Beginning on April 1, Finnair’s flights to Tokyo and New York will feature aircraft equipped with fully flat seats available in business class. Additionally, Finnair will offer these fully flat seats on flights to Beijing beginning on May 1. As of June 1, the business class seats will be added on flights to Hanoi, Vietnam; Hong Kong and Shanghai, China; and Nagoya and Osaka, Japan.
The new seats are a result of Finnair’s $40 million program to retrofit most of its wide-body fleet of Airbus A330 and A340 aircraft. The Zodiac Seats UK Vantage model seats, which are already in use on Finnair’s four newest Airbus A330s, are designed to provide a fully-flat bed measuring 79 inches in length and 23 inches in width.
The fully adjustable seats also come with an individual reading light, adjustable head rest, mood lights and a range of inflight entertainment options.
“We believe that full-flat seats are the new quality standard for long-haul business travel,” says Allister Paterson, Finnair’s chief commercial officer. “A promise of comfort and quality to key business destinations will help make Finnair a very compelling option in business travel, particularly between Europe and Asia.”
After the full-flat retrofit program is complete, all of Finnair’s long-haul Airbus fleet will have full-flat seats in business class with the exception of three older aircraft.
Due to maintenance or other technical reasons, designated full-flat routes may still be served by these other older aircraft, which feature angled lie-flat seating in business class. These three aircraft will be the first to be removed from the fleet as next-generation Airbus A350 XWBs begin arriving in 2015.
Finnair currently operates 15 Airbus A330 and A340 aircraft in its wide-body fleet, serving a network of 15 long-haul destinations in Asia and North America.
An additional 11 Airbus A350 XWBs (with an option for eight more) are due to arrive beginning in H2 2015, which the airline says will help it double its revenue from Asian destinations by 2020.
For more information, visit www.finnairgroup.com.