I've read a report on IB's A350 EC-NVR between ORY and MAD where the author stated this plane didn't have any J class seats (the J cabin was just empty).
This specific plane only flies on European routes.
IB will also be flying an A350 to MXP and PRG configured with 321 seats during Christmas time. (There's actually a message on the booking screen stating there's no real J cabin.)

Anybody knows why this plane hasn't received a J class?
Do they they plan on keeping one plane without J class for specific routes (moving the Y+ seats forward and adding more Y seats) ?

I believe there is a second (brand new) plane in the same configuration - EC-NXD - which has also been used since entry into service two weeks ago on intra-European rotations (LPA, FCO, VCE, ORY) as well as to DSS (ca. 4 hours ATD to ATA). IB codes these 321-seater A350-900XWBs as "350" (as opposed to "359" for the rest), so my presumption is that the lack of "real" business cabin is intentional in view of the routes they would be used to service.

I'm a little confused, are the aircraft quite literally missing seats or is it a new dense configuration with no J?

ikolkyo wrote:

I'm a little confused, are the aircraft quite literally missing seats or is it a new dense configuration with no J?

They're missing seats. But EC-NVR was delivered a few months ago, they had time to install them and it's weird to put it in service without a full cabin installed.

CDGIAD wrote:

ikolkyo wrote:

I'm a little confused, are the aircraft quite literally missing seats or is it a new dense configuration with no J?

They're missing seats. But EC-NVR was delivered a few months ago, they had time to install them and it's weird to put it in service without a full cabin installed.

That's why I asked the question, I'm surprised they're going into service like that, depending on the Config I guess could just board in the L2 door and seal off the front cabin.

Supply chain delays likely. Probably had no J seats available but plenty of Y and Y+. Decision was made to take delivery and use on trunk routes rather than have it sit parked waiting for J seats.

So you walk through an empty cabin on the way to Y class? Or you enter through the door and turn right, but if you turned left there would be an empty cabin space? Weird!

Wouldn't this have some major CG / balance issues?

kaitak744 wrote:

Wouldn't this have some major CG / balance issues?

Presumably Iberia wouldn’t do it if they couldn’t?

kaitak744 wrote:

Wouldn't this have some major CG / balance issues?

Presumably they can just add ballast in the forward hold.

atcsundevil wrote:

kaitak744 wrote:

Wouldn't this have some major CG / balance issues?

Presumably they can just add ballast in the forward hold.

An unusual approach to passenger revenue management - add more weight to the aircraft and burn more fuel, because the airline don't want to allow pax to pay more for premium seats

davidjohnson6 wrote:

atcsundevil wrote:

kaitak744 wrote:

Wouldn't this have some major CG / balance issues?

Presumably they can just add ballast in the forward hold.

An unusual approach to passenger revenue management - add more weight to the aircraft and burn more fuel, because the airline don't want to allow pax to pay more for premium seats

Like I mentioned earlier, that presumes that there are J seats available to put into the aircraft. Depending on how seats were negotiated they might have been separate from the airframe, meaning that IB would be on the hook for penalties for deferring delivery from Airbus.

So the options are then:
Defer delivery and pay fees to Airbus
Take delivery of plane and park until seats available
Take delivery of plane and operate without J

That last option is the only one that gets you revenue.

davidjohnson6 wrote:

atcsundevil wrote:

kaitak744 wrote:

Wouldn't this have some major CG / balance issues?

Presumably they can just add ballast in the forward hold.

An unusual approach to passenger revenue management - add more weight to the aircraft and burn more fuel, because the airline don't want to allow pax to pay more for premium seats

Just put all the bags in the front hold. That may do it.

davidjohnson6 wrote:

atcsundevil wrote:

kaitak744 wrote:

Wouldn't this have some major CG / balance issues?

Presumably they can just add ballast in the forward hold.

An unusual approach to passenger revenue management - add more weight to the aircraft and burn more fuel, because the airline don't want to allow pax to pay more for premium seats

There are no J seats currently installed. Nothing to do with "not allowing pax to pay more for premium seats".

scbriml wrote:

davidjohnson6 wrote:

atcsundevil wrote:

Presumably they can just add ballast in the forward hold.

