Here’s Lufthansa’s new premium economy seat, with a fixed-shell design

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

• Ian says:

  28 Jan28 January 03:53

  Does anyone know the width of these seats from armrest to armrest? This information is rarely provided but is really helpful for larger passengers.

  • Rhys says:

    28 Jan28 January 09:11

    18-19 inches, although I’m not sure there is an industry standard way of measuring either with/without arm rests etc.

• Phillip says:

  28 Jan28 January 04:36

  I seem to recall that when Cathay tried fixed shell seating they got very bad feedback and got rid of them.

  • John says:

    28 Jan28 January 05:36

    In economy yes, not sure about premium

• Lou says:

  28 Jan28 January 05:09

  I’m guessing the biggest drawback from the shell seats is less space. Eg if you recline, you have less leg room.

  Whilst having someone’s seat back closer to your face is less than desirable, if I’m sleeping I don’t care

  • Rhys says:

    28 Jan28 January 09:10

    Both are compromises – I don’t think one necessarily wins above the other.

• BJ says:

  28 Jan28 January 07:03

  The key point is lost here; the apparent recline is achieved largely by the seat base sliding forward as opposed to the back of the seat going down. Thus, the nature of the recline is and feels different to that of the more conventional seats. This is what many do not like about them. AF has recently gone the opposite way, dropping, these fixed shell seats in favour of more conventional. At a guess I would say most find fixed shell seats better for daytime or shorter flights while preferring the more conventional seats for longer or overnight flights.

  • Nick says:

    28 Jan28 January 07:20

    Always suspicious when every statistic is compared to its competitors in an article apart from one (the angle of seat recline in this case).

    • Rhys says:

      28 Jan28 January 09:08

      I included the angle of the recline!

      …only because I found the specs for the SWISS seat since the Lufthansa press release had virtually no information in it whatsoever 🙂

      • Nick says:

        28 Jan28 January 09:31

        Yes, we know it was included. The point was that this is the only statistic in the article that isn’t compared to its competitors.

        • Rhys says:

          28 Jan28 January 09:50

          Not intentionally!

        • BJ says:

          28 Jan28 January 10:44

          The angle of reclinebon a hard shell seat does not compare well to that of a conventional seat anyway. Difficult to put into words but if you try both with similar angles of recline then the difference is readily noted.

  • Thegasman says:

    28 Jan28 January 10:26

    Agree 100%, these are awful for trying to sleep. Feels like your hips are forced into a flexed rather than extended position.

  • yonasl says:

    28 Jan28 January 16:18

    I have been avoiding AF premium because of HfP and other reviewers marked them as awful. Are there new seats now that look more like those from BA?

• Qrfan says:

  28 Jan28 January 07:43

  I think Cathay has these seats in their regional business class flights on Cathay dragon? If the same or similar then that’s quite a good option for a day time flight and enough to tempt me to save money vs business for a short transatlantic flight going West.

• tony says:

  28 Jan28 January 08:28

  Incase anyone else makes the same mistake as me, sees that Swiss photo and thinks “blimey, that’s a massive Y+ cabin”, it’s because they don’t have a divider between Y+ and Y. It’s just a few rows of premium.

  • AJA says:

    28 Jan28 January 10:38

    I guess the best economy seats are in the row immediately behind these PE seats as you presumably get the larger IFE screen and the PE passenger doesn’t recline into your space.

    • riku says:

      28 Jan28 January 13:53

      The first row of economy will have screens that flip out of their armrests. On a 777 the seat config is 2-4-2 in premium economy and 3-4-3 in economy.

• T says:

  28 Jan28 January 09:34

  Fixed seats are awful. Had that in economy one time (Cathay 747?) the bottom of the seat slides forward and the recline is super uncomfortable

• dougzz99 says:

  28 Jan28 January 10:31

  I find the real ‘feels like’ space can never be determined by simple seat width measurements. There are so many more factors, and unless an airline fits less seats across, the real space never varies very much on the same airframe. Economy on a 787, no thanks. One of the nice things of a window seat was the ability to lean into the curve of the fuselage and have that but more shoulder space, once they packed in the extra seats across the window ones ended so against the fuselage the curve impacted you negatively.
  It will be interesting to try these, hard to judge value of recline until you’ve sat in one for a few hours.
  From being a regular in PE I’ve grown to dislike the compromise, business if can afford, else just suck it up in economy, PE seldom worth the additional cost.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.