Just booked a TATL itinerary with both flights over the ocean on AA. DFW-LHR and MAD-DFW. Its been many years since I've traveled without status on a flight longer than about 3 hours (first world problems, I know), but I went to choose my seat on the AA website and was quite surprised at what I saw on the map below for the DFW-LHR flight. I understand why they are charging extra for seats with extra legroom (the red icons) but some of the green ones couldn't possibly be described as preferred seating. $79 for seat 43J because it has a "favorable location"? I'm not sure when it became favorable to sit right next to the washrooms at the very back of the plane. Or to sit in the middle seat in a bank of 4 in row 21. Do they open up the green seats for free at check-in, or do they charge for those seats all the way to the end?
Anyways, despite this I'm curious to see how the AA product compares to what I'm used to with UA/AC. Even if it looks like its going to be 2x long rides across the Atlantic in the middle seat for me. I didn't choose a seat in the end... I'll play the seat assignment lottery for now, even though my chances seem quite poor.
