PREMIUM SUPER SEAT!

You can't beat leather on a long haul flight...with the air-con blazing.

Hot from the Virgin press!!

Ever since our first flight 22 years ago, weÕve been shaking up the competition, and weÕre about to do it again Ð this time with our Premium Economy product. Our new Premium Economy Super Seat is our widest most comfortable seat ever and is about to blaze a trail through the class of travel that we invented. Premium Economy is very important to us both in terms of Business and Leisure traffic and our new Super Seat will revolutionise travel in this class, matching the leap in customer experience that we caused when we first introduced the Upper Class Suite.

So what is it that sets the Super Seat apart from the competition? Your senses will be instantly stimulated by the sight, smell and touch of gorgeous purple leather. But as we said, itÕs incredibly comfortable as well and comes with an additional two inch recline, adjustable headrest with wings, better tray table, lumbar support, in seat power, multi-position footrest and the IFE handset is now located in the seatback to release that all important extra width. And it is the extra width that will grab a lot of the headlines because at 21 inches it is wider than BAÕs Club World business class seat.

Like most great things these seats are the result of a lot of hard work between several different departments including Engineering, Design, Product and Cabin Crew. Of course developing our most comfortable seat ever canÕt be done unless we do a lot of research to make sure it lives up to its claim. During the seatÕs development, trials were carried out to evaluate the comfort of the new seat designs comparing it to our existing seats. An independent comfort trial was conducted on our behalf by Qinetiq, Farnborough last year. This involved a group of people of varying body profiles sitting on prototype seats which had been fitted with different cushion combinations supplied by different vendors. Each seat combination was tested for durations representing our long haul sectors and the comfort levels were assessed and recorded every 30 minutes to see which of the samples maintained the highest level of comfort. This trial influenced the selection of the final foam combination for production and proved that the seats were indeed our most comfortable seats ever. In addition a trial was conducted in Premium Economy on G-VGAL to assess passenger reaction towards leather seat covers versus fabric covers. The final part of the trials programme was an in-service trial on A346 G-VWKD.

The new Super Seat will enter service next week on A340-600 G-VEIL. This seat will also be fitted on subsequent A346 aircraft deliveries and will be rolling out across the fleet.

Any improvement is, of course, always welcome, but I'm reserving judgement. I notice extra width is trumpeted, but no mention of pitch...

Originally posted by catsilversword
Any improvement is, of course, always welcome, but I'm reserving judgement. I notice extra width is trumpeted, but no mention of pitch...

It says an additional 2 inches of recline..

[Neil]

Sounds good - will wait and see what feedback is given before getting too excited though!

Neil

[preiffer]

Originally posted by VS-EWR

Originally posted by catsilversword
Any improvement is, of course, always welcome, but I'm reserving judgement. I notice extra width is trumpeted, but no mention of pitch...

It says an additional 2 inches of recline..

Pitch being an entirely different thing to recline, Nick.

The seats could recline a further 20 inches, to 45 degrees if they wanted - but if they're still pitched at 38", that'll get quite uncomfortable for the passenger behind

You're right, CSW - no mention, so I'd guess it's still 38".

That's what I thought Paul....

Originally posted by preiffer
Pitch being an entirely different thing to recline, Nick.

The seats could recline a further 20 inches, to 45 degrees if they wanted - but if they're still pitched at 38", that'll get quite uncomfortable for the passenger behind

You're right, CSW - no mention, so I'd guess it's still 38".

I guess I learn something new everyday.

Me too. Trouble is, all too often I forget what I've learned! Still, makes each day a new adventure...

I'm sure extra pitch would have been mentioned - great, gaping silence there then!

Try eating your dinner when someone has reclined another two inches towards your legs. [:?] It's hard enough now when the person in front shows no consideration.

Looks good. But is it just me, or do the hand rests look pathetic?

Originally posted by locutus
Try eating your dinner when someone has reclined another two inches towards your legs. [:?] It's hard enough now when the person in front shows no consideration.

