British Airways has completed the refit of 40 per cent of its Boeing 777-200 fleet, offer customers from the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman the airline’s latest seats and cabins.

A multi-million pound investment sees 18 of British Airways’ 46 Boeing 777-200 aircraft fitted with a new First cabin, new World Traveller and World Traveller Plus cabins and the airline’s latest Thales inflight entertainment system.

Paolo De Renzis, area commercial manager Middle East & Central Asia, said: “The refurbishment of our aircraft is another one of our investments to improve the passenger experience, which is at the centre of everything we do. This modern and ambitious refit is part of our GBP5 billion ($7.9 billion) investment plan, and will allow customers flying on our Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Muscat, Manama, and Doha routes to see smarter cabins and new technologies.”

“Our GCC customers are very important to us and we are pleased that they will able to enjoy the very best travel experience British Airways has to offer,” he added.

It takes British Airways’ Cardiff-based engineers, at the airline’s Welsh maintenance base, approximately a month, or 5,700 man hours, to carefully remove a 777’s old seats and interiors and replace them with the airline’s latest cabins, an airline statement said.

Each aircraft also had 13 kilometres of wiring removed and new fibre optic cables installed to power the new inflight entertainment system. New widescreens have been fitted in Club World and customers flying on these refitted Boeing 777-200s can now also experience the airline’s sophisticated new First cabin. New seats and cabins in World Traveller Plus and World Traveller, feature the latest cushioning technology and in-seat power sockets, the statement said.

The Thales in-flight entertainment system offers over 700 hours of movies, TV and music options on demand; that’s more than 230 TV programmes, 70 films and 400 CDs – providing customers with 50 per cent more choice on movies and doubling the range of TV and music options, as well as plug and play technology.

Each cabin also gets bigger, high-resolution widescreens. Customers in World Traveller will be able to watch TV and films on 35 per cent larger video touchscreens (now 8.9 inches); in World Traveller Plus they are 60 per cent larger (now 10.6 inches); Club World widescreens increase by 16.3 per cent (now 12.1 inches) while the new First screens increase by 275 per cent (now 15.4 inches). – TradeArabia News Service