Originally Posted by
FWAAA
Agreed. During the MRTC era, there were 20 F seats and a mere four rows ahead of the exits - those seats featured legroom that rivaled the exit rows. Plus closets behind the fifth row of F. Remove two more rows of economy, add one row of F for a seat count of 20F/126Y (total of 146).
If AA weren't almost certain that this was temporary, I would imagine they'd have done just that, particularly in the era where virtually any domestic F r/t (other than JFK-LAX/SFO) can be had for under $1k. They wouldn't have dropped the prices like that if they expected to sell
fewer F seats.