WTM 2009: Europe debut for Continental?s new BusinessFirst seat
Continental Airlines has taken the opportunity of the World Travel Market to officially unveil its new BusinessFirst seat for the first time in Europe.
The 2 metre long seat is the first lie-flat bed for the airline’s fleet. The first aircraft featuring the seat, a Boeing 777, flew on1 November. “We’re aiming to retrofit the complete 777 fleet by January 2011,” reported Dave Hilfman, senior vice-president worldwide sales. “The other fleets, the 767-400s and 757-200s, will also receive the new seat and we plan to have all the retrofitting done by August 2012. We’re still evaluating whether or not to put the seat onto the 767-200s.
“We shall, of course, have the seat fitted from new in our 787s when they are delivered, which we now expect to be in late 2011,” he added. The seat had been planned for introduction on the 787 but that aircraft’s delays meant launching the product on the 777 instead.
The new seat, manufactured by B/E Aerospace, has a hard shell unlike the current BusinessFirst. Its design has enabled Continental to maintain the number of seats in its premium class on all the aircraft types.
The IFE features a 15.4 inch screen Panasonic AVOD system into which an iPod can be plugged should the passenger so wish. Below the screen is a shelf for laptop storage. Power points are neatly placed to allow easy, but unobtrusive, connections.
At present the airline is discussing the option of inflight broadband for the long-haul fleet from the range of providers in the market. Hilfman noted though, that the US domestic fleet of 737NGs and 757-300s is being readied for the fitting of DirecTV from LiveTV. “We plan a limited Wi-Fi service mainly to enable e-mails on PDAs and smartphones,” Hilfman confirmed.
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