Air France plans to reduce the number of business class
seats and eliminate the first class cabin entirely on its Boeing 777s, the
carrier on Wednesday confirmed to BTN.
The airline did not give a timetable for the changes.
Air France will remove all four first class seats on its
777-200s and cut business class to 35 from 49. Economy will be boosted to 250 seats
from 170, and premium economy will stay unchanged at 24 seats.
On Air France's 777-300s, all eight first class seats will
be scrapped, business class will drop to 42 seats from 67 and premium economy to
24 seats from 28, while economy will be enlarged by more than 50 percent, to 317
seats from 200. The carrier plans less radical changes to the configuration of its
Boeing 747s, with business class to be trimmed by four seats to 36.
Air France several years ago scrapped first class on its Airbus
330s and 340s, but a spokeswoman said that each of the carrier's new A380s will
include a nine-seat first-class cabin. Air France has four A380s in service,
with one more arriving in April 2011 and another seven on the way. "It
means that we will eventually have more first-class seats than today," she
said.
Air France is reducing business class seating on its 777s
because many companies that downgraded long-haul flying to economy class when
the recession started have not relaxed their policies, the spokeswoman said. "There
are still not that many which have come back to business class," she said.
"That is why we have now equipped all our long-haul aircraft with a
premium economy W class. It has stopped business class passengers trading all
the way down to economy."