New Korean Air Business Class Seat Coming To 777 & 787

While details are pretty limited, Korean Air has plans to introduce a new business class product in the coming months. This is pretty exciting… maybe?

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Seth Miller reports on a regulatory filing that Korean Air has made with the United States Department of Transportation, related to seat accessibility. In this filing, Korean Air states that it has plans to introduce a new business class product in the near future:

The airline describes the product as a “new business class suite seat,” though the filing redacts the name of the seat model, for competitive reasons.

This filing is regarding aircraft needing to have a movable aisle armrest installed in at least half of aisle seats, for accessibility reasons. So the filing gives us another clue, which is that the seats used “are integrated suite designs which cannot incorporate a moveable aisle armrest into their design.”

With delivery of the first jet with the new product planned in the next three months, I expect we’ll learn more in the coming weeks, ahead of entry into service (thank you Korean Air for not taking the Lufthansa approach, and announcing your “new” business class six years before it actually enters service).

It’s always exciting to see an airline introduce a new business class product, since seating choices have come a long way over the years. That being said, Korean Air currently has Apex Suites as its standard long haul business class product, which is one of my favorite business class seats in the world. The window seats in this configuration are simply awesome, and offer an unparalleled amount of privacy and space.

The catch with Apex Suites is that they’re not at all efficient in terms of their footprint, so I imagine Korean Air is looking for a denser product.

So, what new seat could Korean Air choose? This is purely speculation on my part, but here are a couple of observations:

If you think of the most popular new “generic” business class products with doors, I think two concepts come to mind.

One is a reverse herringbone seat with a door. These seats do typically have movable armrests at the aisle, though I’m not sure if the door gets in the way of that being useful when it comes to accessibility reasons.

The other common product is a staggered configuration with doors. While a staggered configuration ordinarily would have a movable armrest for the seat closest to the aisle, that’s not the case when there’s a door, due to the location of the door in relation to the armrest.

So I’d guess that Korean Air will go with one of these types of products, though it’s anyone’s guess if that ends up being the case.

Korean Air will be introducing a new business class product in the coming months, which will debut on the Boeing 787-10, and then eventually be installed on all Boeing 777-300ERs. The airline is describing these new business class seats as suites.

We should find out the details of what Korean Air chooses in the coming weeks. I’m usually excited about a new business class product, though I also do like Korean Air’s current Apex Suites.

What are you expecting from Korean Air’s new business class?

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Flew the 747-8 on Korean Air last October HNL-ICN roundtrip upper deck Business with the Apex Window seat. Truly Amazing Hard product with oodles of space and storage although the service was a bit robotic and drink and food portions on the small side. Best Business class seat but the service and food offerings from the F/A’s is better on both JAL and ANA.

Please just do the reverse herringbone seat with a door. We need more of that seat across the Pacific.

"these planes still have first class cabins that are no longer sold"

What? KE has brought back first class on many 777 routes.

Correct. For example, KE024 (SFO-ICN) is still selling First on its 777s.

I guess he meant the Southeast Asian routes like ICN-BKK. KE fly their 77Ws regularly to those routes as well, and those have the old cabin (Kosmo Suite 1 F class, 2-3-2 config J class and then the normal Y class) while the long-haul (Seoul to Bangkok is quite a long distance, but Korean carries consider those routes a mediul-haul, so those 'long-haul' routes are those to the Americas, Europe and Oceania) 77W routes are...

I guess he meant the Southeast Asian routes like ICN-BKK. KE fly their 77Ws regularly to those routes as well, and those have the old cabin (Kosmo Suite 1 F class, 2-3-2 config J class and then the normal Y class) while the long-haul (Seoul to Bangkok is quite a long distance, but Korean carries consider those routes a mediul-haul, so those 'long-haul' routes are those to the Americas, Europe and Oceania) 77W routes are getting the newer ones.

In my opinion, they're gonna retrofit the older 77Ws first, and newer ones will receive the update later with the new first class (just my assumption).

Apex suites offer extremely little storage. I don't understand why bloggers are so ga-ga over Apex suites.

According to Ben, the Apex Suites' strength isn't storage, but the huge amount of privacy and personal space that they offer.If you want storage, I think the Super Diamond is the best seat for that.

Insider tip: KE Apex window seat on 748 upper deck has acres (okay, maybe feet) of storage. Probably the best J seat I've ever experienced.

So will KE keep the Apex suites on the existing 77W subfleet or they will convert their whole 77W fleet.

It is confirmed to be Collins Horizon, the same staggered seat as on Aeroflot A350. It's been leaked in a Korean website.

That's nice as those seats are great

Given that Korean Air has never had a true 1-2-1 Business Class, maybe they'll just install Emirates' 777 J seats with those huge privacy dividers masquerading as doors >:-) /s OK, in all seriousness, my guess is that they'll choose a staggered configuration, given that they're merging with Asiana, which uses staggered seats up front. No matter what seat they choose, though, I think they'll go for the "Business Class Plus" approach, with...

Given that Korean Air has never had a true 1-2-1 Business Class, maybe they'll just install Emirates' 777 J seats with those huge privacy dividers masquerading as doors >:-) /sOK, in all seriousness, my guess is that they'll choose a staggered configuration, given that they're merging with Asiana, which uses staggered seats up front.No matter what seat they choose, though, I think they'll go for the "Business Class Plus" approach, with row 1 being more spacious and having a better soft product. I'm also willing to bet that this supposed J plus product will replace their First Class.

If they plan on keeping their 772s and 773s a bit longer, they can reuse the seats from the 77W, but then again the seats take up a whole lot of real estate. Just like CX, they don't have a definitive timeframe on their retirement, but with KEs case, the 789 and 10 can be seen as a replacement for the 772 and 773 respectively while CX doesn't have a replacement (yet). Will the 789s be getting new seats as well?

The odds are leaning towards the Staggered seating similar to the Delta One Suite.

Think it's gonna be very much like a Virgin A330neo situation. Though, I'm surprised to see Delta doesn't have a stake in KE.

They do have a stake in KE

Though, I'm surprised to see Delta doesn't have a stake in KE.

DL has an 11% stake in Hanjin KAL, the parent company of KE.

I hope that whatever seat they adopt they’ll choose finishes more like what they’ve introduced on the A321neo than what they have on their widebodies currently. I understand wanting to tie the interiors into their overall branding but the current cabins look awful, IMO.

While the A321neo interiors do indeed look better (and more elegant), I'd like the finishes to be similar to what is on the widebody fleet as they're more distinctive & on-brand. Their A321neo Business Class cabin looks too similar to Starlux IMO (That's not necessarily a bad thing, given how gorgeous Starlux's seats look, but I'd rather have a unique & on-brand cabin).

This is exactly what I've been thinking about United's 2016-present cabin color pallate compared to what they inherited from Continental. I'm merely talking about color choice, not the choice of seats or features. United's new color scheme has a lot more white on wall panels than Continental and even though it looks more modern, it just doesn't have the character or distinction that Continental's cabins had.

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It is confirmed to be Collins Horizon, the same staggered seat as on Aeroflot A350. It's been leaked in a Korean website.

Insider tip: KE Apex window seat on 748 upper deck has acres (okay, maybe feet) of storage. Probably the best J seat I've ever experienced.

"these planes still have first class cabins that are no longer sold"What? KE has brought back first class on many 777 routes.