Widebody aircraft seating classes (3)

lucasiu — Mon, 19 Aug 2002 13:15:28 GMT

This is the 3rd article of the 'Widebody aircraft seating classes' series.

There are some widebody aircrafts just used for short trips, like Dragonair A330. These aircrafts have less comfortable seats than those used for long trips.

For example, Dragonair A330 has 7-abreast 40" seat pitch Business class, and 6-abreast 60" seat pitch First Class. This and the lack of inflight entertainment makes the trip not good.

So Dragonair should change the Business class cabin to 6-abreast layout & install personal TV to all seats like that of Cathay Pacific (a parent company of Dragonair), for better customer service.

There are some charter airlines using widebody aircrafts, like A330 for LTU of Germany, Canada 3000 (now closed) & Edelweiss of Switzerland. They have very different standard on seatings. Some charter operators have only Economy class in their aircraft, while some others separate the aircraft into 2 classes of Premium & Economy.

LTU has very good Premium class of 6-abreast, 60" seat pitch, inclined bed of 75". Edelweiss, on the other hand, has a poor Premium class of 7-abreast 36" seat pitch, and Economy class of 30" seat pitch. Some operators even uses congested 9-abreast layout in A300/A310/A330/A340, thus making seat width of less than 17".

Emirates is acclaimed many times for excellent service, but the acclaim does not apply to the seats. Emirates has 7-abreast business class on all its aircrafts, including Airbus widebodies, thus there are some passengers sit in the middle seat. Some Emirates B777 even have 7-abreast First Class, the only First class in the world having middle seats! What a joke to call Emirates the World's best airline!

General Aviation

Widebody aircraft seating classes (3)