All Nippon has revealed its new premium and economy cabins and given the quality end of the air travel spectrum a big jolt.
How about bidets in the bathrooms for the first and business class cabins? Which it claims as a world first. Will this cause Emirates to also install bidets in its twin shower/spa rooms on its flagship Airbus A380s?
And does this matter, or are innovations in premium travel a dead end in times when all the growth appears to be in the low fare options, followed by premium economy, with traditional luxury products in business and first class suffering declines in patronage that seem to be the inverse of efforts to renew them?
All Nippon doesn’t fly to Australia. So this is about new ideas or refinements that may turn up here long before it even thinks about returning to any of our cities.
The product revealed during the week will be launched on its Boeing 777-300ER services between Tokyo and New York. It will clearly be adapted to its Boeing 787s, whenever it really gets any. And it may extend to the A380s it has been reported as contemplating.
Starting at the rarified top, ANA has a new first class isolation box (above) called First Square. First impression is that it makes the private suites in the Emirates and Singapore Airlines A380s and Boeing 777s look like shared public spaces. All that is needed is darker panelling and an alcove for flowers and a plaque and you have a family crypt. In its current appearance it could with the doors shut be mistaken for a short cargo container.
Of course it is superbly equipped. But intensely private. From late this year the concept extends to a new First Suite lounge at Narita airport. Where each passenger can retire to a similar private suite, totally avoiding eye or social contact with anyone else from check-in to eventual check-out in New York. This is voluntary solitary confinement, and definitely not for the ‘bling’ look-at-me type of premium traveller, who will gravitate much more to the new Business Staggered product, or where available the bar at the rear end of the top deck of an Emirates A380.
Business Staggered (above) seems to have lost something in translation to English, just like Qantas the Spirit of Australia scares the cr*p out of the superstitious in Japan, where it translates into Qantas the Ghost of Australia.
It is only the position of the seats that are staggered, otherwise they look pretty comfortable. The geometry strongly resembles that of the Emirates A380 business class product, and is clever way of giving each seat individual access to an aisle, and all the ambience of an office full of work space cubicles.
In its premium economy cabin All Nippon has 100 cms of leg room in seats just as wide as those in business class, and set in a fixed shell, so nobody is going to be able to recline their seat abruptly into your meal tray or laptop, thus depriving obnoxious travellers of one of their favourite stunts.
The rear economy cabin is almost like a club room too, only containing 112 of the low 212 seat count in the 777 (compared to 361 seats on V Australia’s version or 278 seats on the Singapore Airlines edition.) Like these other carriers, All Nippon has humanely retained nine across seating against the trend to go to a grossly uncomfortable 10 across, and it does it in 2+4+3 format with is probably more appealing to many than 3+3+3. Seat pitch is improved to 85 cms, which is rare these days.
