V-Flyer

New promo of flat beds:

BusinessFirst

quote:Originally posted by northernhenry
New promo of flat beds:

BusinessFirst




Yes looks good and will raise CO's game. One colleague of mine went over to the US last week on CO, his comments - older seat, GREAT food, good service, poor lounges but a price in business first to EWR at UK2,100 booked only a few days in advance - compare this to VS PE at UK1,900 booked a few days in advance and when CO install these seats, VS has more competition ...

That pretty much sums it up, give me the BA seat, the CO food and the VS service and you have the perfect airline, but being very serious for a minute, with this seat there is a major shift in flying ahead for me.

I hope I don't get Slinky's plane -- its tail just blew off!

As for these seats, all l well and good but remember the fine print...these will probably be available on two planes for the next 5 years and then fully roll-out by 2020. Sorry to be cynical but in this economic environment, if they have their fleet converted quickly I shall eat my hat.

GJ

quote:Originally posted by GrinningJackanapes
I hope I don't get Slinky's plane -- its tail just blew off!

As for these seats, all l well and good but remember the fine print...these will probably be available on two planes for the next 5 years and then fully roll-out by 2020. Sorry to be cynical but in this economic environment, if they have their fleet converted quickly I shall eat my hat.

GJ


According to the CO website, the 777's will be complete by Aug 2011, the rest by Aug 2012. So even if they are completed on time its going to be a while.

See Here:Seat Installation Progress

Seat looks pretty similar to United's new biz seat - hard to tell exactly from images, of course. Major improvement indeed. CO's food always impressed me even internally (and I think they remain the only US airline to serve meals in economy).

Their lounges are like all US major airlines' 'chain' lounge concept, with at least the improved aspect of serving (cheap) booze for free in all of them. None of this 'chit' nonsense you get on United. It's an interesting battle between the US airlines right now. For *A, CO have the superior soft product, but the hard product is going to take a while to come up to scratch. United's in the opposite position - the hard product has been replaced throughout the downturn in a 'bet the house' move (including a full redesign of the 777 seats in Econ), while the many needed improvements to the soft product are being delayed.

I think my next trip across is going to be on UA's new seats, we'll see if they are any better than VS.

All this talk of hard and soft products has me fanning myself more vigorously than Karl Lagerfeld in a summer jungle. [:I]

Papadoc, thanks for the roll-out schedule...as I suspected, it's another three years before this tease is operationalised.

GJ

They look very similar/the same as the BA Business Class product I tried out for the LCY/JFK route recently.

Certainly one I WILL use when going to New York in future (well mainly because I have a property very near LCY - anything to avoid T3/T5)

Carry on fanning ...