity increase on the aircraft. WTP and WT to be all on the main deck, but essentially the premium cabin figures remaining more or less stable - just with the upgraded products. Also closely matching those of the 77W.

8F - Forward Upper Deck Cabin.
88J - All Upper Deck aft of First (may have been give or take that figure).56W - Forward Main Deck (where First is currently).325Y - All Main Deck.
Approx total capacity - 477 (overall increase of 8 vs current).

The other option was a premium heavy layout, (high-J), very similar to what is being mentioned in the thread. Whereby First remains on the main deck and the entire upper deck is Club World.

BA certainly love a premium heavy config... stack them high and all that... but for some reason, personally i would have preffered the 1st version above being the selected config. Having the proposed high premium config just makes me picture the reality being anything but a premium experience. Especially in WTP with the sheer size of the cabin!

I would make two comments:

1. I don't think the new First suites would fit 1-2-1 on top deck of an A380 whereas the Club suite does so it makes sense to use top deck for Club as you can pack more economy in downstairs rather than a seat less upstairs.
2. I don't mind having the entire top deck dedicated to Business Class provided they are going to break down service effectively between the two galleys and have a properly staffed service plan. My fear is some accountant will tell them they should resource it all from one galley and then you find yourself waiting for a staff member to work their way down 25 seat rows ....

Etihad operate a subfleet of 6 B787-9s with a First cabin.

Some articles emerged that BA accidentally posted the new seat map




According to the new seat map

• 12 new First Class suites .
• 84 World Traveller Plus seats.
• 215 World Traveller seats.
• 110 club suites at the upper deck

interesting. Has anyone got a screenshot of the Club Suites layout on the Upoer Deck?

Also some discussion on the topic here Nov 2024 : New BA First cabin details revealed

This seems to be confirmed in the 'leaked' main deck seat map, although no reasons were mentioned, as far as I could tell. Personally, it would have been better to have F at the front of the upper deck where the large front loos could be kept for F pax. The current (and future) main deck F cabin is nice enough (in my extremely limited experience) but those tiny loos!

Maybe an upside of the new giant World Traveller Plus cabin might be dedicated crew (like the old mid-J 747. Will miss the better views and sidebins.

With the news that 787-10s are going to LGW, do we assume they'll have a separate sub fleet with a LGW friendly layout (no first, less CW and lots of WT+/WT)? The current 8/48/35/165 feel way to premium heavy.

The 777-200ER has many subfleets, 2 of which are at Gatwick. So more than likely they will come with a 3 class configuration, which would be suited for LGW flights.

I'd take that as a given.

was there any mention of club suites on the LGW 787 sub fleet?