Austrian Airlines Boeing 777-20ER departing Chicago O’Hare – Image, Economy Class and Beyond
The airline has noted that since Premium Economy arrived on its aircraft in 2018, it has been well received by both business and leisure travellers. However, the demand for the cabin has increased, resulting in higher demand for the cabin.
Aboard the Boeing 777 fleet the airline operates, all six of them will be converted from 24 seats to 40 seats with Premium Economy.
Gaining 16 extra seats in a cabin will be fun, with Business Traveller and Runway Girl Network discovering where the space is coming from – the business class cabin.
It is not identified which seat will be used – be it the old seat Premium Economy seat, or the new ZIMPrivacy seat that is currently rolling out across the Lufthansa Group.
Looking at the loaded seat maps, the new configuration appears to be bookable.
Judging by the location, this would indicate the business seats behind the galley are up for the chop, removing the current business seats for two rows of Premium Economy.
Current 777 seatmap – Image, Austrian Airlines.
Austrian Airlines utilise their 777 fleets on their long haul network, operating on it to North American and Asian destinations Tokyo, Bangkok, Shanghai Newark, Chicago and Los Angeles
Further reconfigurations ahead
In addition to the enlarged Premium Economy Class, the seating capacity of Austrian Airlines’ B777 fleet will be increased by 14 Economy Class seats per aircraft.
This will add 144 seats to the total capacity of Austrian Airlines’ long-haul fleet. The airline has not defined where this increase is coming from, with the airline already using a 3-4-3 configuration in the economy cabin.
Premium Economy passengers benefit from checking in two pieces of luggage, each weighing up to 23 kilograms, free of charge and enjoy an onboard multicourse menu created by Do&Co.
In Quotes
Austrian Airlines CCO Michael Trestl said:
“By modifying our long-haul fleet, we are meeting the growing demand for more travel comfort. We look forward to welcome even more guests in our Premium Economy Class,”
In Service next year
The modification of the Boeing aircraft will start in early 2023. By May 2023, all Austrian Airlines B777s will take off with the new seating configuration.
It’s interesting to see this happen. For starters, the Boeing 777 aircraft used are not the youngest things in the world (given a quick look indicated some are heading into their mid-twenties), with the airline allegedly in line for Boeing 787 aircraft.
Of course, there’s more than a little backlog for deliveries at the moment – which compounds Austrian’s capacity situation (bearing in mind the long-haul fleet of the air is made up of Boeing 767-300ER and Boeing 777-200ER.
With travel demand changing, along with the rise of the traveller who is happy to pay a little more for space – but not wanting a flat seat, Austrian needs to fill that capacity (as that has been one of the major growth points as lesuire travel had the first major uptick).
For Austrian, this is a case of delivering capacity within its existing fleet – whilst it waits out shortages in the supply chain and until deliveries come back to some sort of normality.
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