Air Berlin is rolling out lie flat business class seats similar to Etihad. I was invited to a press conference in March to highlight the new seat and get a first hand look.
The seats are comfortable and have plenty of length for tall travelers. While I’m average height I spoke with a few other attendees that were at least 6′ 2″ and they said the seat was very comfortable for them. The specs for the seat mention the length at 182cm (approximately 6′) but both people reported being comfortable even though they were slightly taller.
The seats have a great deal of privacy due to the staggered positioning. While providing aisle access for every seat, including the window passengers. The current IFE programming can be found in this PDF.
Due to the large number of attendees crowding the business class cabin it was hard to get a good shot of the seat by itself. Sorry for the odd angles in these photos.
The crowd
Currently only one ship has the new seats, but they expect to have it in all twelve long haul A330’s by early 2014.
I also took a quick peek inside the A330 cockpit. But there was some goofy guy sitting in the right seat.
Based on Air Berlin’s award availability and very competitive business class fares I’m looking forward to the continued roll out of these new seats. Once the entire fleet is retrofitted they will have a competitive offering for OneWorld flyers.
