notquiteaff

There probably also aren’t many people outside this forum who still have ready access to a photo of an airline beverage cart they took in 2008

enviroian

Guess it's a matter of what is personally comfy. The seats in the OP's pic look identical to the ones I was flying up front in 20 years ago on HP's buses out of PHX.

jmrp

I would give anything to still have those nice BIG First seats where the 2 seats almost came together. The new narrower seats aren't as comfortable to me & I HATE that wide gap between the seats now where anyone behind you can see right through all the First seats all the way to row 1.

lrdpenn

Regardless of how comfortable (or not) these aircraft are relative to Oasis - things like this are exactly why public perception of AA is below DL and UA - and why AA seems to be retreating in competitive airports to the safety of DFW/CLT/etc.

steveholt

1) I don't really see that as particularly dirty for an airplane, but I'm happy to accept that it was not to your standards.
2) I'm going to assume that you're a DL flyer being based in ATL. As you know, DL is perfectly happy to use extremely old planes and just freshen them up with new interiors. I certainly think this is one of the older interiors you will fly on AA.
3) It's just you on the nameplates. It would be a supreme waste of money to replace the nameplates on beverage carts that still work fine and the vast majority of flyers either won't notice or care about. I saw plenty of NW carts on DL flights when I was flying regularly on DL and suspect that UA still has their fare share of CO carts.
4) I suspect the O2 tanks have been changed more often than you're suggesting.

fly747first

That's not really true. America West took over US Airways and at that time most former US Airways executives resigned or were let go. Parker decided to keep the name as US Airways since it had far more brand recognition than the America West he plagued with his lack of leadership. Thus, even though US Airways appeared to take over American, it was just a name and the executives were actually from America West.

dc10forlife

Was on one of these old birds yesterday from PHX to CMH, which was fitting given that this was an America West hub to hub route. My travelling companions who do not fly much commented about how old and run down the plane looked. On top of that the flight was several hours late.

IADCAflyer

Odd, all three flights from PHX to CMH (one was WN) were delayed. Must be weather somewhere.

enviroian

is it remotely possible the plane OP describes is actually an HP registered 320 from eons ago?

chfenton

Understand your overall point of view--but I find it hard to understand how you find the picture of the seat acceptable? Do you see the filth and dirtiness on the arm rests? it loked like it had not been cleaned in years. It was absolutely disgusting -perhaps the pics don't do it justice. BTW I lived in London and Buenos Aires for 3 years each so I do have over 2.2MM Lifetime AA miles - so just lamenting at my perception of the deterioration of the product over the last 30 years. Give me More room through coach back any day

IADCAflyer

There are 3 or 4 old A320s that were HP origin birds.

BWISkyGuy

I don't think anyone is defending the condition of the seats, we all acknowledge that they're in worn condition and weren't replaced with the MiQ seats (like the rest of the narrowbody fleet has) because these planes aren't part of the long-term fleet plan. These seats were repainted (parts that previously had a metallic finish), recovered and refurbished a few years ago to hold them over until retirement, but there are parts of the seat (like that back moulding piece on the aisle) that wear quickly, and in some cases the finish or paint has worn off... Yeah, it's ugly, and shouldn't be that way, but with those parts it's not "dirt". I'm fine with it because I'm grateful those seats weren't replaced with the MiQ seats, and I'd rather fly in the old seats with the finish worn off parts of the seat than the brand new MiQ seats.

...And this is hardly a new thing. I think many of us have been around long enough in AA's history to remember what other generations of seats looked like at the end of their service life. How many flights in 757 Eisenhower seats did we fly in with enough pen marks on them to ink a manuscript with?

steveholt

It's scuffing in parts of the seat I'm not going to touch. I don't love it, but it's not dirt. I've seen crumbs of food that haven't been cleaned on seats/sides of seats on all the major US airlines before and think that's much more unkempt. But to each his own!

songofamerica89

Flew SW for the first time in 30 years and the interior hadn't changed. Was never so happy to sit in MC on AA A321, seats are so much better then SW and UA and even DL with those stupid TVs and boxes underneath that limit space. I think, like food, seats are a personal preference. I flew accross the country and to Hawaii in FC on AA and didn't really mater which seat I had, they were fine. I do agree that the A320s need to go, just the worst of the worst and with more MAXs coming makes sense to either put new seat covers on them or junk em. Funny think is that those old birds have better wifi, power and entertainment then UA or DL. . .LOL

ChurnieEls

Exactly this, I love those ol' big recliners. I was disappointed they swapped out of most of the A319 fleet.

OP: these get used on routes ex other airlines fortress hubs, I see them most regularly ex IAD as a WAS based flyer. You might want to avoid those hubs if it bothers you.