Just when you think airline travel can’t get worse down the back of the plane, Business Traveller releases news that Emirates are considering increasing the seat count aboard their Airbus A380s, by introducing 11 Across seating in economy.
Lets stop and think about that for a second. 11 seats across in economy class.
This can only be achived by
- Reducing seat widths to at least 17″ (getting 10″)
- Reducing isle sizes by 3.5″ per isle
- = 1 extra seat per row
- = 200 extra seats in Economy
These extra aircraft could be provided by DORIC Aviation who according to Bloomberg are in the process of completing a purchase of 20 aircraft, to be configured with 11 across seating to achieve 630 seats.
This seems to fly against Airbus’s campaign for 18″ seating, and is optimised for airlines to extract every penny of leased value out there.
How could an 11 across seating work? The simplest version could be 3-5-3. The more complex versions could be 4-3-4 depending what airlines feel like. Of course, there are unbalanced configurations as well which could occur.
Whilst Emirates CEO Tim Clark states the best way to keep passengers unaware
“is to offer passengers distractions like big meals, frequent snacks and lots of IFE (inflight entertainment)”.
I personally can’t help but think there are going to be way to many passenger compromises to fit that many people aboard a plane.
Put it like this: I wouldn’t make a beeline for that service.
Horrid!
Correct!
And I thought Transaero was crazy for planning to have 616 passengers in its upcoming A380!
Imagine the restrooms with 200 extra passengers?
I’ll be even more direct: It sucks and I would not ride in that that 11-across cabin….
Except for the fact is is only about 40 more seats (not to say it is good). Where in the world did that 200 seat figure come from?
To make it interesting they could go row by row like 4-3-4 then a row of 3-5-3 then a row of 4-3-4. This would make folks zig zag to get down the isle of course some of those seats would have extra leg room in the isle so they could charge a premium for those seats boosting revenue even more !
As a 6’2″ 200 lb person with long legs I’ll pass, unless I can get upgraded to those extra leg room zig zag seats.
Silly aren’t I, almost as silly as Emirates 🙂
If used for routes up to 4 or 5 hours, it might not be horrible. I swear Aer Lingus did this to their 747’s and the airline world cringed, until a few others tried it for extra lift.