Or using a laptop when the ignorant ***** in front just wangs their chair back ... upright there's just enough room but keep your eye on the person in front!

I agree the armrests don't look too comfortable and can't see any legrests. The Press Release only mentioned Footrests. They look very much like uprated Economy more than BA's WTP which are very comfortable and look like old-style Club seats, although they are not. Also what is happening to the other long-awaited rumoured PE "improvements", food, drinks, service, etc?

The armrests are very comfortable, and the white bit at the front are the little drinks tables usually found in Premium. That photo does not really do the seat justice, as it is really quite comfortable! The extra width was made possible by putting the controller under the screen, and so there is more leg-width. The best part is the fully adjustable head-rest.

I think we need to be giving the seat an easy time until we get some reports of what its like after 10 hours or so...... [:?]

First impresions look great to me....

They look classier if nothing else, especially when they take up the whole cabin.

What is happening with the leg rests, are they just employing the foot rest on the seat infront tactic? This is not necessarily a bad thing as I've often found the leg rest on the wash/kash seats to be rather awkward and uncomfortable.

Dean

[mitchja]

Dean

Take a look here

Hmmmmm no leg rests, only a metal foot bar on the seat in front as with PE on the A343's [n]

Regards

Why oh why oh why not give it 2/3" more room, that alone would make it very good and begin to match some of the other (charter in particular) offerings ...

As it is, looks great.

It does make PE look a lot classier and will set it apart from Y more - no more people thinking they're still in Y when they walk through the PE section;)

VS.

Given the comments here about the nature of the seat itself, its rollout across the fleet and the whole PE experience wouldn't it be better for VS to *begin* their upgrade process with the food and service rather than the seats ? That way immediate day 1 visibility of improvement across the whole fleet for all PE passengers could be shouted from the rooftops rather than "new seats ! (but only if you're in this aeroplane)". Renewed seats could then follow over time.

Paul

Problem with food over seats is that I doubt people would choose Virgin over BA because of slightly better food (well, unless Gate Gourmet strike again). Seating is what people seem to care about on a flight and makes for a good advert. If they advertise that their seat is better than BA then people may pay the cost difference, but not if you just get a nicer sarnie [?]

Originally posted by pjh
Given the comments here about the nature of the seat itself, its rollout across the fleet and the whole PE experience wouldn't it be better for VS to *begin* their upgrade process with the food and service rather than the seats ? That way immediate day 1 visibility of improvement across the whole fleet for all PE passengers could be shouted from the rooftops rather than "new seats ! (but only if you're in this aeroplane)". Renewed seats could then follow over time.

Paul

I'm sure VS considers all of these options. Obviously there is extensive market research before a decision like new seats is made- it's not something that some guy in product development wakes up one day and says, "OH! Let's put new seats out".

As a hefty investment VS obviously considers all of the options, such as food, seats, IFE. This move simply supports what other VS staff here have said, despite what us v-flyers look at, market research obviously shows that seating is either most important to more customers, or the area in which they receive the most complaints.

Where I totally agree with the problems of consistancy within the fleet, if research shows changing the food will gain or retain 100 customers, but changing seating will gain or retain 500 customers, obviously they're going to select seating- it's all realitively simple business.

I'm not trying to defend the seat, or argue against everyone here, but so many people suggest VS is going about it wrong- and where there certainly are inconsistancies, I think the important thing is that they are working on the product, as opposed to just letting it lie dorment. We all know VS is an innovative company, personaly the reason why I fly them, and they can be more innovative with something like an original seat design than they can with new sandwiches.

Just my $0.02...

If VS are going to improve PE seating, they need to start somewhere and inconsistency is just something the airline has to get through whilst upgrading.

VS.

Originally posted by VS045
If VS are going to improve PE seating, they need to start somewhere and inconsistency is just something the airline has to get through whilst upgrading.

VS.

Exactly.