There’s something about the route from New York to Paris that has made it a magnet for premium narrowbody flying for airlines, from L’Avion and OpenSkies to La Compagnie.
La Compagnie — now part of the larger XL Airways Group — brought its latest all-business-class jet to the Paris Air Show to show off the new interior.
Interestingly, given the enormous interest in the extra-long-range Airbus A321XLR at Le Bourget, this isn’t either the XLR or its slightly less longer-range sibling, the A321LR.
This is a stock standard A321neo, which in the lightweight configuration of 76 business class seats has enough legs to get it to and from the US.
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The seats are a big upgrade on the angled sloping sleepers La Compagnie has on its 757-200s.
While the Collins Aerospace Diamond seats are about a decade old in airline service, they’re among the best that you can get in the fully flat market right now.
They do, however, require the “midnight clamber”, with the slightly angled overlap meaning that window seat passengers with a neighbor will need to straddle them in the sleeping position in order to pop to the loo or stretch their legs.
La Compagnie’s version of Diamond isn’t particularly customized: in addition to the stock standard aircraft these are stock standard business class seats, and that’s fine at La Compagnie’s premium economy prices.
One plus: the “tower of power” above and behind passengers’ shoulders, which has often been a pain when it comes to using a plugged-in mobile phone, has been split up.
The USB socket, along with the magnetic-grip headphone cable socket, is now behind the shoulder, but the AC power socket is down by the tables in a much more user-friendly spot.
There are a few minuses, though, but my biggest issue is the look and feel — what the airline interiors industry calls “color, materials and finish”.
It shouldn’t be markedly more expensive to make the nineteen rows of identical seats look less like they stretch off into infinity.
Looking from the front of the aircraft, La Compagnie could have varied up the fabric color on their headrest antimacassars: it has multiple blues in its brand palette and this simple change could make a big difference in reducing this effect.
While the pillow is delightfully squashy (yes, of course I tested it), perhaps some on-brand palette play here could also have helped.
The duvet, too, is bang on brand, looking well up to standard across the Atlantic, but perhaps another set reversing the colors could break things up?
Looking from the back, the immediate sight is of a sea of serried ranks of seats with the boring off-white thermoplastic of the inboard seat shell retreating into the distance for the length of the aircraft.
This feels very ten years ago, with the trend in interiors being to move away from this sort of beige-on-beige towards more interesting thermoplastics.
Yes, I used the phrase “more interesting thermoplastics”. There’s a huge amount of science and manufacturing innovation going on to make this sort of thing more attractive, more functional, more appealing and more relaxing for travelers.
Imagine if this were a multifaceted medium to dark blue that picked up the light of the sunshine reflecting through the windows over the Atlantic or sparkled quietly in the lights of the evening.
This may feel nitpicky, and indeed it is the kind of detailed work that industry-leading airlines do in order to create a real sense of space and distinction aboard their aircraft. A boutique airline has even more of an opportunity to do this.
Fortunately for La Compagnie, none of the CMF work that makes up most of the low-hanging fruit here is especially difficult: swapping out pillows and duvets is child’s play, while headrests are easy and even the seat shell could be a midlife cabin upgrade at minimal cost.
The key is to think about it in advance.
