royal757

As a gold member, who puts efforts in flying AA always exclusively my favorite perk is gone: 1A. Best seat on the plane, free of charge.

See, I fly only LGA/JFK-YUL (ERJ 145 only) on a bi-monthly basis. And I buy my tickets ahead of time, know my schedules and such. But today I realized that AA now blocks seats 1A, 2A, 3A 3B & 3C.

These seats used to be "preferred" (green color) and free of charge once I login my gold account. But as of now you can't even book them in advance. Booking in mid September on a 10AM or 11AM Wednesday morning? Those seats cannot be chosen.
What about on a random Thursday night in October? Looks like those seats are again blocked.

It doesn't make sense, for whatever little perk we enjoy AA finds a way to remove it.

Are these seats now exclusively only available to Platinum members and up 24hours before flight?

let me know if any of you encountered this on upcoming flights.

dw

Checked a few seat maps on Expertflyer and it does appear that those seats (plus 18A) are now blocked. I believe blocked seats should open up at check in?

bchandler02

WTH... 1A was a tolerable seat on this bird. The rest.. not so much.

50ae

Flying ORD-AZO they started doing this a few months ago. It has nothing to do with Platinum because I'm PP and they are blocked for me also. Seems its just people who didn't pick their seats that get put in these formerly premium seats now. My best guess as to why is because nearly every time we were taking off the Captain would have to request people to move back for weight balance. I now always pick 4B and am usually able to move up to an empty row when they close the door.

Often1

Safety before DYKWIA.

Hot weather means lots of w&b issues and that means sometimes not even selling those seats at all.

You can be a CK and they won't unblock. It's got nothing to do with customer service.

3Cforme

IIRC, bulkhead seats must be made available for the disabled upon request. Maybe AA thinks it's less traumatic for the seat-hyper-sensitive to be blocked, rather than moved by the FA after boarding.

royal757

just flew the bird, and no one has a clear answer.

from the counter check-in agent, gate agent, to the flight attendant. Everyone has a different answer.

Check-in agent told me, these (1A, 2A, 3ACB) are blocked for various reasons and only gate agent can unblock them (no specific reason).

Gate agent was able to move me from 4A to 1A, but said she had to force the unblock on the computer.
On my return trip, gate agent was unable as someone was already checkin to that seat.

Flight attendant said these seats are reserved preferred seats for elite, I told her I was a AA Gold and she said then she had no idea why.

I guess those 'preferred' seats are blocked, and last people who checkin at the counter get those seats. Very unfair for us frequent travelers who used to get them for free, even if we wanted to pay we can't anymore.

anyone with more info on this? Very confused.

50ae

I'm just going to go back to my weight answer. Every flight before they started doing this they would have to move people from the front to the back due to weight and this would take time away from actually taking off and flying the plane. since they have done this they haven't had to do that once on my flights.

iadisgreat

Had it done on my flight last week which showed every seat taken at check in, but then was half empty. Very weird.

50ae

Maybe their is something weird in the software between the regional and the main line then.

enviroian

It's a horrible plane. Isn't row 12 the other tolerable seats albeit 1" cushion?

schertz

Could also be a proactive move to protect the first three rows for a possible equipment change to a F equipped CRJ (-700 or -900) to avoid re-seating issues. Some of those birds have three rows of F.

50ae

I like 2A but have only been able to get 4A lately on AA.com. I just move up when they are closing the door. It's a terrible plane no matter haw you cut it.

royal757

Flying the ERJ tonight and was able to get 1A only after going to the checkin counter. The nice ladies working LGA changed me, and I asked why are 1A 2A 3A B & C now blocked?

her answer: AA has dictated a policy to block these seats for family that want to seat together.

But.. these seats aren’t even together (except maybe 3 B and C).

She said she knows. But thats what their memo said.

I politely answered this is rather weird, as they used to be premium seats and probably as many of you have said “the most okay seats on that bird”. Why as a frequent flyer who goes out of my way to always take AA this perk is now gone?

she answered that on this bird almost no one paid for these premium seats and elites haven’t noticed the change.

I guess no one has a clear answer. And that weight and balance thing doesn’t add up.

Assimilated Cajun

If "AA" really sent a memo, then the theory I've been operating on since this started happening to me about a year ago is wrong. I think it's an Envoy Air policy.

The American Eagle flights between my home airport (LFT) and DFW have been operated by at least three different carriers over the last few years. Now it seems to be just two, Mesa and Envoy. I've never seen the front three rows blocked except on a flight operated by Envoy. So I've assumed it was their policy, not an American Airlines policy. Envoy now seems to be the only carrier operating ERJ-145s on this route, so I can no longer test my theory. But I'm pretty sure this also happened to me once on an Envoy flight that wasn't a 145. I believe it was an all-economy Canadian Regional Jet with 2-2 seating, but the whole first three rows were blocked just as they always are on Envoy-operated 145s.

Envoy may even be conveying incorrect information to American about this. I have called the EXP line a couple of times asking if anyone could unblock 1A for me, and they say that on their system it shows the seat being occupied, not blocked. But on expertflyer.com it shows all seats in the first three rows blocked.

I don't believe it's about weight and balance: I've flown hundreds of flights on ERJs over the years and the weight-and-balance "volunteer" thing has only happened a dozen times or so. And of course on the 175 and CRJ flights that have a First Class section you can reserve the front seats and nobody tells you to go to the back because of weight and balance. But even if this really were the explanation, I'd still prefer being able to reserve a good seat in advance and have a 95+% chance of keeping it.