SWISS has confirmed the layout for its forthcoming Airbus A350 aircraft, including an expanded premium economy cabin.
The carrier is expected to begin taking delivery of the first of five A350s from 2025, replacing its existing fleet of four A340 aircraft.
The A350s will offer a total of 242 seats – 156 in economy, 38 in premium economy, 45 in business class, and three first class suites.
The premium economy cabin is significantly larger than that already offered on SWISS’ Boeing 777-300ER and Airbus A340-300 aircraft, which feature 24 and 21 premium economy seats respectively.
The airline said it was “responding to the growing demand for air travel in the premium segment, particularly among leisure travellers”.
The expanded premium economy cabin comes at the expense of the carrier’s first class offering though – existing long-haul aircraft feature eight first class seats.
SWISS launched its premium economy seat in 2021, and initially fitted the product to its fleet of 12 Boeing 777-300ERs, before subsequently retrofitting its A340s with the seat earlier this year.
The Zim Privacy product is a fixed shell seat with features including an integrated privacy shield, adjustable armrests, a cocktail table, single piece meal table, personal reading light and “extra-large IFE screen”.
The carrier’s A350 will also feature the recently unveiled SWISS Senses concept, with new first, business and economy products.
Commenting on the news 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.”
