JDiver

First Class seats will be replaced with Meridian seats, to match BA.

Thanks for catching my Autocowrecked, which seems to be 737-phobic.

arlflyer

I wish your autocorrect were management at AA then!

thunderlounge

Agree that domestic routes, aside from the 321T, are certainly lacking. Of this is their “goal”, was the 78M order too far through to change? Will they can-x the 738 retrofit?

Are we going to the opera? I don’t think sooo...



Comparitively, it could be worse. At least they haven’t pulled the EU business class model out yet, and even as inconsistent as it may be, domestic F still at least maintains a distinct difference.

That said, it could certainly be a bit better on the soft product end. We’ll see what happens I guess. I still am in the camp that thinks a bit more overhaul to MCE could be a possibility, which could/would better translate from a longhaul J/PE/Y to domestic F/MCE/Y.

Give it a couple of years and we may see MCE treated more like PE. With the coming “free snacks/drinks/reserved overhead space”, they’re only missing first checked bag free and a few other minor details.

blitzen

My guess AA defines "premium airline" as "doesn't suck too much" .... even domestic first is far from a premium experience (no lounge, uncomfortable seats ....)

aztimm

I've personally seen Doug on HP/US A320's. When his kids were younger and the family flew together for vacations, they weren't supposed to sit in first (there was a minimum age for employees to sit in F with children). Doug followed the same rules that any other employee did for non-rev travel.


And to be fair, US was one of the first airlines to have lie-flat business in the A330's; it took many of the other airlines years before they had anything close to Envoy suites.

C17PSGR

Strange suggestion that they should have more than 10 seats in F on the A321T. Not sure they ever sell out. They probably could sell more J seats on the A321T.

enpremiere

Delta did retire their 747 fleet not so long ago and in American's effort to model themselves after Delta, maybe they'll want to relive Delta's history. It's a bit a of a stretch but the Oasis Project is actually a secret plan to copy Delta's former 747 fleet with their familiar "hump" air frames Next thing you know American will buy a refinery and get into the catering business. Down the road they'll re-brand as DeltAA.

- Credit to Gary Leff (Just as Gary points out, it still cracks me up that a business so well protected by a lack of competition complains about a lack of competition in their supply own chain).

diver858

I'm in the skeptical camp; get the point that making significant changes to hard product in an operation this large is like turning a battleship, but Parker has had MORE than enough time to make simple gestures, such as convert the first few Y rows on LUS A320, 321 to MCE, continues to drag his feet.

beachfan

superweak

I've never really understood what this nebulous "premium airline" goal is supposed to be - it always seems to be caught up in a certain amount of generic Doug Parker dislike. The A330 J seats, when first installed, were light years ahead of anything AA had to offer - anyone arguing that US was the "premium" airline at the time?

SNA_Flyer

All the while they rip premium seats out of aircraft. Capacity has gone down so much in some instances it's hard to book a revenue seat close in. I'm talking about the 319's, 321's (should really have the same F cabin as a LAA 757), coming reductions to the 787's, etc.

SNA_Flyer

That indeed was a market leading hard product at the time, however the soft product was not something I'd consider premium.

chicagoflyer1976

Agree - it makes no sense. Oftentimes flights on the A321 (AA version) have first sold out well in advance. Even if one wants to purchase it, there are no seats to purchase. Those should have 24 seats.

LovePrunes

if I put in the appropriate number of

LOL's

in response to show my skepticism, my L and O keys would break off my keyboard

aztimm

An airline has to do a balancing act, with customers on one arm and investors on the other.

Back when HP and US first merged, the US A321's had a boatload of F seats (HP didn't have any A321 aircraft at the time of the merger). Even Silver elites (equal to today's AA Gold) were getting upgraded, even on long/transcon flights. To please investors they took out seats; those aircraft went down to 16 F seats. New A321's were delivered with the same 16 seats. Investors seemed happy with that number of seats.