As I understand it, some would-be wheeler dealer at AA had the brilliant idea of instituting some cost savings by dealing with Zodiac Seats US* of Gainesville, TX (a subsidiary of Zodiac Aerospace Of France, and previously Weber until 2012) to supply one-off modified seats for the 787-8, 772 refit, etc.

Their response was the Zodiac “Concept D Business Class Suite”. Of course, as it appears no other airline wanted to cheap out as much as AA , there was little economy of scale. The seat design had problems as well - the “yin and yang” aft+forward seat concept isn’t very popular with the flying public, the “Motion over the ocean” problem (possibly lighter weight stiffening?) occurred and the center privacy dividers were inoperative by passengers. (AA has stated they’d fix these, but any fix must be submitted to the FAA for an STC, and guess what? Zodiac probably isn’t going to be the one to do that.)

The manufacturing of this seat seems to have been relegated to second position, so Zodiac started Missing contract delivery dates. Now, AA had brand spanking new Dreamliners without seats, sitting out in the desert. AA tried to defer payment for these 787-8s, but nobody was buying that - Boeing supplied the aircraft sans seats in time, had no responsibility for seats, and the relegation to desert parking was no concern of theirs.

AA sued and killed the Zodiac contract, and went fishing for a new seat from another manufacturer. Tadah, B/E Aerospace Of Wellington, FL (now Rockwell Collins since they were bought out in April 2017) and the Super Diamond. (The Diamond “parallel” is already installed in the A321T and 757-200 “L”.)

So, we have Zode and Super Diamond seats in 772s. We have the actual Zodiac Cirrus in the Airbii widebodii. Zode in a portion of the 772 fleet, Super Diamonds in the other and in the 787-9. Delays of the 772 refits (persisting to this date, as the 45J Zodes still have no Premium Economy and are awaiting who knows what to refit to 37J.)

But... other 787-8s are in order. So we’ll ultimately pribably have split threads on 787-8s with Zodiacs, vs 787-8s with Super Diamonds.

Complicated, but his is the aviation industry. (IMO going with the straight Zodiac Cirrus customized to AA colors, etc. might well have avoided the entire debacle. Concept D got a D- in my mind. At best. I do wonder where the budding genius responsible for this ended up? Could ZSUS have supplied unmodified but airline customized Cirrus seats to the widebody fleet and completed them in time? You know, like the ones in the 77W? Or used by EVA or CX? IMO, probably:

*”ZSUS is now the largest manufacturer of airline seats in the world as well as the holder of several notable patents for products created by its employees. With a main facility exceeding 700,000 square feet and over 3,000 employees (as of 2015), ZSUS is the largest single employer in Gainesville/Cooke County. Additionally, ZSUS contains satellite facilities in Chihuahua, Mexico and Tianjin, China; and service locations in Everett, Washington and Atlanta, Georgia.” - Wikipedia