It seems as though British Airways is edging nearer to taking delivery of its first Boeing 777 with the new enclosed First suite. Since the carrier launched its Club Suite product last year, the airline’s First cabin has been criticized by some for not being fully enclosed.
Launching new cabins onboard aircraft is always a delicate balancing act, as UAE carrier Emirates is experiencing. Emirates is planning to launch a new premium economy cabin. However, while it needs to be nice enough to draw passengers up from the economy, they don’t want it to be too nice and draw passengers down from business class. It seems that perhaps British Airways’ new club suite is ‘too nice’ as British Airways will begin taking delivery of aircraft with fully enclosed first-class suites.
Test flights underway
It seems as though the new British Airways First seat is edging ever closer to delivery. We know that it will be debuted onboard the Boeing 777-300ER aircraft yet delivered to the British flag carrier. The first of these aircraft, G-STBM, has undergone a couple of test flights in the past week according to data from FlightRadar24.com.
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All three have been operated from Everett to Everett. The first flight took place on Thursday, September 24th. This was a relatively simple 56-minute flight, seeing the aircraft fly to the west of Everett, around the Olympic National Park.
The second flight was more eventful, seeing the aircraft being put through its paces. The flight lasted three hours and 36 minutes. In this time, the plane climbed to 39,000 feet, performed a series of maneuvers, made a missed approach at Moses Lake, and then returned to Everett for a series of left and right circuits.
The future of British Airways first class
While the new British Airways first class will be fully enclosed with a door, it seems as though the seat itself will be mostly similar to the current British Airways offering on the Boeing 787. However, in the future, we may have more to look forward to.
British Airways has done away with the cabin completely on the Airbus A350. However, at the launch of the British Airways A350, the airline’s CEO Alex Cruz remarked that we could expect a brand new product onboard the Boeing 777-9 when deliveries begin.
Cruz commented,
“The newly refurbished 777s will not have a brand new first-class seat… We are quite centred thinking about the 777-9. That’s when we hope there will be some sort of differentiated service.”
It is unclear exactly when the first Boeing 777-9 may be delivered. Deliveries were planned for 2022 to 2025. However, this figure was given when we still expected the aircraft to now be in service with Lufthansa. Due to delays to the program, Lufthansa now expects that its first 777-9 won’t be delivered until 2022. However, another A350 could be on the way soon, as G-XWBG has undergone a customer acceptance flight in Toulouse this month.
What are you expecting from the new British Airways First on this handful of 777 aircraft? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!