AA to offer top-notch inflight entertainment on new 787-9s and A321XLR…new seats?
 

This is interesting, it could mean a new/updated business class seat is coming!
_____________________________________________The newest jets that will soon join the American Airlines fleet are already getting a serious upgrade.

The Fort Worth-based carrier unveiled plans on Monday to offer top-notch inflight entertainment systems on its new Airbus A321XLR and Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner jets.
American is partnering with Thales, one of the leading providers of inflight entertainment systems, to equip every seat — including those in coach — with seat-back screens and other high-tech enhancements.The headline is that every plane will feature 4K high dynamic range (HDR) monitors from nose to tail. These screens are poised to offer some of the best picture quality you’ll find in the sky.

Business-class seats will be equipped with 17-inch displays, as well as an oversized 5-inch touchscreen handset, which will allow you to stream two programs at once. For instance, you could keep the airshow running on the handset while watching a movie or TV show on the big screen.

Premium economy and coach seats will feature 13.3-inch displays and 11.6-inch displays, respectively.

In addition to the high-quality displays at each seat, American is bringing Bluetooth connectivity to its inflight entertainment system. This means that you’ll be able to connect your AirPods and other Bluetooth-enabled headphones to the monitor — without any dongles.

Finally, each seat will offer a USB-A and USB-C charging port, as well as a universal AC power outlet.


While we now have details of the inflight entertainment system, we still don’t know what seats American will install on its newest jets. Hopefully, they’ll also be industry leading.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/americ...K7GiT7p3C8zqIs

AA already announced that they are developing new seats for the 787 and 321XLR

What’s confusing is that it will only be on 5 of the 787 (deliveries in 2023+). I wonder if that means they are planning a follow up order?

Seems like a significant change to make for a small number of aircraft.

Also, 4K QLED screens sound great, so I assume that the source quality is also going to be improved.

AA has 25 787s on order that havent been delivered.

Boeing has .... the bed with regards to everything from engineering to quality control, which is why the deliveries have been delayed.

Is it bad I am most excited for the USB C ports? Anyone with a newer iPhone not using this port and a fast charger, you don't know what you are missing.

Same! USB 2.0 is becoming so useless, C is the way to go!!

USB-C is the best part of this announcement. 4K is pretty useless unless they actually load a majority of content into the IFE that actually is shot for 4K. Most won't be.

But maybe we will finally have USB ports that will work in ACs older than 3 years now!

USB 2 and USB C are different things - the first is a standard for the transfer speed over the cable and the second is the connector spec itself, neither of which directly affect charging. What we need are USB C ports that support a recent version of the USB-PD power delivery spec - ideally providing 25W+. Without this, it will be relatively useless. As an example, try charging your phone from a DELL 130W laptop charger that uses a USB-C connector. It will charge at 5W only.

And yet domestically we will still be flying the pmUS A321 that has no IFE, no wifi and no power plug

On other domestic flights-
perhaps gogo
or maybe viasat
or nothing
Not sure if power plug
oasis seats
Getting tired of holding up my phone

overall - bring back IFE!

This is mostly incorrect. First, all pmUS A321s have and have had Wifi for many years. Second, almost all of them now have power at every seat and all will within the next two months. Third, all of them have IFE using your own personal device. I realize some don't like #3, but it's available nonetheless and I see lots of people using it on longer flights. Fourth, AA put an interface in place that masks whether it's GoGo or Viasat, making it seemless to customers. Fifth, there are phone holders for the IFE on the OASIS planes -- you shouldn't need to hold it up.

Considering this announcement, and how modular/light the new Thales technology is compared to older-generation IFE systems, I wonder if AA will rethink their domestic IFE package and install this system domestically.

So AA wants to be a premium INTL airline and a LCC domestic airline? I really don't understand what direction they are trying to go in.

Reminds me of Air Berlin and Jet Airways.

That didn't end well.

I'm betting the USB-C ports will be enough for phones or tablets, but not a laptop. Even the AC power ports are sometimes good enough to keep a laptop battery from draining, but not always able to deliver a charge.

They should focus on their Y and F soft product domestic before spending money on this. Makes no sense. They ripped out all the monitors with their Gallagher brothers "updates".