AF's bulkhead seats are actually that good

I just flew CDG to JFK on Air France's A350-900 for 55k Flying Blue miles. Yes, 55k and not 50k, quite frankly, I would consider up to 70k Flying Blue miles a pretty good deal for TATLs considering it's still in the same ballpark as the Star Alliance and OW programs at that price.

This plane features their new business class seat. This product is also on their 777s with the new seat as well. With all the recent discourse about inconsistent products and seats, I thought I'd throw my hat into the discussion.

I had read about the bulkhead seats being the best, but I my expectations were that it would be only marginally more room. The difference I found was quite significant and you really do get that much more space. It's even bigger than the Prime seats that Condor offers or the Retreat Suites on Virgin Atlantic on the A330neos.

The length and width of the footwell are both substantially better, with enough from for a backpack or other large carryons at the foot of the seat, while still being able to fully lie down and stretch out. I would say at a glance comparing to the other seats I saw on the plane, it was easily 30% larger, if not signficantly more. It's probably comparable in size to many older 1-2-1 F products tbh, just perhaps not quite as long.

Regarding the lavatory/galley proximity, it was not an issue at all for me, I was unable to discern any meaningful noise difference between this far up front and sitting a few rows back normally. So I would say to book it 100% of the time, if available.

For the actual seat selection, I was able to make the seat selection for free on their desktop website and retained it throughout the mobile and physical check-in process. I know AF wanted to limit this to their elite members first, but it seems that technical rollout isn't/wasn't there, so most people have been able to select this for free (not sure if still the case as of writing).