My wife has just had her first Azuma trip. First class both ways Leeds to London. The on board service was excellent, the lunchtime meal on Friday really good.
She went with a friend she doesn't see often and the big disappointment was the loss of most of the two seats facing each other, being replaced by single seats in airline style. Otherwise its a table for four.
Yes that's an issue in my view. I think that the current balance in Mk4s and Mk3s on LNER is just about right. There is perhaps an argument for a slight reduction in bays of two (maybe one or two per carriage) as obviously individual seats are popular with solo travellers but there are only I think two (maybe three) facing tables for two and two more side by side tables for two on a 9-car Azuma which is not enough really in my view.
Thank's DfT!
I think that this will be a common theme to feedback from leisure passengers as the rollout continues.
For high-yield business passengers, solo seats are the most demanded type in First Class, so you can see how market research would lead to there being so many of them.
Speculatively, I can see how pairs side-by-side could be seen, in theory, as preferable to business passengers travelling in pairs, as they’re somewhat less exposed than facing pairs. In practice, I suspect that they’ll be be less popular as it forces both passengers to be in the same direction of travel.
West Coast passengers, of course, are used to having almost no solo seats, and side by side pairs. On the East, we’re used to plenty of facing pairs and associate side by side pairs with CrossCountry only, which is never going to be a positive connection!
Personally, I didn’t like the side by side pair that I tried on an Azuma; I found it quite claustrophobic with the high seat backs and dark colour of them blocking my forward vision.