Special report
Airline Survey 2012 Please take your seats…
Tom Otley explains how the price of oil can affect the size of your seat, as he introduces this extract from the market-leading annual airline survey by our sister publication Business T
raveller, in conjunction with
Seatplans.com
CONSOLIDATION IS THE BIG STORY among international airlines, but in terms of the seats you’ll find on board, any benefits may be a long time coming. For those airlines detailed here, as well as more than 100 on our sister website
Seatplans.com, new seating and new aircraft continue to be introduced, but the impetus for those changes is as much to do with the high price of oil as it is any synergies yet achieved as a result of mergers and acquisitions. Older aircraft simply cannot be flown economically with oil at more than US$100 a barrel and, as a result, both Airbus and Boeing have record orders from existing legacy carriers, new international competitors from the Gulf and short- and long-haul low-cost carriers. When these new aircraft appear, they do so with the latest low-weight seating to increase
HOW WE WORK IT OUT 01
BUSINESS B777-200LR
01 02 90 03 ?
02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 ?
2-2-2
PLANE TYPE AND CLASS We have arranged the survey by
airline to allow you to compare products in each class across the fleet. We have focused mainly on medium- and long-haul aircraft but some short-haul fleets have been included as well.
SEAT CONFIGURATION This is the way seats are arranged
across the aircraft. At first you might think this is a little too much detail, but you may change your mind once you are halfway into a long-haul flight and realise that on a different aircraft, or with a different airline, you could have had a seat with direct aisle access – and a view out of the window.
SEAT PITCH This is the distance between seats,
measured from a fixed point on one seat to the same point on the one in front. The exact point differs from airline to airline, but note that new seats often have thinner cushions so offer more room, despite the seat pitch measurement remaining
73” 22” 76.5” 180°
unaltered. Pitch is an indication of how much legroom you will get.
04
05 06
07
SEAT WIDTH This is more complicated than
you might think. Airlines obtain the seat width either by measuring the cushion, the distance between the armrests or, in some examples, from the outside of one armrest to the outside of the other (using the justification that the seat cushion is this wide). See facing page for details.
SEAT LENGTH A measurement for fully-flat seats
only, here the pitch becomes redundant – the length of your bed is what matters.
RECLINE This can be measured in a number
of different ways – from horizontal, 90-degrees upright or the take-off position. See facing page for more details.
SEAT TYPE This mainly depends on how far
a seat reclines. We have identified five FF ✔ 15” ✔ ✔ EU+US
main types: standard (ST), cradle-style (CS), fixed shell (FS), angled lie-flat (AF) and fully-flat (FF). See facing page for details.
08 09
type of in-seat power source they offered, be it UK, EU, US, SA (South Africa) or UNI (universal).
10
INDIVIDUAL SCREEN AND SIZE With more airlines installing
personal screens, it can be a shock to discover one that hasn’t. But the size of the monitors can differ significantly.
AUDIO-VIDEO ON-DEMAND AVOD in-flight entertainment –
the ability to stop, start, rewind and pause movies, music, games and TV shows – is becoming a must-have feature across the classes. If it’s not installed, the system will probably run on a continuous loop, so if you miss the start of a film you have to wait for it to come around to the beginning again.
POWER SOURCE Airlines were asked which
efficiency. These improvements are then also retrofitted on to existing aircraft. Starting from the back of the aircraft, such changes may not be always welcome. Airlines speak of new seating having thinner seat-cushions and more ergonomic designs, giving economy flyers greater comfort and room; but, in real terms, it has allowed many airlines to introduce extra seats in aircraft such as the B777, so instead of nine-across seating (3-3-3) you now have 10 (3-4-3). Further forward, the biggest change over the last year has been the continued resurgence of premium economy. First introduced in 2001 by Eva Air and Virgin Atlantic, it quickly caught on with British Airways and, latterly, in various versions with everyone from Air France/KLM and Qantas to Turkish Airlines and Air China, with Cathay
Pacific being the latest to announce it would introduce a premium economy product. So what of business? Well, the good news is standards have never been so high, both in terms of seating as well as lounges and overall service. Many airlines now have fully-flat seating, and even the much-complained about lie-flat seating of airlines such as Air France/KLM and Lufthansa could be regarded as revolutionary compared to the old cradle-style seats of the 1990s. Finally, there’s first class, at least for a few airlines, which continues to struggle to define itself beyond the improved business class cabin, but which on certain important routes will probably continue to be offered for the foreseeable future, recession or not. n Read editorial reviews of all of these services and classes, plus user reviews, at
businesstraveller.com or
seatplans.com
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012
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 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124