SWISS has this week laid out its plans for how their upcoming Airbus A350-900 aircraft will be setup, including a boost to its Premium Economy offerings.
The airline is to begin taking delivery of five units from 2025 onwards, with the intention of replacing its Airbus A340-300 aircraft.
Without further ado, let’s get into it…
SWISS’ Setup for its Airbus A350s…
SWISS’ Airbus A350s will seat a total of 242 passengers, consisting of three seats in First Class, 45 in Business Class, 38 in Premium Economy, and 156 in Economy.
The airline states that the offering of Premium Economy will be larger than it’s existing long-haul aircraft at present.
Adding to this was Tamur Goudarzi Pour, the airline’s CCO:
“Through their carefully-conceived spatial design, all our seating classes aboard our aircraft will offer our guests a totally new and unparalleled air travel experience from 2025 onwards”.
“With our new cabin concept, we will still remain the only major airline in the world to offer a First Class cabin on all its long-haul aircraft.”
“We will also be increasing the size of our Premium Economy Class, which has proved very popular. And in both these respects, we are further clearly positioning SWISS as Europe’s leading premium airline.”
The new Airbus A350-900s will also feature the new ‘SWISS Senses’ cabin concept, which will offer SWISS customers a totally new and more personalized air travel experience.
How Does The A350 Seat Offering Compare To It’s Other Long Haul Aircraft?
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At the time of writing (11/9/23), SWISS has the following long-haul aircraft, as per data from Planespotters.net:
- 14 Airbus A330-300s.
- 4 A340-300s.
- 12 Boeing 777-300ERs.
Below is their respective seat configurations:
- A330-300 = Eight seats in First Class, 45 in Business & 183 in Economy.
- A340-300 = Eight seats in First Class, 42 in Business, 21 in Premium Economy & 144 in Economy.
- B777-300ER = Eight seats in First Class, 62 in Business, 24 in Premium Economy & 226 in Economy.
- A350-900 (From 2025) = Three seats in First Class, 45 in Business, 38 in Premium Economy & 156 in Economy.
What we can see is that SWISS has effectively doubled down on its Premium Economy offering with the A350-900, and has sacrificed seats in Economy to cater to this.
That being said, there will be more economy seats on the Airbus A350 compared to the A340-300, which are due to be replaced by this newer jet.
On top of this, there will be three more Business Class seats, but five fewer First Class seats, which highlights demand dipping for the higher end products.
Overall…
Looking ahead, the strategy in investing more into Premium Economy does look to be the next step towards catering to its popular products.
Consumer spending of course is reduced due to global inflation, which means that products such as Premium Economy and Economy have to have a significant focus moving forward.
Business travel is returning, which is why the airline has opted for it to have more seats on the Airbus A350, but for SWISS, this is most definitely an interesting change-up.
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