Star Alliance airline EVA Air has revealed a brand new Business Class seat for its upcoming Boeing 787-9 and 787-10 aircraft, due for delivery from October 2018, and in a departure from their current Zodiac Cirrus seat the Taipei-based carrier has switched to the all forward-facing Thompson Aero Seating Vantage XL product in a staggered 1-2-1 layout.
The seat
Unlike the current Cirrus design installed on EVA Air’s Boeing 777 fleet, the new product for their 787 does not feature a ‘reverse herringbone’ format, whereby the Business Class seats are angled away from the aisle.
Instead in the new design each seat is aligned directly with the aircraft fuselage, with the foot area in bed mode taking advantage of the space underneath the console of the seat in front. That requires each seat to be laterally staggered from the one in the preceding and subsequent rows for effective use of space.
BMW Group company Designworks was tasked with the customisation to incorporate EVA’s brand image through “mature, muted colors to enhance the feeling of a comfortable, spacious environment”. The same company crafted Singapore Airlines’ 2013 First Class seat on their newest Boeing 777-300ERs, just in case you wondered if they were cut out for the job.
The staggered 1-2-1 layout allows direct aisle access for all passengers in this new cabin, which EVA Air label ‘Royal Laurel Class’.
Each seat is 23 in. (58.4 cm) wide and converts to a 76 in. (193 cm) long flat-bed, according to EVA’s press release. Thompson Aero documents sighted by Mainly Miles in combination with the quoted bed length lead us to conclude EVA has opted for the minimum design seat pitch for