Originally Posted by
chfenton
Understand your overall point of view--but I find it hard to understand how you find the picture of the seat acceptable? Do you see the filth and dirtiness on the arm rests? it loked like it had not been cleaned in years. It was absolutely disgusting -perhaps the pics don't do it justice. BTW I lived in London and Buenos Aires for 3 years each so I do have over 2.2MM Lifetime AA miles - so just lamenting at my perception of the deterioration of the product over the last 30 years. Give me More room through coach back any day
I don't think anyone is defending the condition of the seats, we all acknowledge that they're in worn condition and weren't replaced with the MiQ seats (like the rest of the narrowbody fleet has) because these planes aren't part of the long-term fleet plan. These seats were repainted (parts that previously had a metallic finish), recovered and refurbished a few years ago to hold them over until retirement, but there are parts of the seat (like that back moulding piece on the aisle) that wear quickly, and in some cases the finish or paint has worn off... Yeah, it's ugly, and shouldn't be that way, but with those parts it's not "dirt". I'm fine with it because I'm grateful those seats weren't replaced with the MiQ seats, and I'd rather fly in the old seats with the finish worn off parts of the seat than the brand new MiQ seats.
...And this is hardly a new thing. I think many of us have been around long enough in AA's history to remember what other generations of seats looked like at the end of their service life. How many flights in 757 Eisenhower seats did we fly in with enough pen marks on them to ink a manuscript with?