Especially known for the excellence of its “front class” cabins, it is said that Qatar Airways will announce next Marcha new economy class which should be “revolutionary” if we believe Akbar Al Baker, its president.
Hints? Absolutely nothing, he wants to keep it a complete surprise for a presentation expected in Berlin in March.
So, as everyone does when they don’t know anything, they guess and everyone comes up with their own idea without it being based on anything tangible.
The end of perfectly aligned rows?
And a popular rumor is that of an economy class with staggered seats. Contrary to the current practice of having seats aligned in a row, it is a matter of shifting them so that everyone is not in the same alignment.
Concretely speaking it can look like this:
In this reflection by Molon Labe, the offset makes it possible to put a wider seat in the middle and, by positioning it behind and lower than the others, to provide extra legroom, all without taking away space from the seats next to it. A way to overcome the middle seat curse?
In “real life” it would look like this:
Another way of looking at it is presented at Thompson Aero Seating.
This would result in cabin plans of this type.
Here the seats are all the same size,so the gain is in privacy and, according to the manufacturer, in ease of access to the aisles.
Staggered seats, a bad idea?
A highly unlikely solution in my opinion because
– if it seems attractive in the central row,I find the access to the windows very very complicated on the sides.
– Having your neighbor located a bit behind you raises legitimate questions about privacy when using your computer in flight. The neighbor has a superb angle of view and this, in all discretion.
– I think thatit complicates the service and the passage of the trays from the aisle to the window.
– I even have concerns about thedifficulties that such a scheme poses in the event of an evacuation.
I could be wrong, but I find this option, at first sight very attractive, largely improbable.
What is a “revolutionary” economy cabin?
So what?
What would a revolutionary seat in eco be? Ironically I would say a premium eco seat but I don’t think the airlines, even Qatar, would consider losing seats to really give passengers more space.
Larger screens? On the latest generation cabins, the only limit to the size of the screen in eco is the width of the seat.
If I can’t see how to give more space maybe we will see innovative things on the privacy side?
In short, all suppositions are allowed and as the journalists of the news channels should say more often, “all we know is that we know nothing”.
And for you, what would a “revolutionary” eco cabin look like?
Photos : Qatar Airways by Guido Benedetto, Qatar Airways economy by Jordan Tan via Shutterstock.
