American Airlines has released pictures of its new long-haul business class seating which will debut on North Atlantic routes over the coming months. The airline will be the first U.S. carrier to offer passengers modern business class seating. But the seats are “lie-flat” or “flat-at-an-angle,” in style rather than being fully flat.
American will shortly begin installing the new seating on its Boeing 767-300s, with the fitting scheduled to be completed by Spring 2007. Next to follow will be its fleet of 777s, with installation set to be complete by the end of 2007.
The seats, which come from German manufacturer Recaro, offer 77 inches of legroom when fully reclined. When the privacy divide is raised and the armrest lowered the total seat width increases to 23 inches.
But American’s new seats add nothing new to what’s already available with rival carriers. Indeed, discerning global travelers would consider them lagging behind the standards set by British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Air New Zealand, all of which offer flat bed seats. Air Canada also plans to introduce fully flat bed on international routes.
So why hasn’t American seized the opportunity to lead the market? A spokesperson revealed it chose lie-flat style seats because of economy, and because it wanted to meet the needs of its frequent-flyer members.
“We opted for flat-at-an-angle seats for several reasons. Firstly, our tests showed that there was not a significant difference in comfort between fully-flat and flat-at-an-angle seats and there was a strong satisfaction for seats that had lounge, or Z-position, capability.”=
“Second, fully flat seats consume considerably more pitch than flat-at-an-angle seats, which typically fit in the existing seat footprint.
“American decided to keep the current number of 30 seats in the B767 business cabin to preserve our AAdvantage members’ ability to upgrade into the business class zone. This is an option valued by many frequent flyers. So research with customers and the capability of serving the maximum number of business class customers led American to choose the flat-at-an-angle option.”