I think that this giant aircraft will let us have bigger seat, because the floor is extra big. I hope Air France will be very innovating, and offer wonderful seat, in first, business and economy.

What kind of service could you possibly expect in a mock-up, because thats all the A3XX will ever be...a mock-up!

The A3XX will be a luxory liner at first, just like the 747 was (remember the lounge). There will be bug, comfortable seats. Then, the airlines will get greedy and cram as many tiny seats as possible into the aircraft. The service and room in the A3XX will be good at first, but after a few years, they'll be putting 600 pax in the 555 pax A3XX.

i agree with cba, its even happening at the moment, of course the airlines could take out a few seats for more legroom, but no, its the profit that will prevail!

I can't agree more than what you said...

Boeing727

Ahh...let's expand our minds shall we?

I see the A3XX as an airline marketing coup d'etat for those who employ them.
If Virgin gets them, just watch how they employ them.

The ability to offer new First and Business Class 'perk's on this platform is simply incredible to contemplate. No this does not mean standup piano bars complete with Tony Bennett singing, it simply means airlines will be able to offer service levels that exceed those of what we attribute to only Concorde (minus the supersonic speed of course) and what we see on current widebodies. Some have become so cynical to the possibility of even a -modest- return of improved inflight amenities that they dismiss them outright. They have taken the "cruise ship" thought pattern to the extreme and have forgotten a more pragmatic approach that can be had (which of course butresses the "other side's" viewpoint, which becomes more self-serving/self-fulfilling prophecy).

Some may think a return to the 70s' era is what is going to happen, I remind people that removal of the amenities then was for vastly different reasons. Traffic was so far off that airlines had to remove amenities to survice. However, Today's airlines are in large part making money hand over fist.

I see things quite differently, with a technological improvement in onboard entertainment coupled with improvement in comfort and amenties that airlines use to attract high yield passengers and then translated into overall passenger appeal.

An inflight duty free kiosk is not impossible to do, which would reduce flight attendant labor considerably (some here "pray at the Church of Cost" and forget some things like this may actually reduce costs, a standup bar for each classes of service are also possible with a reasonable amount of space for each allocated. We're not talking Studio 54 discos or an inflight Bingo hall, we're talking something quite modest and reasonable. The marketing appeal this airplane will afford is going to be quite interesting. It may serve to usher in all sorts of modest, reasonable, do-able service improvements. Some have felt a "onboard mall" atune to what one sees at Caesar's Palace is what airlines are going to employ..I see a much more pragmatic approach.

To think that "universally" punishing levels of airline service is a foregone conclusion now and into the future is nonsense. When you seriously change the equation by virtue of the tools being used, (and I really wonder about this point given Concorde's lifetime and niche may be coming to an end, AF and BA may want to opt for a compromise to cater to the high end using the A3XX with unique service levels on them) watch what the market may deliver.

For carriers employing the A3XX, the marketing appeal will present itself very clearly.

MAC

Clipperhawaii:
That was am unsubstantiated and rather annoying comment. If anything is said, let it be fact.
Nothing personal, by the way.

"Mr. Michael Tan, SIA Executive Vice-President (Commercial), said: "Although the first delivery is 5 years away, we can hardly wait. The larger cabin interior offers intriguing opportunities. We don't wish to give anything away at this stage, but our customers can expect service innovations and unprecedented levels of comfort.""

from the SIA press release.

Hmmm, I can hardly wait either!  

Regards
the WorldTraveller

The only thing that the A3XX can offer is space -- other than that, it's just another airplane. Maybe the first few off the line will have the bells and whistles, but when you're riding in economy, these will be just another cattle car, just bigger.

Any of the amenities, ironically, will be ones that won't take all that much space. Showers, for example, for first class. The thing is, those showers can also be retrofitted to 777/767/747/A300/A310/A330/A340/MD11, so that leaves the A3XX without that mark in the advantage column.

Don't think for a second that the airlines will give an inch of space out of the goodness of their hearts - they want this thing to be a cash cow, nothing more.

I agree the A3XX will be a cash cow. An airline can put all it wants in it but with load factors in the 80% range (im being generous) just on the 744 is 320 people. Now just because you put a larger airplane on the route does not mean more people are going to fly the route, what it does mean is a lower load factor, 320 people on a 555 seat A3XX is a 58% load factor, hardly enough to make money on.

I expect it to take about 3 hours to pass out all the meals and drinks!

