The problem here isn’t the seat, but instead, the strange instructions that American Airlines is giving its flight attendants.
In this post:
American’s strange A321XLR business class service policy
American recently took delivery of its first A321XLR, which is Airbus’ new long range, narrow body jet. It’s an exciting plane for the oneworld carrier, given that this 155-seat plane will be able to operate in some transatlantic markets, and American sure could use some more long haul capacity.
American just operated its first commercial A321XLR flight, between New York (JFK) and Los Angeles (LAX). The business class hard product doesn’t really rock the boat too much — there are 20 business class, spread across 10 rows, in a 1-1 configuration. The airline selected the Collins Aerospace Aurora platform, which is a herringbone product, meaning seats face the aisle. This is virtually the same hard product that you’ll find in JetBlue’s Airbus A321LR Mint business class cabin (of course with different finishes).
Here’s where it gets interesting. With seats facing the aisle and the entertainment monitors extending out from the panel to the side of seats, it does mean that the entertainment monitor is immediately in front of the passenger, making it a little harder for the crew to serve.
As noted by JonNYC, American has instructed its crews not to provide service over or under the business class video screen if it is pulled out, and to instead ask the customer to close it while they’re being served.
So yeah, if you want to be served food or drinks, you need to close your entertainment monitor, which seems like a major pain. To be clear, you can still watch the screen at an angle, but that’s not exactly an ideal passenger experience.
Is this seat highly flawed, or is this a dumb policy?
I see some people saying “well what was American thinking by designing a seat like this?” Keep in mind that this is basically an “off the shelf” product, and while American chose the seat, it had nothing to do with the design.
For that matter, I don’t actually consider the seat design to be problematic. I’ve flown JetBlue Mint several times, and the crews have no issue serving around the monitor, or worst case scenario, they just briefly move it around to make space. There’s no directive at JetBlue to advise passengers to store their entertainment monitor.
It just seems like American is making this unnecessarily complicated and customer unfriendly, and like some flight attendants will take this to the extreme. I can already see some flight attendants loudly announcing in the cabin “for safety, we’re going to need everyone to store their entertainment monitors during the meal service.”
In my opinion, worst case scenario, American should be advising its flight attendants to briefly move screens around on behalf of passengers, as needed in order to provide service. But putting the burden on passengers just seems odd, especially since it can be sort of awkward to store the monitor if you’re seated and the tray table is out.
Bottom line
American has just debuted its new Airbus A321XLR, which is an exciting development for the carrier. American chose a pretty typical interior for the plane, with the same seats you’ll find in JetBlue Mint.
What’s strange is that American is advising flight attendants to tell passengers to store their entertainment monitors while being served, for safety reasons. That just seems like it’s anything but frictionless, and there’s no similar policy at JetBlue.
What do you make of American’s A321XLR entertainment monitor policy?
I thought we were past the herringbone seat designs that make you crane your neck to look outside, but no we are apparently not. Anything to cram as many seats in as you can get away with, passenger comfort be damned.
If you prefer Oasis recliners over lie-flat, you do you.
Fine, reverse herringbone would probably have been better for viewing out the windows.
Ben, one of your potential solutions is to have the FAs briefly move the screen so they can serve. Aren't they holding trays of food, or do they use a cart for service? And will the dazed traveler with headphones in or on know what's happening, like why is the FA moving my screen while I am watching a movie? And it's more work for the FAs, so it will slow down service. This seems like a poop show about to begin.
American Airlines will never shy away from an opportunity to use the specter of safety to deny service. Their 80-year-old flight attendants wouldn’t have it any other way!
Am I understanding you can’t look out the window either? Hope they don’t advertise window seats.
@ CF Frost -- Since this is a herringbone seat, you do face away from the window, yes (though if you turn your neck far enough, you can look outside).
Bit of a tangent, but that tablecloth looks so sad on that tray table relative to the size of the tablecloth vs the tray table. If you're gonna give a tablecloth, at least make it bigger than the tray table itself so it can properly drapes over the sides. Otherwise, it just looks like a napkin that got left behind.
@ Xavier -- Totally agree. American's premium cabin meal presentation more generally is very bland/uninspiring.
Agree with Xavier and would add that the seat finishes look extremely ugly. Unless the picture is distorting the colours, that seat has way too many colours and patterns and textures going on- what a mess!
Not at all surprised. Anything involving minimizing work in the name of "safety and security" is something AA crew loves to hide behind. If they are friends with the Captain they'll get that seat belt sign kept on as much as possible so they don't have to do anything.
Can someone give me one good reason why an airline would opt for seats that face away from the windows?
If it’s the middle seats in a 1-2-1 I can understand for passengers flying together, but on a narrow body????
It's all for the density.
Stelia Opera, the only reverse herringbone seat currently installed on A321, is pitched at 38".
On the contrary, Collins Aurora seat installed on AA A321XLR is pitched at 32".
38" vs 32" is a huuuuuge difference.
AA's Collins Aurora seat is also denser than Jetblue Mint(Thompson Vantage Solo @36" pitch) or Iberia(Thompson Vantage Solo @34" pitch).
Is there some stupid reason they made the seats face the aisle instead of window?
@ Jacob -- The short answer is that herringbone seats utilize space more efficiently, so it's to cram in as many seats as possible.