Air France to offer diverse business class seats in future

The experience of flying in business class is going to change for good. It would be something which passengers have so far never had when traveling with Air France. The trend and future of business travel is undoubtedly witnessing a transformation.

Media reports recently said that Air France is planning to install different types of business class seats on all its long-haul aircrafts. The seats would be spacious and luxurious offering direct aisle access. According to the reports, the seats could be like those currently found on United Polaris (Zodiac Optima) on Airbus A350 aircrafts, or Zodiac Cirrus outward-facing herringbones on Boeing 777 aircrafts, or even Stelia Equinox fully flat bed sans direct aisle access on Airbus A330 aircrafts.

A spokesperson of Air France said that the airline is planning to install the Zodiac Optima seats on its Airbus A350 aircrafts. These next generation seats would be compact staggered business class. The Zodiac Optima being installed by Air France would be debranded version of United Polaris seat. In fact, United Airlines holds exclusive rights on the Zodiac Optima seats in the U.S. market, while this is not the case with the Atlantic market and can be installed by any other airline.

Air France has indicated that its new business class seats on Airbus A350 aircrafts are expected to prove stiff competition to United Polaris on many routes. According to media reports, the business class cabins in airline’s Airbus A330 fleet would be in 2-2-2 layout.

The A350s are being currently operated to various destinations in South America, India and Africa. The competition on these routes is though limited. Air France in yet another interesting development has decided to opt for the less dense Equinox 2D seats on A350s. This is in contrast to its rival Air Caraïbes, which uses the stacked Equinox 3D version on its new Air bus A350 aircrafts.