An unusual approach to passenger revenue management - add more weight to the aircraft and burn more fuel, because the airline don't want to allow pax to pay more for premium seats

There are no J seats currently installed. Nothing to do with "not allowing pax to pay more for premium seats".

That must be a weird feeling - boarding into a big open space, then filing down through a galley into aisles.

Why not throw some Y seats in that front cabin! You could have had extra leg room and even sell them as equivalent to narrowbody "J" seats!

VS had a bunch of A333s which could not be delivered with their new J seat. CI leased 2 and put Y seats in that front cabin and returned them when VS got their J seats.

Supply chain related delay in the delivery of business class seats is most likely the reason. If the plane is to be used on short routes by design for the long term, Iberia will probably have a "short-haul" configuration/sub-fleet of the A350 fleet. Thus this looks like a temporary arrangement.

trex8 wrote:

Why not throw some Y seats in that front cabin! You could have had extra leg room and even sell them as equivalent to narrowbody "J" seats!

A few reasons I can think of:
1 The floor and wiring would have been configured to hold the business class seats and therefore it's not like they can just put economy class or economy plus seats there without re-configuring
2. Once the business class seats are available, they will be installed. With economy seats temporarily installed there, it means extra effort (time and human resources) to first remove the economy seats. Those are all extra costs and also that means the plane will need to be offline for much longer. The then removed economy seats will sit in the warehouse with no immediate use (until they can be installed on the next new plane or used progressively to replace broken seats on existing planes, while they continue to depreciate in value. It takes money to store them too.

trex8 wrote:

VS had a bunch of A333s which could not be delivered with their new J seat. CI leased 2 and put Y seats in that front cabin and returned them when VS got their J seats.

This case is different because it's someone else leasing the aircraft. When VS leased it out, they have probably included the additional cost of reconfiguration into the lease (or it could be CI agreeing to do the reconfiguration themselves so VS does not incur that cost)

raylee67 wrote:

Supply chain related delay in the delivery of business class seats is most likely the reason. If the plane is to be used on short routes by design for the long term, Iberia will probably have a "short-haul" configuration/sub-fleet of the A350 fleet. Thus this looks like a temporary arrangement.

trex8 wrote:

Why not throw some Y seats in that front cabin! You could have had extra leg room and even sell them as equivalent to narrowbody "J" seats!

A few reasons I can think of:
1 The floor and wiring would have been configured to hold the business class seats and therefore it's not like they can just put economy class or economy plus seats there without re-configuring)

Not just the wiring In the floor, but it as impacts overhead. The PSU’s would be configured for less seats, in a J configuration. Along with there would not engough Oxygen masks In the forward cabin to support 3-3-3.

It's a temporary thing while they receive their "new" Business class seats.
This plane is going to be used on flights to Caracas as from tomorrow.

Thanks all for the answers.
Logical it was temporary, otherwise the cabin would have been fitted differently with Premium At the front then Y seats.
It makes sense to use it with a non fully finished cabin and make money instead of keeping a plane sitting idle.
Never thought of the potential CG issues or oxygen masks installation.

The JC cabin is not empty. There are some “dummy” seats. Not real seats. They are just there for safety reasons to simulate an aisle in case of an evacuation, so you don’t stop before getting to your door and exiting the plane.
I think it is a smart move, you can use the planes in markets where no JC seats are required rather than having them parked and not be able to increase flights.

raylee67 wrote:

trex8 wrote:

Why not throw some Y seats in that front cabin! You could have had extra leg room and even sell them as equivalent to narrowbody "J" seats!

A few reasons I can think of:
1 The floor and wiring would have been configured to hold the business class seats and therefore it's not like they can just put economy class or economy plus seats there without re-configuring
2. Once the business class seats are available, they will be installed. With economy seats temporarily installed there, it means extra effort (time and human resources) to first remove the economy seats. Those are all extra costs and also that means the plane will need to be offline for much longer. The then removed economy seats will sit in the warehouse with no immediate use (until they can be installed on the next new plane or used progressively to replace broken seats on existing planes, while they continue to depreciate in value. It takes money to store them too.

