Air Pacific reveals new seats & screens for Airbus A330

By David Flynn
PUBLISHED 15 MAY, 2012

Upate | We've got first pics of the new Air Pacific 'Fiji Airways' Airbus A330, sporting new livery on the outside and new seats on the inside – click here for a full photo gallery!

Previous | Air Pacific will enlist Panasonic Avionics and Weber Aircraft to reshape the airline's seats and inflight entertainment systems, beginning with three new Airbus A330s taking to the skies from June next year.

Business class travellers will enjoy a new angled lie-flat bed at the pointy end of the A330, with Weber's 7811 seat – most recently seen on Virgin Australia's new A330s – providing a far greater degree of comfort at all stages of the journey compared to Air Pacific's current premium seating.

The seat – shown above from Weber’s catalogue, without the colour and fabric chosen by each airline – will include inbuilt AC power and USB outlets plus a 15.4 inch LCD screen running Panasonic’s eX2 content-on-demand system.

In economy class, Air Pacific will pack the A330 with Weber’s slim-line model 5751 (below), which has a 7.5 inch recline – comprising of a 6 inch back recline plus 1.5 inches of  forward movement for the base.

These seats will also be fitted with  AC and USB sockets and a 9 inch Panasonic touchscreen.

The inflight control unit will be fixed to the underside of the seat rather than mounted on the floor, to increase usable floorspace.

The A330 cabins will be designed by Singapore Airlines Engineering Company and will be revealed in October this year at the same time as the A330’s livery, following the debut of the new Fiji Aiways logo in July.

Air Pacific CEO and Managing Director David Pflieger told Australian Business Traveller that the new seats and inflight entertainment system are “several leaps ahead from what our customer experience today.”

Pflieger says the many changes in store for Air Pacific “will allow us to provide passengers travelling to South Pacific even more reasons to fly with us” while the new Fiji Airways will become “the world’s preferred airline in the South Pacific.”