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Qantas Is Ditching First Class In Favor Of More Seats In The Back

Where: Australia
February 12, 2010 at 11:40 AM | by | Comment (1)

The other side of the globe has been pretty interested in airline seats lately. First Air New Zealand announced the launch of in-flight snuggling, and now Qantas is thinking about doing something out of the ordinary as well. However, the Qantas announcement has more to do with what they’re taking away rather than adding.

The airline is thinking about mixing up its seating configuration to get rid of most of its first-class seating. All in all, they want to get rid of like two-thirds of their swanky seating. There haven’t been too many details released just yet, but Qantas is looking to spend about $350 million to complete this transition.

Economies around the world have been suffering, and they’re thinking that an increase in economy class might just be the way to handle things in the future. They’ll only have 12 planes providing first-class seating moving forward, so if you can’t stand the back of the plane you’ll need likely to depart from Los Angeles or London. Economy seats will increase by 20 percent across their fleet, but let’s just hope they have something unique to keep passengers entertained. Plenty of people want to head down under, but it’s so far away and just so darn expensive.

Related Stories:
· Qantas In Talks On Seating Shake-Up [The Australian]
· Qantas May Remove Two-Thirds of First Class Seats, Review Says [Bloomberg]
· Airline News coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Skazama]

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Return to » Qantas Is Ditching First Class In Favor Of More Seats In The Back


QANTAS (Now a Has Been)

I remember when QF first introduced 747/200,s, they were configured with 56 F/C seats and two Air Chefs operated the front galley. They won all the awards year after year for their services. Then marketing saw a need for B/C and cut the F/C cabin to 32 seats, and still the awards came. Then a downturn in the market saw F/C cut to 24 seats and the awards started to dwindle. Eventually it came down to an across the board 16 seats and in their infinite wisdom they decided that Chief Stewards were no longer viable and the most senior cabin crew member could decide if they wished to work in F/C, if not someone else would be allocated the position. Not a way to run an airline, can anyone tell me the last time QF won a service award. Are Jetstar taking over and letting QF go "No Frills"??.
FirstClass on February 14, 2010 at 5:26 PM #Permalink

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