Another reason may be that there is no floor plan in the check in software. If not available, it would mean you've to change that, which costs probably more than the added revenue.

I flew EC-NVR from ZRH to MAD yesterday 28Oct22. This thread explains
a) why the aircraft only flies European routes
b) what I saw in the first cabin section while boarding and disembarking through the 2nd door during the second or two you can peek in. It looked very strange.
c) why the cabin crew did their best to discourage pax looking at this cabin
Thanks, a.net.

And just wanted to add that Y seating was very tight. Hope that'll improve once it goes long haul, but would not bet on it. I certainly would not like to be stuck in such a seat for longer than I did yesterday.

Pictures here:

https://twitter.com/aviosAdventurer/sta ... -quirky%2F

LXM83 wrote:

I flew EC-NVR from ZRH to MAD yesterday 28Oct22. This thread explains
a) why the aircraft only flies European routes
b) what I saw in the first cabin section while boarding and disembarking through the 2nd door during the second or two you can peek in. It looked very strange.
c) why the cabin crew did their best to discourage pax looking at this cabin
Thanks, a.net.

And just wanted to add that Y seating was very tight. Hope that'll improve once it goes long haul, but would not bet on it. I certainly would not like to be stuck in such a seat for longer than I did yesterday.

…Y seating was very tight.

Seat pitch is 31” and width is 18” which is consistent with other IB wide bodies.

Did the cabin feel tighter than other IB widebody Y class cabins?

Tighter than other A350 Y class cabins?

Or “very tight” as the vast majority of Y class cabins do?

MaverickM11 wrote:

Pictures here:

https://twitter.com/aviosAdventurer/sta ... -quirky%2F

So they just put those seats there for weight/balance?

CDGIAD wrote:

I've read a report on IB's A350 EC-NVR between ORY and MAD where the author stated this plane didn't have any J class seats (the J cabin was just empty).
This specific plane only flies on European routes.
IB will also be flying an A350 to MXP and PRG configured with 321 seats during Christmas time. (There's actually a message on the booking screen stating there's no real J cabin.)

Anybody knows why this plane hasn't received a J class?
Do they they plan on keeping one plane without J class for specific routes (moving the Y+ seats forward and adding more Y seats) ?

These 321-seat A350 will also be used on the MAD-CCS route, which, incidentally, resumes tomorrow, marking Iberia's return to Venezuela since COVID broke out. Iberia is selling these Venezuela 3x w flights with 28 Economy+ and 293 Economy seats available for sale.

MaverickM11 wrote:

Pictures here:

https://twitter.com/aviosAdventurer/sta ... -quirky%2F

Thanks.
Wonder where the rows of 3 seats come from.
It's a mix of A330 and A350 seatmap although seats on the A330 aren't like that unless IB is changing them.

atcsundevil wrote:

kaitak744 wrote:

Wouldn't this have some major CG / balance issues?

Presumably they can just add ballast in the forward hold.

These inter-European flights will almost certainly carry cargo, so with a combination of cargo and pax bags loaded forward I doubt much ballast would be required, if any.

davidjohnson6 wrote:

atcsundevil wrote:

kaitak744 wrote:

Wouldn't this have some major CG / balance issues?

Presumably they can just add ballast in the forward hold.

An unusual approach to passenger revenue management - add more weight to the aircraft and burn more fuel, because the airline don't want to allow pax to pay more for premium seats

WE CAN’T LOSE!!! / Beetlejuice ref

The aircrafts you are referring to are the brand new A350Next. They were supposed to bring the new Business Plus seats, but the manufacturer has not received the homologation yet. As a temporary solution the cabin will remain “empty” (with dummy seats) for at least one year. https://twitter.com/gatovolador_com/sta ... PYTheSuNBg