Originally Posted by
niji248
AA hasn't made any decisions on new widebody orders, so I think it'll be great for AA to buy those relatively young dozen or so of JAL's 77W's as JAL is replacing them with A35Ks, at a much better price than new planes. Anyone knows where those JAL 77W's are going? I'm sure JAL maintained them very well and they can get the same total refurbishment along with the 20 other AA's existing on the plan. What a wasted opportunity.
Heck I don't think the JL 77Ws need a refurbishment. Just sell first class as flagship suite preferred (8 seats, same as 78P). Business class has the Apex suite product which they can probably call it a flagship suite. It's got 40 W seats so reasonably large. Only issue is Y is considerably smaller at 147 seats but transpac Y fares are quite low atm as well. Pull a page from Delta who flew ex-LA A350s to SCL... AA could exclusively run those ex-JL 77W to HND and maybe ICN/PVG. I think japanese and east asia customers will receive it well
In addition, I feel like AA's 789 and 772 aren't exactly configured for Asia flying. Their business (30/37) and Prem Econ (21/24) cabins are really small: ok for the 7-9 hours transatlantic/deep south america hops, but people do demand bigger seats for those 13-15 hour Asia runs. Moreover, 1 or 2 business class seats on the 789/772 have to be blocked for crew rest on these routes, which further reduces available seats. The new AA retrofitted 77W - does it even have enough galley space to store 2 full meals and some snacks?