A330neo sees upgrades to business class passenger experience

The business class seats that airlines are choosing to install on their Airbus A330neo aircraft is proving to be one of the most interesting passenger experience trends of recent years. Despite its new engines, the A330neo is a known airframe with a known cabin footprint, allowing seat makers (and their airline and design house partners) to fully maximize their designs to that space. But it’s also a new grouping of aircraft within an aircraft’s fleet, with a new set of capabilities that exceeds that of the previous A330ceo generation of aircraft, pushing airlines to add innovation and better passenger experience than before. READ: Emirates says hola to Mexico City Kuwait Airways is the latest, and perhaps unexpected, airline to add to this trend. Never a leader in passenger experience, it converted some of its A350-900 aircraft to Airbus A330-800neos This was one of the few votes of confidence in the smaller of the two re-engined aircraft, which is a similar size to the A330-200s that it already operates. In passenger experience terms, it’s remarkable how times change — and how quickly. Just four years ago, Kuwait Airways was announcing the very latest in its business and first-class offerings: a 2-2-2 fully flatbed without direct aisle access, and an outward-facing herringbone in first class. In that case, it was the Cirrus seat which was then from Zodiac Aerospace, now Safran Seats. [embed]https://twitter.com/KuwaitAirways/status/608504457941295104[/embed] This was a very average-to-below-par passenger experience for 2015, certainly in business and definitely in first class, despite the fact that British Airways’ first-class product is essentially a slightly posher finish to a very similar herringbone product. Now, though, the A330-800neos are seeing a 32-passenger cabin of Collins Aerospace Super Diamond, the key competitor to Safran’s Cirrus and Cirrus NG products. (Virgin Atlantic recently chose Cirrus NG for its Airbus A350 fleet, and it seems relatively likely — though unconfirmed at Le Bourget — that its Paris Air Show order for the A330-900neo will have the same seats.) Super Diamond is a very good upgrade for business class passengers from the previous forward-facing option. A four-year newer seat is also a plus for passengers having to “downgrade” from first class, even if the basic idea is the same. But it’s also noteworthy in that yet another carrier that was only very recently spruiking its installation of fully flat business class seats without direct aisle access (which was, in fairness, an upgrade for that passenger experience laggard at the time) is now installing herringbone seats with direct aisle access. Direct aisle access is now firmly in place as the new standard. Coming back to British Airways, this has a number of pointed comparisons that would not be favorable to the UK’s largest long-haul airline.

  BA too had full-flats without direct aisle access as its most recent business class. BA, too, is replacing those full-flats with a herringbone that exceeds the previous first-class seating offering (although in BA’s case with a seat featuring doors, which is an even further improved experience over the old First seats). We’re at a place where direct aisle access is becoming so standard that the airlines not offering it — or, like Lufthansa, promising to start installing it on future aircraft but not starting a retrofit programme in advance — are making conscious choices not to be leaders in passenger experience, relying instead on other factors to attract passengers. That can be (and indeed has been in some cases) a successful strategy, especially for carriers whose route network and connection opportunities offer it. But the sharks are circling. If the passenger experience isn’t up to the increasing standard of challengers -- whether that’s growing network carriers like Finnair or the long-haul, low-cost carriers who have ordered A330neos in substantial numbers -- many people will start voting with their wallets.