"So, is the above described seating arrangement present in the plane sitting in Michigan ready to fly?"
Take a close look at the interior photos of N706BL (accessed via one of the "stickies" above). The photos of this plane's interior appear to show a two-class arrangement, with 16 first-class seats in the nose and 12 first-class seats on the upper deck.
I'm a little foggy on this, but it seems someone posted long ago that the top deck seats won't be used initially. I could be wrong on that, tho. Also, it was posted earlier that the space between rows in coach class has been increased by 6 inches per row - a great mod for passenger comfort!
This plane cannot be changed to the preferred 3-class configuration until some time after certification, due to the complications (and time) doing such a change before cert. would involve under FAA rules. Take a look at the minutes of the stockholders meeting (sticky above), where I think this is explained by Igor. Later, as I recall from the meeting, the plan is to change the interior config on this bird after another plane comes on line and this one can then be pulled from the flight line temporarily for interior mods. After airline cert., it will be much easier (regulations wise) to make this kind of change.
A unique aspect to the way customer service is being designed, is that Igor has often said that superior service will be designed initially for the coach section, and then Business and First Class service will be built up from there. Just the opposite of other airlines where they design the First Class service first, and then see what they can eliminate to step it down for coach. So on Baltia, coach class is likely to be several cuts above anything else out there. And since that's were most of the market is, that's important.
AI
