British Airways "on track" for new A350 Club World business class
By David Flynn, July 20 2017
British Airways says it's on track for the launch of its new Club World business class seat in early 2019, but has denied reports of abandoning an evolution of the current seat for an all-new design.
Earlier this year the airline's CEO Alex Cruz confirmed to Australian Business Traveller that the seat – which will deliver direct aisle access for every passenger – will debut on new Airbus A350-1000 and Boeing 787-10 jets from 2019, and may also be retro-fitted to some other aircraft in BA's long-range fleet.
Designs for the next-generation Club World seat – detailed in leaked internal BA documentation seen by Australian Business Traveller – indicate the British flag-carrier will keep the alternating foward-backward layout of its current business class, but with improvements to key aspects of the seat to boost its appeal to high flyers.
Read more: British Airways plans new Club World business class seat for 2019
Cruz has previously tamped down speculation of a radical replacement for the Club World cribs, describing them as not "ultra-revolutionary" and focusing more on incremental changes to the current seat.
Mockup illustrations and diagrams from a BA patent application, shown above and below – while based on an earlier, less-refined seat concept – indicate the seat would allow British Airways to retain its highly-profitable 'high density' cabin layout, although this would see some benefits from the wider cabin footprint of the A350.
Read more: British Airways patent reveals new slant on Club World business class
A spokesperson for British Airways has confirmed to Australian Business Traveller that "the plans are well advanced now, and we haven't changed our tack or design... we’re still on track to deliver the new seat in 2019."
It's been speculated that BA had gone back to the drawing board and was considering other potential Club World designs, ranging from these angled seats in a more conventional 1-2-1 layout...
... to this revolutionary couch-like design, which BA’s mock-up artwork tagged as a 'sofa' rather than a seat...
.. which would see passengers adopt a forward-facing position for the taxi, take-off and landing stages of the flight, but stretch out – with an infill section of the sofa creating a continuous surface between the seat and the ottoman – to relax or sleep.
British Airways launched Club World business class in 1999, and was among the world's first airlines to adopt fully lie-flat beds in business class.
David Flynn is the Editor-in-Chief of Executive Traveller and a bit of a travel tragic with a weakness for good coffee, shopping and lychee martinis.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
28 Jul 2016
Total posts 108
This looks good, if you were in 2005. They need a completely new seat. Full stop.
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
06 Feb 2012
Total posts 30
yeah whilst its great that they can cram more people into the business class cabin.... oh no wait no that is a terrible idea!
09 Jun 2017
Total posts 31
Get rid of the back to front jig saw!
16 Jun 2017
Total posts 5
BA business seats are one of the worst of the major carriers. They are so poorly designed I'm surprised they passed testing stages. Carrying over the same terrible design on brand new 787 aircraft was an abysmal decision. Poor effort BA.
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
24 Aug 2011
Total posts 785
Search YouTube for DennisBunnik - he made an excellent review video of the current seats in the BA 747.
British Airways - Executive Club
28 Mar 2014
Total posts 70
Notwithstanding BA have a larger fleet than QR, it is staggering that the rollput of these seats is taking 2 years. QR fitted its new QSuites to its planes in a matter of months: and the seats taken out wete 100 times better than BAs product (new or old)
30 Aug 2013
Total posts 440
Umm, Qatar have fitted QSuites into exactly one plane so far. United will take over 5 years to fit Polaris seats into their fleet.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
15 Mar 2016
Total posts 167
Two of the major issues are lack of space and lack of storage - I don't know that they're fixable with a bit of evolution!
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
19 Feb 2014
Total posts 444
British Airways really is rapidly catching up and overtaking United Airlines when it comes to the worst Business and 'First' options in the sky.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
06 Oct 2016
Total posts 161
On track... by virtue of the outdatforward/rear layouts I would think it shows they are off track
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
20 Mar 2014
Total posts 132
BA should seriously just make all their seats first class, then they would have the best business class cabins in the word!
23 May 2014
Total posts 119
I wouldn't choose to fly this product... luckily as I live in Sydney not London I have lots of other options for where I need to go...
30 Aug 2013
Total posts 440
What people seem to forget is that BA isn't trying to have the best anything. Airlines like Qatar and Etihad need to innovate and stand out to convince people to fly with them and connect through cities passengers would never dream of visiting. BA have the most slots at one of the most popular airports in the world - LHR. So many of their pax want to either start or end their trip in London they don't need to have the best product, or be the cheapest - pax will still choose them because of their natural advantage. You don't fly them for any other reason than they have more flights to and from London than any other airline.
BA are excellent at what is most important to them - making lots of money.
Singapore Airlines - KrisFlyer
24 Feb 2016
Total posts 18
Bang on. If Virgin Atlantic could get more slots at its ostensible home hub at LHR British Airways would be forced to pick up its game. Hopefully this third runway shakes things up!
BA Gold
01 Apr 2012
Total posts 192
Agree with smit0847. Whilst it isn't great for us, the flying public, BA has had little motivation in spending hundreds of millions of pounds on a new seat to compete - because it hasn't had to. The money is in the bank to do it, so why haven't they? Because in short they continue to fill their aircraft to the brim and generate billions of dollars of profit.
30 Aug 2013
Total posts 440
The third runway at Heathrow will be the tipping point - suddenly there will be hundreds of slots for sale and BA will be flooded with competition. But that third runway will be at least 10, more likely 20 years away.
Until then BA are laughing all the way to the bank.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
28 Jul 2016
Total posts 108
I was reading a review on "One Mile At A Time" of the BA First Class. His companion (which had only previously flown on Virgin Atlantic's Upper Class) asked the flight attendant, "So, what exactly is the difference between First and Business Class?".
BA Gold
01 Apr 2012
Total posts 192
Langdonfm - that is something I will never ever be able to understand about Virgin Atlantic and Sir Richard B. A few years ago Lufthansa the owner of BMI (formerly British Midland) put the airline up for sale. Although BMI was under performing its slots at LHR were the main draw card for prospective buyers - it held 14% of LHR slots, second only to BA. This was the ideal situation for VS to DOUBLE its foothold at LHR. But.....it didn't put in a realistic bid. BA did. VS had counted on 1) LH never selling slots to their arch enemy competitor BA at any price and 2) the competition authorities blocking the sale to BA but instead the competition authorities required BA release slots on a couple domestic routes where they had a monopoly (the short lived 'Virgin Red' took these up then abandoned them).
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
13 Apr 2016
Total posts 10
Eight across in business class.
Emirates Airlines - Skywards
11 Mar 2015
Total posts 191
This is one of the worst business class produc on the market,it's sardine class nothing to do with business when u pay top dollar you expexct to have at least a decent seat not 8 seat in a row!!
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
21 Jul 2013
Total posts 57
The BA arrangement of some seats facing forward and some backwards is most peculiar. Not as bad as the old United set-up but still uncomfortably weird. A real improvement away from this would be most welcome with me, as I find BA's service, food, wine, lounge facilities and on-time performance among the world's best.
Qatar Airways
06 Jul 2016
Total posts 47
I only fly using my own money. I would never again book BA J class unless they abandon 8 across yin yang seats and provide adequate privacy and storage space. IMHO their J product is abymsmal
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