Malaysia Airlines is the latest carrier to plan for lie-flat beds on its single-aisle fleet. The carrier shared last week it would offer the premium business class seats on its upcoming 737-10 airplanes when they join the fleet.
The effort aims to “bring consistent end to end comfort to regional travel,” according to the company. This includes “seamless journeys, such as Trivandrum to Kuala Lumpur on the 737-10 with onward connections to Melbourne on the A330neo, all within a unified, premium cabin experience.”
Things become very interesting, however, when looking at the specifics of the new seating solution.
As part of its press release the carrier shared photos of the aircraft interior. This includes two images of the new business class seats.
The cabin includes doors for privacy on the six rows of 1-1 reverse herringbone layout.
The overhead view offers additional details of the seats. Among those bits is the unique dual level table to the right of the seat, adjacent to the storage area.
This design feature is unique to Adient‘s Ascent narrow-body offering. That’s a rather compelling hint as to who the supplier for the seats will be.
Or a terrible red herring.
In a comment on LinkedIn regarding the new offering Stephanie Faulk, Adient’s Director of Sales & Marketing, shares that Adient’s selection by Malaysia Airlines is a “Flattering suggestion, but definitely an error as Adient Aerospace is not involved with this program.”
When pressed on the situation Malaysia Airlines’ comms team declined to offer any additional details beyond the press release and the images. Which is to say the company is not explicitly naming Adient as a supplier, though the images uniquely do so.
Update: After an additional query and pointing out that the makers of the seats shared in the images disavowed any association with the program the company clarified its position, “The images provided are illustrative renderings of MAG’s premium cabin concept aspirations. The seat design, product and supplier for this programme are still being finalised.”
Premium IFE/C Choices
In the back half of the plane the renderings show 22 rows of economy class seats (132 seats).
All seats nose-to-tail show embedded IFE screens available. The MAX 8 fleet depends on wireless IFE, so the presence of those screens on the MAX 10 renderings represents a shift in practice. Or maybe not. The seats shows in the rendering look an awful lot like the Collins Meridian product. That company says it is not involved in the Malaysia Airlines MAX 10 program, similar to Adient’s comment.
The MAX 8 fleet is being delivered with inflight connectivity from Viasat. The service is free on those aircraft (plus the widebody fleet). Presumably the MAX 10 fleet will also fly with free Wi-Fi. And Viasat appears to have the inside track on that contract, though no guarantees on anything in this business.
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