Fanjet

I would take that comment with a grain of salt. On the other hand, I could see AA using the 321XLR for these routes (There order is for 50 aircraft, and I think that there are 15 or 16 321Ts in the fleet). It will have a J cabin that sounds like an upgraded version of the 321T's F cabin. As well as a premium economy section. This could also enable them to rotate in a 777 or 789 for heavier demand times and keep the product consistent. Then the 321Ts could be converted into regular 190-seat aircraft. However, I don't see them handing this market over to DL or UA; or having B6 do it for them.

FlyFreakquently

JetBlue already blows AA out of the water when it comes to the on-board product. Would the Flagship Lounges be only for wide-body int flights? Jesus, imagine your most premium route having 2-2 narrow-body recliners.

ryanbriar

I do not foresee this. Even in the BOS-LAX market where demand may not be as consistently “strong” as JFK, AA still needs to offer a lie flat to remain competitive. DL brought back DL One to all flights when demand rebounded after basically eliminating it to compete with AA / B6. (United does not fly lie-flats on its two frequencies.) As mentioned upthread, this is where the XLRs or even legacy 752s could plug in well.

The red-eyes pre / post 321T pre-Covid (after the 321T experiment) were particularly brutal, though not in the same league as PHX-BOS.

njvandy

I cannot imagine AA ceding the entire high end transcon market to competitors, which is what they would be doing if they switched to recliners in J/F.

AA seems to have the will to fight for high end domestic pax in LAX. International is another story.

Eliminating F and just flying a 2-class narrowbody with a lie-flat J cabin is probably inevitable. Hopefully this would allow them to run "flagship service" on more domestic routes.

I still can't understand why AA can't muster up a single A321T for the 1x daily DCA-LAX-DCA turn. DL offers DeltaOne on this route and they have a fraction of AA's presence in DCA.

orbitmic

One of the no1 reason premium transcon cabins get special treatment is the amount of corporate contracts that focus on them. The idea that AA would go recliner when everyone else is fully flat and lose a huge amount of those corporate deals as a result seems to me highly improbable.

Maybe I am wrong and they are indeed that crazy, but I suspect that instead it's a case of some original message with potential innocuous bit of truth in it which we will discover in the future will have been distorted from person to person till it reached FT as quite a transformed rumour.

lightbulbs

Lax has always sold quite well up front on the transcon (both J and F) and although SF wasn’t selling quite as well during the pandemic (what was?) it’s selling very well now. Flights regularly sold out in J and Y and even F seems to be doing ok on some flights. It seems they’re even trying to get premium fares in Y by only releasing high fare classes. Will be interesting to see how well that experiment goes once this current insane supply/demand situation levels out. It would be suicide on this route to cede the high fare F and J passengers so unless they think that demand is gone can’t imagine why they would trade for normal cabins. That would pretty much be going the Alaska/virgin path and ceding all the lucrative passengers they’ve managed to build a base with, especially from LA.

Eastbay1K

I checked the current fares for next week's flight and all that is left is full F and full J. It looks like the buy-up is close to the current delta between the 2 current fares. Given the full seatmap in J and one fewer seat for sale in F than the seatmap, I expect that they'll be overselling J (still J3) and op up a few. Who knows, maybe my OWE status will get me soup. Or not.

fmkgb

Do they offer buy-ups for award travel?
Does AA email you the buy-up offer or do you see it online (where?)?

Eastbay1K

I have no idea about award travel. I've not used my AAdvantage account since shortly after AA ruined AirCal and Reno Air.
I see the offer every time I open my reservation, whether on a website or on the app.

fmkgb

ok thanks.

FlyerBeek

Yes, I've recently seen F buy-up offers for both J award travel and SWU/BXP1 upgraded tickets on this route (JFK-SFO/LAX). I've seen while accessing my reservation online but it tends to be hit-or-miss when it's offered.

-FlyerBeek

ryanbriar

I’ve seen similar on SWU-upgraded flights: Y-J SWU then F with the instant upgrade, or Y-J via instant upgrade then SWU to F.

PTahCha

One of my AA purser friends pointed out that they no longer have a second/galley person working in the first class cabin, so the entire F experience is the purser's willingness to work and deliver the experience.

Case in point - I had 2 vastly different experience between JFK-SFO, both SF-based pursers.

On the way to San Francisco, the purser was complaining to the ground crew that she will be on reserve next month, with 38 years seniority. No PDB (unsurprisingly), addressed me by first name, order taken without an explanation why a choice is needed between soup or salad (one only). For first round of drinks, instead of using the silver cocktail tray, she used the cafeteria tray, placing as many glasses on the tray as possible, and delivered the drinks. Credit to her for refilling the drinks during meal service, but when it comes to dessert, she told me that only the sundae was left. For the rest of the flight, she was either play game on her laptop, or disappeared altogether. Instead of providing service, she just left 2 bottles of wines next to the bottled waters, presumably for self service?



So I did help myself, since those are right on top of my suite. When I asked for more wine after cookie service, she just said "we're out of wine". There was no pre-arrival drink service, other than the hot towel before landing.

And on the flip side, on the return flight, I got an op-up to first. The purser was great, apologetic about the catering issues (they boarded the wrong menu, and no salmon with the grain bowl), proper service sequence, staying in the cabin and regularly walk through the aisle to check on customers and refilled drinks. She also got one of her colleagues to help her clearing the trays, after they were done in business or economy.

It's unlikely that AA will institute a requirement that only purser-qualified FAs can work in the F cabin on domestic flights. But the discrepancy of the expected service level and what was delivered is too great to be ignored. I will be writing in, for both pursers, for the service level they delivered.

BlooJoo

Ughhhhh... why do they even offer this product anymore if they're simply going to stop trying?

Eastbay1K

On my upcoming trip, it looks like the oversell cabin for J. True inventory is J1, but for sale, J5. Flight shows as F6, with 7 seats available. The 'buy up" offer is now $484. Watch - I'll get an op up and get PTahCha's fine fine miserable crew.