cmd320

They're both awful IMO. The A321 and 757 are the only decent domestic rides in Y IMO because of the availability of seats at the door exits. Outside of those aircraft, I have no interest in flying in the Y cabin on domestic aircraft. The 737 can be tolerable in row 15 for a short flight, and the S80 is okay in MCE on the 2 seat side. Of course if we're talking F that's a different story.

grahampros

It's a safe assumption to make the 319s won't be getting MCE until they replace the seats in the that fleet. Now the 320s/321s we'll have to see. I expect we will get more word on this once US operationally disappears in Oct. The true cross fleeting is a ways off since the crews have not been integrated yet. While yet i expect before we see major changes there.

cmd320

I'm sure for the time being AA will be happy to label seats like 10A-C and F on the US A321 as MCE and charge an extra fee for them.

shttrdrvr

Concur. Everything has been pretty metered to this point. A decision will have to be made before cross-fleeting occurs. Seat maps for flights after Oct are correctly show pmUS choice seats. They are probably getting a better premium for MCE, at the expense of losing a row of seats and choice seating. All I know there are very few pmUS319/320s that aren't in need of an interior facelift.

Fanjet

That's basically what pmAA did regarding their 772s. It's been over 2 years since their last aircraft type received MCE (the 763s). And only 4 772s to date have MCE seating (IIRC), and they are the ones that have a cabin refurb.

MrAndy1369

Where? Doing dummy bookings on AA.com for pmUS flights in November shows no choice seats on the seatmaps; only preferred/MCE (for exit rows). AA.com does list ChoiceSeats as an option at the seating information webpage, but explicitly makes it clear that it's only for US Airways flights, and directs customers to call the US # with questions, not the AA #. That, to me, implies that ChoiceSeats are going away; if not, AA flights would get them, and the wording would indicate that AA will also get ChoiceSeats as an option.

golfingboy

I hope AA will start configuring the LUS birds soon.

My hunch is they want to start rolling out interior standardization projects focusing on a given fleet at a time (power ports, AA branding, standardize the seats, etc.) all the way down to seating configuration. So, my estimate, their thinking is that MCE will be done as part of that project.

With UA/CO, there was a huge issue in fleet dichotomy as they started doing the E+ project, then there was a separate project for DTV, then another project for the A319/320 seats, then another one for Wifi, and the list goes on. It was absolutely ridiculous and one flight on a specific fleet would have power ports, but no E+ with that kind of seat then another flight would have E+ and power ports but no Wifi with a different kind of seat. It was every different combination imaginable for some time as each project was a standalone project.

Given that experience, I would very much rather if AA would proceed with a dedicated fleet project doing the total package (MCE, Wifi, Power Ports, seat and configuration standardization, and whatever they have in mind for the fleet) instead of doing a MCE project then later starting a power port project then starting the branding project, etc.

However, like many of you, I think it is a little overdue that they get one started.

grahampros

Given the announcements made so far these would indicate that you're probably right about the approach. Standardizing by fleet type makes it much easier to manage and swap out aircraft as needed.

It's not particularly surprising this taking a while. Nearly 5 years in UA still has some 737's still flying around without Y+. Fleet standardization takes years. As noted above, AA still just have it on the 777's. The total completion of the merger that is one consistent airline is about a 4 to 5 year process so a ways to go yet.

Col Ronson

It's been established that the US A319s are being updated to the current AA standard. Meaning they will look exactly the same on the inside, although i dont know if they will install the new bigger overhead bins (probably not).

cmd320

The AA standard for A319s is horrible so this isn't really good news. At least the US version has a somewhat reasonably sized F cabin. I'm honestly surprised to see them keeping so many A319s around. I was under the impression that they weren't the most efficient aircraft out there and was hoping to see some dumped off an replaced by some new A320s or A321s. Better still, the A319 could be pretty reasonably replaced with some EMB-195s.

Microwave

I wasn't talking about US A319s, I was talking about the entire US fleet. If they want to delay one equipment type so they can do a fuller CIP, fair enough, but then do the rest of the fleet now, or else announce a CIP for them too. Give us something–not having MCE in part of the fleet is just going to continue to be a needless customer dissatisfier.

3Cforme

Adding MCE shouldn't have a long timeline. In Feb. 2011 Delta announced plans for Economy Comfort on long-haul aircraft. It expanded that to all mainline aircraft and announced it was complete for June 2012 - over 700 mainline aircraft. (The 250+ 2-class 'big RJ' aircraft were done not long after that.) Parker's been in charge of the merged AA longer than that.

Microwave

My point exactly.

cmd320

Just look at how quickly they were able to add a row of seats and shrink the MCE cabin on the 738 fleet of 250+ aircraft. I think that was done in something like 6 months right? If they wanted it done, it would have been done pretty easily by now. That's one thing that causes me to be skeptical about what kind of future MCE has at AA.

3Cforme

One can find evidence on both sides. UA is still farting around with ex-CO 738s flying without E+ now 58 months after the merger.

But I'll let my point with the DL example stand: it can be done in a hurry if it's an executive priority.