AA was planning to retire the a333s, but not the a332s in the short to medium term (pre-COVID). The a332s were very young.

Major disruptions to global travel have always been catalysts for airlines to say "sayonara" to subfleets that had upcoming exit dates more quickly than they otherwise would have. If you remember back to 9/11, US Airways had a large number of F-100s, 737-200s and MD-80s in its fleet. The 737s were parked basically immediately, the F-100 and the MD-80 exit schedules were sped up.

American did the same with their MD-11s.

The A330-300s had crew commonality with the A-330-200s which allowed for cross-crewing. But the vintages were quite different with the -300s being delivered between 2000 and 2001. The -200s were delivered from 2009 and 2014. They also had different engines so there was air frame commonality but not powerplant commonality. With the 9 -300s gone by end of 2022 or 2023 (then pushed up), the economic case for retaining all the parts and tooling and simulator equipment and pilot certifications/type ratings for 15 -200s became harder to justify. In addition, in terms of seat count and profile, the 787-8 is close match for the A-330-200. The 787-9 is a closer match for the A-330-300 but has much, much longer range.

The 333s were in pretty pathetic shape with a pathetic and tacky product by the end. My July 2019 flight on one was one of the least enjoyable J experiences I’ve had in the last decade. Crew was terrible too.

a far cry from their original introduction when they had a 6 seat international F cabin under management that wanted F and J to Europe to be equivalent to BA standards. Caymus was the standard red as I recall.

I don’t like they getting rid of A330 aircraft. They want keep it for a little bit longer. I think Delta likely to acquired A330 from American Airlines. This could be better works.

US Airways was the first U.S.-flag carrier to offer lie-flat and all-aisle access in the business cabin, in a 1-2-1 configuration. At the time of the AA-US merger, AA's business product was still recliner seats, in a 2-3-2 configuration.

Not entirely accurate. By the time of the merger AA already had a number of 77Ws in the fleet equipped with the J seats they currently offer. The 772s and 767s had the older angle-flat J seats though keep in mind the 772s also had sizable F cabins with 1-2-1. The recliners were all long gone many years before the merger.

on a 3 hour flight

this was before US merged with AW?

Doubtful. AA has the largest fleet of A319s which fill a similar mission.

Got it. I thought perhaps the 220 was a good (more economical) replacement for the CR9.

The 220 is a better replacement for a 73G or 319 as it's considerably larger than a CR9. AA realistically should start phasing out some of the older 319s and replace them with 220s to remain ahead of the shifting aircraft dynamic. The 319 offers little to nothing that the 220 doesn't.

Not to the M11, almost all of 772 were delivered before 9/11/2001, I was already flying 772 on SEA-NRT, SJC-NRT, and ORD-NRT back in 1999, the M11 were basically useless junk from the beginning that AA just want to get rid of them as fast as possible, totally unrelated to any global events.

You should remember at one point AA had to lease DC10-30ER to sub for M11 for DFW-NRT as the performance on range of M11 was so bad when they were first delivered

There were several 777's left with 2-3-2 recliner seats several years after the US-AA merger. I was on some of those flights :eek:

Totally different cockpit design, totally different engine, totally different parts cache. Different pilot group. The flexibility in the A319/320/321 and 737-800/737-800Max is the large pool of pilots that can fly those planes and switch planes in IRROPS situations.

In any event, AA -had- a small aircraft fleet: the E-190s. AA parked them owing to COVID.

AA is all about fleet simplification. This is an approach that has been highly successful at Southwest, and AA is really way ahead of Delta and United on that front. If AA sees an opportunity in the A220 space, there are better choices for AA based on staying with the current fleet rationalization. Southwest faced this decision point and went with the Max-7. With AA as the largest A320 series operator in the world, the 319 NEO might also be a viable choice.