Feature: Business Class Cabins
BACK IN FRONT
WHILE business class traffic slumped during the recession, many airlines were mid-way through – or already committed to – upgrades to their premium product across their fleets. At the time it might have been a bitter pill to swallow, but many carriers have since emerged into a post-recession environment better equipped to woo the ranks of slowly returning business class passengers. Cathay Pacific is among the latest airlines to launch a new business class product, with the first of the new cabins cocooning its premium fare passengers aboard an Airbus A330-300 heading off from Hong Kong to Sydney in March. The new seats are coming as standard on all Cathay’s new long haul A330-300 and B777- 300ER deliveries and are being retrofitted on the carrier's existing aircraft. But the task of keeping
As premium traffic starts coming back, Mike Swindell looks at the latest developments in business class both in the air and on the ground
up with the airline Jones is not to be taken lightly, with the entire roll-out not expected to be finished until February 2013. Still, the effort is seen by airline chiefs as worth
every minute and dollar as premium travel clicks back into gear and begins to surge ahead again. After all, the basic requirement for business travellers heading off on a long-haul trip these days is a seat that doubles as a lie-flat bed and allows them to get a decent night’s sleep so they are sharp and fresh for the fray ahead. And the old reclining seat no longer cuts the mustard with veteran travellers who have seen what is possible in the more cutting edge cabins. In a fanfare that included Chinese VIPs such as
the chief secretary for administration of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region as guest of honour, Cathay Pacific unveiled its new business
class product, described as a space in which to sleep, dine, work, read, watch TV or simply relax. What sounds like quite a nice little bed-sitter apartment in the air does not seem at all absurd these days, and while not the absolute norm, is becoming fairly widespread, especially on routes to the Middle East and Asia. Although claims of biggest and best are inevitably measured aboard aircraft in increments of inches, Cathay claims its new business class product is up with the leaders with what is described as a wing-back chair that converts with a touch-button controller into a fully-flat bed. A novel innovation called the Bed Extension deploys automatically, increasing the bed width, while retractable armrests can be lowered to further expand sleeping space, boosting seat width on the A330 from 20.2 inches to 27.6, and
72 I THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE 18 I THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104