Aer Lingus New Premier Class

Ok dont laugh too much , as I have , but Aer Lingus have announced earlier month the new "Premier Seats" that will be installed on the new airbus hen they arrive. I mean I know they are trying to upgrade but to me this seat looks like the old SIA Raffels seat - except older design - Oh DEAR - http://www.aerlingus.com/Services/seat_ ... dc2.136343

Looks more like the EADS Sogerma Evolys seat. Quite a few airlines fly these seats, and they are actually quite comfortable and face forward, so no neck craning to see out.

With an appropriately generous seat pitch, there's little or no acrobatics needed to get out of a window seat.

The old SIA Raffles seat was by Avio Interiors.

Give them a break. They've only just escaped the jaws of O'Leary...

Mike

[Scrooge]

Why the heck are they putting angled seats in would be my question ?

Originally posted by Scrooge
Why the heck are they putting angled seats in would be my question ?

Two reasons:

a) Economics - they can't afford the space to put flat seats in, so go for angled seats (at least they are rigid back, so no-one reclines back into "your" space)

b) Management Inertia - perhaps this project is about 4 years old, back when 160-degree "sinking" seats were state of the art for J seats, and it's been this long in getting the go ahead to do it

c) Preference - they evaluated the different seats offered by the various manufacturers, and decided they like that seat

Mike

Originally posted by Scrooge
Why the heck are they putting angled seats in would be my question ?

This is my point - They have the Abu Dhabi airline now offering seats to the far east for onward flight to Australia so they cant compete them and so the new ones must be for the USA planes. Good grief they must not read forums with people clearly advising airlines to put in 180deg lie flat seats , Oleary or not thats complete stupid in my opinion.

6 years to make your mind up - Dont know about you but I would be fired if it took me that long to make a decision - anyway best of luck to them - I suppose considering they are up against AA/DELTA and Continental from Dublin etc they really have a simualr product to offer - I wonder what IFE they are installing with a "huge selection " of 12 movies.

[Scrooge]

Mike I understand where you are coming from..but I have to agree with Keith, it's not like Aer Lingus is the cheap option anymore.

[honey lamb]

Originally posted by porsche911
6 years to make your mind up - Dont know about you but I would be fired if it took me that long to make a decision - anyway best of luck to them - I suppose considering they are up against AA/DELTA and Continental from Dublin etc they really have a simualr product to offer - I wonder what IFE they are installing with a "huge selection " of 12 movies.

Yeah, but remember that 6 years ago they were just coming back from the brink of bankruptcy

Aer Lingus at the moment offer as far as I am concerned an extremley old service for business class to the USA. But they are noter offering discount prices - here are some examples to cmpare - August - AER Û3110 + taxes - BA Club Û3470 - Continental - Û1850 - AF Û2250 - vs Û3847 - Delta Û2950 - and most are offering a modern business class.

I think a little perspective is needed here.

In 2002, the "sinking" rigid rear recliners like the J2000, Avio Interiors' Perseus (the basic chassis for the SQ Skybed seat), and friends were the state of the art for J seating.

The leading flat bed was the Britax/Contour F-cabin flat seat used in the likes of BA F, et al.

Everything else was pretty much classic moving backrest seating.

The UCS changed all that, but at a cost which had to be borne by our beloved VS. The seat itself is a heavy beast, heavier than J2000, I understand. It's had a number of teething issues and resultant retro-fits and modifications, and probably still needs a fair amount of TLC from the cabin maintenance people to work properly.

The UCS also has it's critics, from difficulty seeing out, to sitting sideways, to feeling narrow (especially on the Airbus), to being too firm as a bed, to being too restrictive as a seat, to being unreliable, to having a crap reading light, to the recline seeming to have a life of it's own, and the tendancy to get dinged up easily and look scruffy.

EI most likely want to get the right number of people in for their revenue model, and don't want a bottomless pit of maintenance and retrofit. As suggested, their competitors aren't particularly innovative, so they can afford to tread this more conservative route. The Virgin culture contains some element of managed risk-taking. It was part of the reason that a publically traded Virgin Group was a short-lived animal.

Other organisations are a bit more staid and corporate, publically traded ones are subject to vast amounts of scrutiny especially, and so we can't have the same expectations of them as we might have of VS.

Mike

[Scrooge]

Well DL is switching to it's version of the UCS, the CO price quoted is for a 757 flight which uses domestic C seats but that is supposed to be changing.

I don't know, I just can't get comfortable in those angled flat seats, I much prefer to the over sized recliner types, like the recarros.

The seats look like Qatar J class. These are very good but the slight slope when "fully flat" is not the best for sleeping. Gravity does tend to send you to the bottom of the seat.