American Airlines Inaugural Domestic B787-9 Flight in Business Class
 

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Please check out this trip report on my personal, ad-free website

Introduction

Back in July, American scheduled its first domestic flight on the brand-new B787-9 for October 6th. The flight was scheduled to leave at 7:20 am in the morning from Dallas Fort Worth for an arrival at 8:41 am in Los Angeles. As soon as I heard about this very special flight I checked the fares for a one-way trip to LAX and to my surprise, tickets were available in coach for only $68. Even better, plenty of A space was available, meaning that I was able to confirm into First with a mileage + co-pay upgrade.

Day of Departure

A 7:20 am departure meant that I had to get up around 4:30 am to get ready to head for the airport. I definitely try to schedule most if not all of my flights at more convenient times, but this obviously wasn't possible for this occasion. I dropped my car off and boarded a shuttle to the airport. I cleared security at Terminal E and then took the SkyTrain to Terminal D, where a decent crowd of people was already waiting at the gate area.

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Terminal D DFW

I got there around 20 minutes before boarding was supposed to start and they pre-boarded a selected group of travel bloggers, I guess I should have requested early access as well but it slipped my mind. To my disappointment, American Airlines did not have any kind of celebration at the gate area. The gate agent also seemed surprised about the interest in the B787-9 and made a PA that "apparently this is a brand new aircraft".

After a short wait, the gate agent called for first class passengers and I proceeded on board. Some of the pictures below were taken after arrival in LAX. The business class cabin on American's B787-9 has a total of 30 seats in a 1-2-1 configuration. All seats have direct aisle access.

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American's B787-9 Business Class Cabin

As far as I could tell, only the first row of seats has a partition between the middle seats, all other rows appeared to have no partition, which is certainly a bad decision on American's part, considering that most other airlines (Qatar, Air Canada) with the exact same seat have a privacy divider. I was able to select a window seat, but I think it would be kind of odd to directly stare on your neighbor when sharing the middle two seats with a stranger.

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American's B787-9 Business Class Cabin

For single travelers, the windows seats are by far the better choice as they offer a great deal of privacy.

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American's B787-9 Business Class Seat

The seats are angled toward the window. I settled into my window seat 3L. All that American provided was flimsy blanked, no pillows, which is standard service for a domestic first class flight these days.

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American B787-9 Forward Business Class Seats

For once American Airlines installed a seat with some space to put your things in. The new seat has three storage areas. Two are located by the windows. While one is pretty small...

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American Airlines B787-9 Seat

...the second storage space offers more room. This second storage space also houses the IFE remote, an electric outlet and an USB outlet.

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American Airlines B787-9 Seat

The IFE system and remote is the same great system used on American's B777-300ER and B787-8 aircraft.

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IFE Remote

The headphone jack is in plain sight, unlike on American's B777-300ER.

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Headphone jack and USB outlet

The outlet is easily accessible.

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Electric Outlet

The third storage area was located underneath the window armrest and offers space to store a bottle of water.

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American Airlines B787-9 Seat

Again, I think that American offers the best IFE system on its (refurbished) longhaul fleet among U.S. carriers - there are hundreds of movies and TV shows.

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IFE Screen

The table has to be moved by pressing a lever hidden under the table. It is actually possible to move the table to three different positions. It also seemed fairly stable and pretty large, definitely suitable for working with your laptop on it.

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Table

The crew was very friendly and was obviously happy to be working on such a nice, brand new aircraft. They offered a full pre-departure beverage service and the atmosphere in the business class cabin was very joyful. There were a handful of travel bloggers and also some AA employees. Soon, the boarding doors were closed and we were ready for pushback. The captain made an announcement to welcome us on board and informed passengers that they were flying on American's newest aircraft.

At the adjacent gate, an American B787-8 was parked.

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American B787-8

We soon pushed back and I finally got to see American's new safety video. I don't know how I feel about it, it is certainly an improvement over the old one, but not as nice as the Air France video, which I think was what they were going for.

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American New Safety Video

After pushback, the flight attendants turned on the mood lighting, which was great.

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Mood Lighting

We were soon on our way, took off and left the cloudy Dallas Fort Worth area behind us.

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DFW

Once we pierced through the clouds, the sun came out and I was able to snap this gorgeous shot.

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Cloudy Sky

I noticed that the safety information card had revision 9/16 on it - as new as the aircraft itself.

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Safety Card

Once again, the pilot made an announcement and informed us that he expected an early arrival into LAX at around 8:15 am. He also informed us that we had reached our cruising altitude of 38,000 feet. He said that he would again reach out to us about 40 minutes before arrival.

The seatbelt sign was switched off and the flight attendants reconfirmed breakfast orders. The FA addressed me by first name, which I thought was a nice touch. She also noted my drink order. Before breakfast was served, I took another shot of the business class cabin.

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American B787-9 Business Class Cabin In-Flight

The flight attendants rolled out their carts and it was time for breakfast. Drinks were served before the trays came out, which was a nice touch.

