Delta to Upgrade Seats to Fully Flatten

    Oct. 11, 2006
    Recliners on overseas trips are geared to well-heeled fliers.

    Source The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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    Delta Air Lines hopes to pull in big bucks from flat seats.

    In its latest move to boost international revenue, the Atlanta carrier is expected to announce today that it plans to offer seats that flatten out into a 6-foot-3 bed in the Business Elite cabin of its international flights.

    Front-cabin fliers shouldn't expect to stretch out any time soon, though. Delta doesn't expect to introduce the seats until it takes delivery of two new Boeing 777s in early 2008.

    The seats, which look something like diagonally parked office cubicles, will cost about $2 million per jet, and will reduce the number of Business Elite seats from 50 to 43.

    Some carriers that already have bed-like seats can command upward of $10,000 per ticket, but Delta says it doesn't plan to change ticket prices as a result of the upgrade.

    Delta hopes its entry into the seat wars will pay off by drawing some high-paying customers who now go to the carriers that already offer fully flat or nearly flat seats. Delta expects to have them on about 75 aircraft flying international routes by the end of 2010.

    "That would be great news," said Susan Daimler, vice president of marketing at Seatguru.com, a Seattle-based Web site that rates airlines on legroom and related issues. "Personally, I believe that all the domestic carriers are at a disadvantage," she said.

    In recent years, overseas carriers such as British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Lufthansa and Virgin Atlantic have fully flat or almost flat seating in business class. American and United, which offer similar versions in their first class cabins, have been working on plans to put them in business class, too.

    Delta's lack of such seating has been an issue for some of the most frequent fliers, said LaDonna Epler, who helps run a sort of travel agency at InsideFlyer magazine for people cashing in frequent flier miles.

    "On the long-haul flights, I hear it a lot," she said of customers hoping to book a sleepover flight. "Anybody but Delta."

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