Comments on: Japan Air Lines Rolls Out New First and Business Class Seats

By: QRC

QRC — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:28:59 +0000

The mattress thing is GENIUS let me tell you! I am in long-haul J or F nearly every two weeks and the seat comfort is something nobody has figured out (or even bothered to pay attention to) yet. It’s like, they make them flat but then expect a seat that folds in like 5 different directions that is a bit hard to actually feel comfortable. It’s still not like sleeping on your bed when, even in F there’s some metal from the seat hinge nailing you in the back every time you switch sleeping positions. Forget what the mattress is made of…the fact that they even have it is a HUGE upgrade in my opinion! It’s what everyone else needs to do. Kudos to them for that.

On the style, their F suite looks similar in shape to the new CX F suite, which is truly magnificent. New CX F is even better than the new SQ F (on the 777), but haven’t tried the suites (R class only on A380) yet for SQ. I suppose that still is the standard to beat.

As for the J class, that really looks lame to me. Nothing too spectacular there….you know it’s bad when your “new” product is similar to the newest AA intl J product, and hardly looks different from their old one. Don’t they understand it has to go TRULY flat? That BS “lie-flat” crap in J is such a marketing gimmick, especially since Virgin, BA, AC, CX, SQ and others (UA has only retrofitted one 747 I think, and a few 767s) are doing truly flat in J now.

By: David SF east bay

David SF east bay — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 03:48:17 +0000

By the pic are you sure JAL didn’t name the seat “Made of Scotch Tape”…..lol

By: CF

CF — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:39:39 +0000

Jeff K – I don’t have the info on me, but I’d imagine that someone like Singapore is shorter than that whereas most US carriers are far longer.

By: Jeff K

Jeff K — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:58:08 +0000

So then a 6 year cycling of the product seems pretty good to me. I wonder how that compares to the rest of the industry?

By: CF

CF — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:27:08 +0000

Yep, looks like the last seat came in 2002.

By: Jeff K

Jeff K — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:17:48 +0000

Didn’t they unveil a new biz ‘shell’ seat a few years ago? I thought that’s why I was able to get a great price for NRT-SFO at that time (only $700) as they wanted to get exposure.

And yes, you’d slip-slide on down the seat. But it didn’t matter as being able to lay on your side and view the night sky while 5 miles up over the Pacific just blew away any short-comings…and the flow of hot sake didn’t hurt the cause either.

And serious UA, where the hell are your new seats? I fly China Airlines ahead of UA because while it’s the same old style biz seat, the service is far an above what UA has to offer.