Finnair to roll out fully-flat seat across long-haul fleet
Published: 13/02/2013 - Filed under: News »
Finnair is to roll out its fully-flat business class seat across its long-haul fleet by autumn 2014.
The carrier currently offers a fully-flat product on four of its newest Airbus A330 aircraft, featuring a 79-inch bed with 23 inches of shoulder room, individual reading light, adjustable head rest, mood lights and “a range of inflight entertainment options”. (For more details, published when Finnair originally unveiled the seat in late 2009, click here.)
The seat will now be rolled out across all of Finnair’s A330 and A340 aircraft, with the exception of “three older aircraft”, which are due to be replaced by A350 XWBs in 2015.
The rollout is scheduled to be completed by the autumn of next year, with Finnair investing a total of €29 million into the project.
Commenting on the move Anssi Komulainen, the carrier’s senior vice president, customer service, said:
“The full flat experience has been very well received by customers in business class. We believe that the key to Finnair’s success in a very competitive market is to differentiate on service, and this substantial investment in the comfort of passengers helps us in this long-term aim. Full flat seats are the new standard for quality-conscious customers, and for Finnair.”
Finnair will begin taking delivery of 11 Airbus A350 XWB aircraft in the second half of 2015, becoming the first European airline to fly the next-generation aircraft.
The carrier is also in the process of revamping its in-flight meal choices, and has commissioned Finnish design house Marimekko to refresh its aircraft interiors from this spring.
For more information visit finnair.com.
Report by Mark Caswell
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COMMENTS »
RichardB - 14/02/2013 08:32
headline is wrong. they are rolling it out on SOME of their long haul fleet. So it's more a case of "finnair installs fully flat seat on some more of its long haul fleet". This however does not make an interesting headline.
BusinessTraveller - 14/02/2013 11:14
Thanks for your comment RichardB. You are correct in that there are three long-haul A340 aircraft that will not get the fully-flat seat (as detailed in the piece), but as these are due to be retired in 2015 we felt it was fair to headline the piece as we did.
Unless we have missed other long-haul Finnair aircraft other than the A330s and A340s?
Ian_from_HKG - 08/03/2013 07:08
Is it known which routes the due-to-be-retired unconverted planes will fly?
At the moment I avoid Finnair as I understand the wedgie beds are used on the HK flights. If these are to be converted to fully-flat, my plans might change...
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