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JetBlue has given the Economy Class cabin in its Airbus A320 aircraft a makeover and the first aircraft fitted with the new cabin is now in service. With airlines increasingly densifying their Economy Class cabins at the expense of passengers’ personal space it’s interesting to see what path JetBlue has taken.
JetBlue has added 12 seats to its Airbus A320 Economy Class cabin and, while that makes the airline sound like just about any other domestic carrier you choose to mention (most of whom are playing the ‘let’s see how many seats we can get in this aircraft’ game), things aren’t quite that straightforward – this new A320 Economy Class cabin will still offer passengers more legroom than the short-haul aircraft operated by most other domestic carriers.
Per JetBlue:
The restyling effort has been several years in the making, with the latest aircraft marking the first to receive this all-new 2019 design. The aircraft, named “If You Can Read This, You’re Blue Close,” re-joins JetBlue’s fleet today, with roughly a third of JetBlue’s A320 aircraft scheduled for restyling completion by the end of the year.
Here’s what passengers can expect in the new JetBlue Economy Class cabin:
- Expanded seat width of more than 18 inches, the widest available for the A320.
- The most legroom in coach of any U.S. airline
- Enhanced cushion comfort.
- Adjustable headrests
- Contoured seatback design at knee level creating additional living space for every customer.
- Redesigned seatback stowage options, including an innovative elastic grid to accommodate a variety of customer items.
- At least two easy-to-reach power connections at every seat.
All the A320’s Economy Class cabin seats offer the same impressive width but there are varying amounts of legroom.
The standard Economy Class seats offer passengers 32″ of legroom (more than you get in Economy Class on most long-haul aircraft) while the ‘Even More Space Seats’ (found in the first 5 rows of the aircraft as well as in the two exit rows) offer up to 3″ more legroom than the standard seats.
Here’s a video JetBlue has released to showcase its new Economy Class cabin
Improved IFE
As well as rolling out a new Economy Class cabin JetBlue will use 2019 to also roll out its improved IFE system from Thales AVANT which will offer ViaSat-2 connectivity.
JetBlue says that the new system will allow it to offer customers “expanded entertainment choices in nearly every region the airline flies”.
Here’s what passengers can expect onboard:
- 10.1 inch, 1080P high definition screen at every seat.
- More than 100 channels of live television with DVR-like pause and rewind functionality.
- Expanded collection of on demand movies, TV shows and video content, plus new gaming features.
- Destination-specific content allowing customers to enhance their travel experience.
- Picture-in-picture function
- Enhanced, 3D flight map offering multiple ways to track time to destination.
- Personal handheld device pairing capabilities for use as a remote or gaming controller.
- Expanded Fly-Fi connectivity, providing coverage to nearly the entire JetBlue network.
As carriers like American Airlines continue to remove in-flight screens from their Economy Class cabins, JetBlue is currently the only major U.S. airline which offers seatback entertainment screens on all of its aircraft.
Bottom Line
I’m genuinely very interested to try the cabin out.
JetBlue has added 12 seats across two rows but, because it has also introduced a more slimline seat and because it has reconfigured where the onboard lavatories are, it has managed to continue to offer passengers a good amount of legroom.
My biggest question surrounds the comfort of the new slimline seats as I’ve tried slimline seats on at least three other airlines and didn’t like them for flights of longer than 2 hours.
JetBlue says that it has “enhanced cushion comfort” in the new seats it has introduced but, as I wouldn’t expect an airline to say anything else, I’d like to try them out for myself (or at least get some independent reports from flyers who have tried them out) before I praise JetBlue too much.
What do you guys think of the new Economy Class cabin on JetBlue’s A320s?
