I am only now venturing into long haul flights (older servers).
I want to ask experienced players, which seat types give you best results for long haul flights
-6500 km
-7500 km
-8500 km
I was considering Comfort Plus (Y), Lie Flat 140 (C), and Full Bed (F) for 6500 km and Comfort Plus (Y), Lie Flat 160 (C), and Full Bed Wide (F) for 7500-8500km flights.
While Comfort Plus has great ratings on SH flights, it is not so highly ORS rated on longer flights. Would this be good seat combination? Or would you suggest a different one? What about C and F, are the mentioned configs sufficient?
These will be my first long haul flights ever on AS, so I would like to get it right.
If you are certain that your flights won't go further than 8,500km, then Comfort Plus is alright for Y class. Though Lie Flat and Full Bed....I'd seriously ask you to reconsider.
Look at the ratings, LF140 and FBs only get you around 2 bars at the distance you need, so either you will have to sell your tickets at very low prices to fill the seats, or the demand of your route is so high that pax don't care about the product. But given the declining trend of the AGEX, I'd suggest you go for lower seat density.
It all really comes down to whether you're opting for capacity or quality...
Full bed seems like a minimum for long haul J, if you will be flying ultra-long haul you can always add a sub-fleet that uses suites for J. But if you are quite certain that you're not gonna start 10,000km+ flights in a while, full bed will suffice.
Open suite (deluxe or not) would seem suffice for long haul F if you are aiming for flights up to 8,500km; at least that's what I do for my transatlantic missions.
At 7500 km I would suggest Comfort Plus for Y, Lie Flat 160 for C and Open Suite for F. That will give you a full 5 bars at that distance. It will even do the job at 8500 km.
Due to slot shortage at my main hub, i´ve said good bye to an "always 5-bar rating", so that i can transport more passengers on longhaul routes now.
Up to 8.000km, i´am using Comfort (Y) and LieFlat140 ( C) on my longhaul A330 fleet. Above 8.500km, there are still Comfort seats in Y, but LieFlat160 in C. (I have no routes above 10.000km).
This seating made it necessary to lower prices around 100% of the standard price - otherwise only a few people will book my flights. But with this -relativ- low ticket prices, i´ve still making enough profit and getting full planes with lots of transfer passengers for my shorthaul network.
Let's see which airlines you like the most. If you prefer Singapore Airlines, than you should consider the best seat. However, if you prefer BA or Lufthansa, you should choose "above-average" seats. That's what I think... :P
I have flights from TPE to LAX (10,961km). I use Full Bed for Business class (3 green bars) and they get filled up. I also have flights from TPE to JFK (12,575km), but I decided to use Full Bed wide (5 green bars) and they get filled up. The problem I don't like about the Full Bed wide is that they seem to take up so much extra space that takes room away from my Economy class.
I have flights from TPE to LAX (10,961km). I use Full Bed for Business class (3 green bars) and they get filled up. I also have flights from TPE to JFK (12,575km), but I decided to use Full Bed wide (5 green bars) and they get filled up. The problem I don't like about the Full Bed wide is that they seem to take up so much extra space that takes room away from my Economy class.
That's what I found out too. Full bed wide tends to be much wider and take lots more space than full bed. That's the reason why I prefer full bed instead of full bed wide as my business class can have more seats with full bed.
