SWISS International Air Lines is planning something a little different for its Airbus A350 aircraft, with a larger Premium Economy cabin.
Who needs an aircraft render? Image, SWISS>
The airline has locked down its seating layout plan (or LOPA – location of passenger accommodations).
It will feature 242 seats in total for passengers: three in First Class, 45 in Business Class, 38 in Premium Economy Class and 156 in Economy Class – with the premium economy being larger at 38 seats.
This compares to 21 seats aboard the A330 fleet and 24 seats in the Boeing 777-300ER fleet.
The move comes as the airline continues to note the demand for premium leisure travel only increasing.
Other parts of the LOPA have been decided, with SWISS deciding how large each seating cabin will be, along with their seat configurations, aisles, toilets and galleys, and has also finalized how many seats will be available in each class of travel.
The new Airbus A350-900s will also feature the new ‘SWISS Senses’ cabin concept, which will offer SWISS customers a more personalised air travel experience, with the seats being manufactured by ZIM Aircraft seating
In Quotes
SWISS Chief Commercial Officer Tamur Goudarzi Pour said:
“Through their carefully-conceived spatial design, all our seating classes aboard our aircraft will offer our guests a totally new and unparallelled air travel experience from 2025 onwards,”
“With our new cabin concept, we will still remain the only major airline in the world to offer a First Class cabin on all its long-haul aircraft. We will also be increasing the size of our Premium Economy Class, which has proved very popular. And in both these respects, we are further clearly positioning SWISS as Europe’s leading premium airline.”
You’ve still got a wait
SWISS is locking in its specifications for the cabin – which do take time to manufacture as well as prepare for service. On top of that, there’s also the position in the queue SWISS is in to get the aircraft.
That places them for delivery in 2025 onwards.
In the longer term, the new long-haul twinjets will replace the company’s four remaining four-engined Airbus A340-300s, converting SWISS to an all-twin-engined fleet.
It is interesting that SWISS can see high revenue opportunities too – choosing both a larger Premium Economy Cabin, as well as maintaining its First Class facilities.
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