News

Aeroflot and Jet Airways join ten-across club

1 Nov 2012 by BusinessTraveller

Two more operators of long-haul B777-300ER aircraft have adopted denser ten-across layouts in their economy cabins. 

It means that Russia’s Aeroflot and India’s Jet Airways are following in the footsteps of carriers like Air France, Air New Zealand, American Airlines (aircraft not yet delivered), Emirates, Etihad, KLM and Brazil’s TAM.

All these airlines seat their B777-300ER economy class passengers ten across 3-4-3 compared with a number of other airlines who have remained with a more pleasing nine across 3-3-3 layout.

Aeroflot’s brand new B777-300ERs are set to enter service from February of next year. Details of the long-haul routes which these planes will serve have not yet been released but a video of the interior layout in all classes is now posted on You Tube here.

The Russian carrier’s B777-300ERs will accommodate a whopping 402 passengers with 30 in business class (2-2-2), 48 in premium economy (2-4-2) and 324 in regular economy (2-4-2).

Jet Airways operates five B777-300ERs and according to website Bangalore Aviation the carrier will reconfigure its economy cabins from nine to ten-across.

It means Jet’s economy cabins will seat 310 passengers up from 274 passengers which in turn will boost revenue. Routes in and out of India are price sensitive so this move will enable Jet to better compete with its Gulf-based rivals on long stages to Europe.

The downside for the passengers point-of-view is that, besides having one more person per row,  the seat width which is currently 18.5 ins, is cut to a tighter 17 ins.

Jet’s first and business class cabins (these seat eight and 30 passengers respectively) remain unchanged.

The first of Jet’s reconfigured B777-300ERs was set to enter the Delhi-London route last month (October). In November they are expected to be rostered for the Mumbai-London service. No further details are available so, confusingly, it may mean some flights operate with the existing nine across layout while others will be ten-across. 

No further information is available and Jet has yet to update its B777-300ER seating charts.

The news that more carriers are adopting the denser ten-across configuration will not go down well with Business Traveller readers.

However all is not lost. Two popular carriers, British Airways and Thai Airways, have chosen to remain with nine-across (3-3-3) configurations for their newish (BA) or new (Thai) B777-300ERs.

Visit aeroflot.com, jetairways.com.

Report by Alex McWhirter

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