I have flown on one of the ex silkair 800s with these seats and found them comfortable. In fact more comfortable than the existing seats. Plus the added benefit of a tablet / phone holder.
Have (by chance) landed on the new Virgin slim line seats twice now and I’d have to disagree, I found them to be very very firm seats and at a slightly weird angle which was not very comfortable, maybe it was the lumbar….(or lack thereof..) Myself and my work colleagues did not rate them at all.
The other thing is that you feel a lot closer and more open to the rows around you, they aren’t very ‘private’ if you care about that. Very similar to the new Jetstar slim line seats.
Personally don’t really care about the phone/tablet holder as I work on flights but can see how some would value it.
And that in itself is really quite sad. If VA is going to take the fight to QF and REX in the J space then they shouldn't be picking and choosing which ports they run the all-Y config to or not.
But they aren’t taking the fight directly to QF anymore, they have repositioned the Virgin brand down market into focussing more on leisure and some more price conscious small business.
Now Rex is different - they are squarely fighting for the same customers with the same product and are an annoying complication for Virgin!
I’m sure if Virgin hadn’t collapsed and lost a lot of their fleet, Rex would not have ended up with 737s with business class, they’d be flying all Y as well, for sure if they could design their destiny without the attraction of fire sale prices for Virgin aircraft.
So net, I don’t see the issue with Virgin introducing more all Y aircraft - it fits the brief for their new brand offering (mark 2/3) depending how you count