Does anyone know how wide the A3XX's cabin will be, and how many seats abreast it will have? I'm not exactly a football player, but I appreciate extra shoulder room as well as more leg room.

Width will be similar to normal large aircraft so it can be accomodated at normal gates (i.e. 777 size or similar). It's hilarious to me that people are expecting to get more shoulder or leg room on this plane. I can't fathom why you think it more likely that an airline would voluntarily reduce passenger loads in the coach cabin on this plane any more than they already do on their others. If they don't fly 757s with 5 abreast, why the hell would they fly A3xx's without full loading? It's just silly to think otherwise.

Stand up bars? In this day and age of lawsuits from passengers involved in turbulence and "please keep your seatbelts fastened at all times"? I don't think so. That makes me laugh too. Remember that back in the day they had flammable curtains in airplanes too, just like stand up bars. Times change, and you're not going to see a bar that takes up no space for no reason whatsoever.

Pianos? Yeah right.

Showers? Now this is a possibility. First class I'd expect to see this. Now, the grossness of washing in someone else's recycled bathwater is a different matter but is going to take quite a marketing effort to convince me not to be disgusted by it.

Casino? Why bother; you can gamble on your PTV. The airline is not going to employ a dealer and take up 9 seats of room so I can play $10 blackjack for a few hours.

Fitness? Another possibility. However changing rooms, sweating, turbulence, etc all combine to make this similarly ridiculous and fantastic.

What you're going to see is new levels of comfort for F class and B class mostly due to the ability to put more people on a single airplane and therefore allow greater wine selection, and things like that. You're going to see EXACTLY the same seats in Y class as you do on every other airline. You will see some marketing stunts that sound good but take up no more than 2 or 3 seats; maybe a shoeshine booth or something...

The Main deck cabin is appproximately 12 inches wider than that on a 747. The cabin will have the standard 3-4-3 747 layout, but Airbus have stated that during the initial design airlines asked for a cabin layout that would allow individual armrests for passengers. So that is where the extra 12 inches will go. (I suspect by the year 2020, it will be a 3-5-3 lay out.)

As far as standup bars are concerned, that is nothing new. All the original 747s had them - some airlines had two or three on board. Virgin and ANA have standup bars on their 747s and 777s respectively.
PanAm even had restaurant style seating on their 747 upper decks in the 1970s. The liability incurred by a standup bar is no more than that incurred by serving drinks to non-seatbelt wearing pax in their seats.

I suspect that the new A3XXs - at least with the premium carriers - will have a few personal first class cabinettes, a stand up bar or two for F/J class passengers - perhaps several self-serve drink/snack stations in Y class, a dedicated business center with internet connections for f/J class pax (ANA already has that), and a dedicated cabin for Y class pax travelling with small children and infants at the rear of the cabin (We can only hope !!!). Initially we may see an inch more seat pitch in Y class, simply because load factors may not be up to snuff in the early years of the A3XX's introduction. (I said MAY see, not WILL see). Of course, with SIA, etc, we will see improved PTVs, seat based internet connections, etc, but I'm sure that those will carry over to other aircraft.

SIA currently carry 20 cabin crew on their 747s (compared to BA's 14-16). I suspect that the number of cabin crew will increase to around 26 or so on the A3XX. I suspect that clever marketing will make it appear that self-serve drink/snack stations are a cool, new substitute for more cabin crew. At least it may give you a reason to get out of your seat.

And, oh yeah, don't forget that APU operated treadmill and the running track on each wing with swimming pool in the fuel tanks.

If the A3xx is only 12 inches wider than the 747, then they had better not do 3-5-3. It would need to be at least 17 inches wider, or else there will be really narrow isles and seats, more narrow than the 747.

Primarily, I think with the sheer interior volume of the A3XX, I think the airlines may be able to do some truly innnovative things in terms of seating.

For First Class, the very possibility exists we could have for the first time "roomettes" with full-height room dividers, with each roomette designed for two passengers each. Of course, the seats will be superior to even the seating the BA's Club Class and AA's Signature Class.

For Business Class, seating will be at least CO Business Elite class quality, if not equivalent to today's First Class seats.

For Economy Class, passengers will enjor new ergonomically-designed seats, plus 33.5 to 34 inch pitch for better legroom.

Club class seats in economy, is that asking for too much?


Click for large version

Photo © Robert Flinzner


PIA Great people to fly with 

Absolutely nothing! No different from any other plane. They're gonna jam pack every square inch of space with seats. They'd be stupid if they didn't.

