The growth in mid-haul and long-haul flying by single-aisle aircraft, especially the A321neo and its LR/XLR variants, means that the importance of creating business class offerings that go beyond simple recliners is growing commensurately.
The “recliner-plus” category allows airlines to narrow the experience gap between, say, a full suite widebody product and what otherwise resemble a premium economy seat on a narrowbody — especially important as the range overlap between narrowbodies and widebodies increases too.
Enter Collins Aerospace’s Air Rest, a fixed-back shell seat that slides forward into an excellent z-bed rather than going flat. It has, somehow, been seven years since this journalist first sat in the seat at the Aircraft Interiors Expo, and Air Rest is even more impressive in Cathay’s service, as I experienced as a guest of the airline earlier this month.
The overall look of the cabin is really premium. Image: John Walton
On entering the cabin, the atmosphere is cool, calm and neutral: a series of beiges and mid-browns in a colour and texture palette that feels genuinely luxurious, like an upmarket hotel room. This colour, material and finish attention to detail stretches all the way to the sidewall, where Cathay has selected a very pleasingly textured material that does interesting things with the light within the cabin.
Airbus’ offering of this textured material as the sidewall really fits into the Air Rest CMF. Image: John Walton
The Air Rest seat itself is easy to get in and out of, with substantially more room than in a comparable recliner thanks to the guaranteed space from the fixed seatback in front.
The substantial space — and its protection from recline — is a key advantage. Image: John Walton
On sitting down, there’s a useful water-bottle stowage in front, and some small stowage areas on either side of the seat pan, one of which contains the headphones (non-noise-cancelling, regrettably).
A water bottle stowage unit also serves as the USB-A and -C socket location, which does feel a little like tempting fate… Image: John Walton
Interestingly, it seems that none of the stowage is certified for takeoff and landing: a placard requires passengers to “empty all stowage for taxi, takeoff and landing” and to “stow and latch handset, remove headphones from hanger for taxi, takeoff and landing”.
My small bag was allowed under the seat in front of me for takeoff, however, and indeed on such a short flight as this I emptied my pockets into the bag rather than into the seat stowage.
Air Rest is very comfortable even in upright mode, and the physical buttons on the armrest are clear in their meaning, ergonomically positioned, and offer an almost infinite amount of adjustment for seatback and legrest.
The table is enormous, pivoting down from the fixed shell seatback and unfolding towards you to offer a truly enormous amount of space.
Air Rest’s table is sizeable, even (as here) before you unfold it. Image: John Walton
Looking forward to sampling Cathay’s extensive wine list during the three-course meal service (four courses if you count cheese and dessert separately), I eschewed unfolding the table in favour of leaving space in case I wanted to slip out between courses to visit the lavatory.
As you can see, my lunch (truly delicious) fit easily onto half of the tray table. Image: John Walton
A key benefit of the seat is an incredibly deep and comfortable “z-bed” deep recline mode, either by the dedicated button or by adjusting the seatback and legrest all the way. I took advantage of this for some TV time after lunch, and was so comfortable I dropped off for a snooze halfway through an episode.
Air Rest is a wide, comfortable recliner-plus product. Image: John Walton
No seat is perfect, and indeed Air Rest comes with a couple of curiosities. The divider between seats extends only slightly, and given its relatively low height, in honesty it isn’t much use, because even a passenger of moderate height can see straight over it. There’s also no privacy divider on the aisle side, so the passengers sitting across the aisle from each other feel surprisingly close.
Privacy is a little odd with Air Rest — nothing from the aisle side, and the pull-out divider is too low to be much use. Image: John Walton
The big black panel between the two enormous inflight entertainment screens also feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. While it may well be that this had to be left as is for certification reasons, the fact that the seat came with an over-shoulder belt element means it would be a surprise if any head-strike issue were to be present. This could very usefully have been something like a phone shelf or small compartment, perhaps with an integrated mirror for touching up one’s makeup, along the lines of what Singapore Airlines’ mid-2000s business class seat used to offer around this sort of area.
This black panel is odd — was it truly possible not to engineer anything else into this optimum real estate_ Image: John Walton
Overall, though, Air Rest in service is a very strong product, and deserves to retain its status as setting the standard by which other seats in this category are measured.
The front row’s leg space is carved into the bulkhead storage space. Image: John Walton
Cathay Pacific provided flights to enable this review, but all opinions are unfettered and the author’s own.
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Featured image credited to John Walton