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Water and Coffee

I had pre-ordered the continental breakfast plate with vanilla Greek yoghurt, granola and a fruit plate. My verdict: meh

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Breakfast

The granola wasn't crunchy and while I am usually a big fan of Chobani Greek yoghurt, the vanilla variety is my least favorite. The fruit plate was OK, although the pineapple and the honeydew were not ripe. I opted for a croissant from the breakfast, but passengers could also choose between cinnamon rolls and English muffins.

Breakfast was a quick affair and I spend most of the remaining flight time watching the outside.

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In-Flight View

I was able to snap a picture of the premium economy section, which looked OK. The first row had footrests, not sure about the others. There wasn't that much more legroom in the bulkhead row but it still seemed to be the most desireable row.

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American Premium Economy

Before I knew it, we were 30 minutes out.

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In-Flight Show

The greatest thing about flying into LAX is probably the view of downtown LA, which I admire every time I fly into the area.

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Downtown LA

We touched down right on schedule after approach slowed us down a little bit. We taxied for just under 10 minutes and docked at Terminal 4. I tried to snap some pictures of the aircraft but was not very successful unfortunately.

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American B787-9 at LAX

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American B787-9 at LAX

Conclusion

American's new business class seat on its B787-9 aircraft is certainly a step in the right direction. I love the fact that there is finally some storage space available. Unless you have to sit in one of the middle two seats, the new configuration also offers a great deal of privacy. Together with the great IFE system and the excellent WiFi available on board, American offers a very competitive on-board hard product. The big caveat that remains is that with yet another business class configuration, passengers risk being the victim of last-minute aircraft swaps with inferior business class seats. And let's not talk too much about the soft product, where American certainly has the most room for improvement.

The introduction of premium economy is also an interesting development, let's just hope that this won't lead to a devaluation for American's frequent flyers in terms of "one-class" upgrades into premium economy instead of business.

Thanks for the Trip Report. Your picture of downtown Los Angeles showed the new Wilshire Grand skyscraper.

are the partitions or dividers between the middle paired seats operable?

Great pics, thanks Lukas.

I'm guessing you didn't read the TR?
There are no partitions. (Except for the first row)

Originally reported on FT by JonNYC.

Lukas, nice report, I was in 4H for this flight. Your report is spot on with the seat and service.

I will add the seat seems a little tighter on space than the same B/E Super Diamond seat on the 777, of course the 777 is a bigger plane with the same 4 across config. Another difference from the 777 is the shoulder belt on the 789, the 777 I was on had the massive airbag belt.

Excellent report, LukasVIE!

I'm still so peeved about the lack of privacy partitions in the middle seats. AA finally installs a seat that gets close to the Cirrus 77W seat in comfort and storage, and then makes it almost less private than the Zodiac 772/788 seats. Ugh.

I am on the 1015 LAX-DFW tomorrow (8 Oct), and intentionally did NOT request an upgrade in order to try out the new Premium Econ product. Currently booked into the bulkhead window in 9A. Looking forward to it!

Awesome report!

I am flying this soon in First and I selected row 8. Curious if you have any comments/suggestions on where to sit. Only rows 5-8 are available.

Thanks!

Curious to learn about your impression of this product!

I guess I'm a bit surprised that there was zero fanfare, but I suppose that's just because it was an a/c variant as opposed to a new a/c.

Glad you were able to enjoy the J seat. On the 787 Inaugural flight up to ORD way back when, the J cabin became a zoo as half the plane moved forward to try the new seats. FAs could barely serve the meals, but the bloody maries kept coming :) Not that the AA quiche is any-thing special, let alone a reason to book a J flight.

I also agree with your observation re the seat feeling a bit tight. I honestly still much prefer the US Air Envoy seats on their A330s. Those were way ahead of their time and still are a very comfortable ride across the Atlantic, if a bit worn.

Thanks for sharing!

I would assume that there will be alot of exps on the flight tomorrow. My upgrade hasn't cleared either way - and I bought the ticket the first day hopefully the T-4 gods will come through for me!

I have to admit that after seeing this report I can confirm that BA has right now the worst Int'l business class hard product among OW members !!!

Thanks Loose Cannon - I love the approach into LAX

LovePrunes I thought I saw one in row 1, but a no for the other rows

You're welcome BThumme

Haha it was a fun trip for sure itchief - I never had the pleasure of traveling in the seat on a B777

Thanks econometrics and yeah I really don't get it!

ckidder331 I would definitely go for the single window seats, apparently row 5 is missing a window though.

I was a bit disappointed too - I feel like they could have at least printed some kind of certificate or something like that. I have a small frame so didn't have a problem with the fact that the seat is or at least feels a bit narrower. I will say that riding on the B787 seems to give me less of a jet lag than flights on A330s and B777

Good luck cubuffaloes2004 LAX-DFW is a tough route to clear as is!

It still beats AA business class on the non-refurbished B777 and B767!

The plane flew DFW-LHR a couple of day before as it's first Revenue flight, this was a surprise to everybody. so I'm wondering if the fanfare happened on that flight.