Louis wrote:
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Absolutely nothing! No different from any other plane. They're gonna jam pack every square inch of space with seats. They'd be stupid if they didn't.
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Fat chance that will happen.

The reason is simple: ICAO regulations. Remember, the ICAO requires that everyone aboard an airplane must be able to evacuate through all available exit doors in 90 seconds even if 50% of the exits are blocked--and that will mitigate against a "high-density domestic" version aimed at Japanese domestic operations.

This is why I think the A3XX-100 will be limited to about 600 passengers in a combination of Business and Economy class seating.

OK, maybe not EVERY square inch, but you get my drift. You won't see any casinos, gyms or the like on an A3XX...

The very least I'd expect is an on-board bus service to get us around the thing.

I was reading an article in a magazine and it mentioned having a gigantic staircase(similar to those on cruise ships) leading up to the second floor.In first class there will be oversized ptv's that inlude internet access & movies.Right now I'm more of a Boeing fan,but that might be changing soon!!!
P.S. I hope this helps you!

yeah.
there will be two staircases - one in the front, and one aft. They will both be in the center of the cabin. Those are standard features on the A3xx. Remember that you have to get 250 people upstairs !!

It will certainly be a nicer introduction to the aircraft than boarding a 747 where you walk right into the ugly bare metal galleys !!

Nothing you can't expect on other widebodies - A3XX won't be THAT bigger. I don't know what is the difference between Club World that I flew in BA 767 and Club World in BA 777 or 747. If there is anything really innovative - like compartments in First - then the price is be the same "innovative"  .

It will be a boarding and deplaning nightmare! Hopefully the extra space will be used for more/convenient lavatories.

I've heard Airbus and airlines plan to offer everything from a restaurant to a gym on board.. It's incredible how they'll try and entice us with illogical long term ideas.. imagine a gym with weights and how they'll react to a sudden massive air pocket or an over shoot on a runway.. they'd be coming through the walls or crashing down on your head.. How many law suits will they face as people strain backs or other body parts while using, say a tread mill during sudden turbulance. I agree with the early posters.. the airlines will offer all sorts of space and amenities at first but later will start packing in 800 seats where 500 were originally placed.. unless they can find someother way to make revenue like a casino or boutique that can pull in as much from people as a paid seat... not likely to happen IMHO.

I expect no change at all. The A3XX is nothing but a B747 with 100 or 150 more seats. The increased capacity roughly corresponds to the expected traffic growth from today until the service entry of the A3XX.
Different airline companies will configure the A3XX differently to fit their market, exactly the same way as they have configured the 747 differently during the last 30 years, and still do.
Best regards, Preben Norholm

MAC_Veteran

In your post you say that in the 70's the airlines had to remove the amenities because the traffic was so far off. Quite the contrary. Air traffic hit a slump in the US in the early 70's just as the major airlines were introducing the first generation 747's, DC-10's and L-1011's. The piano bars and lounges were added because this glut of capacity combined with low load factors. It didn't make sense to add more seats to already empty aircraft. The lounges were actually used as a marketing ploy to increase load factors.

Early on JAL had Boeing develop the 747SR for their high density domestic services. These operations enjoyed very high load factors from the beginning and in a sense paved the way for the way US and other world airlines began packing seats into their aircraft once load factors increased.

I think that all of this press about the A3XX and the wonderful things that they plan to do with the interior is nothing but a marketing ploy. Economics will dictate that showers, casinos, bars and grand staircases give way to revenue generating seating - and the more the better. Don't forget, Boeing redesigned the original spiral staircase that led to the upper deck of the 741/742 from the 743 model onward in order to be able to fit in additional seating on both decks.

The idea of the spiral staircase on the the 741/742 originated from the B-377 Stratocruiser which had a lower deck bar, lounge and ladies "powder room". This was a true luxury liner, but back then only the rich could afford to fly and various world governments (including the USA) heavily subsidized airlines and air travel. We wanted cheaper tickets and we got them through deregulation and privatiziation. What we got in return was jam packed aircraft that make a lot of money for their operators. I don't see the A3XX bucking this trend.

EyeSky

Absolutely nothing! Coz airliners would simply squeeze as many seats as they can!

This sounds sad, but I really hope that they put in bigger lavatories.

It would be nice to be able to swing a tiger in there - as opposed to the kitten that you can now!