While American is working on improving their international business class product, there’s not much consistency in terms of their product offering.
Some 777s still feature American’s old angled business class product, which is uncompetitive at this point.
Then all of American’s 777-300ER aircraft feature Zodiac reverse herringbone seats. I love the 777-300ERs for how consistent the product is — all the planes have the same configuration.
Then American began reconfiguring their 777-200s to feature a new business class product. While all the seats are fully flat, this isn’t a standard reverse herringbone product, as some seats face forwards while others face backwards.
Unfortunately they had some issues with those seats, and then decided to switch to a new vendor. They’re now installing B/E Aerospace Super Diamond seats on their 777-200s.
Ultimately the inconsistency between the three “new” 777 products isn’t a huge issue, since they’re all fully flat and feature direct aisle access. However, the fact that there are still 777s with angled seats in business class is frustrating.
Well, there’s some good news. View from the Wing is reporting that all of American’s 777-200s will be reconfigured with a new business class product by the second quarter of the year. That means all of these planes will feature fully flat seats in business class, and none of them will feature first class anymore.
This is certainly an exciting development, as I wasn’t expecting the reconfigurations to be done that quickly. Let’s hope they stick to that timeline.
At that point American’s 777-200s, 777-300s, and A330s, will all feature fully flat beds in business class. Meanwhile there are still some 767s that have angled seats in business class, as far as I know. American is now in the process of reconfiguring their international 757s with a new business class product as well.
It's about time! I don't fly business that much anymore, but when I do it's frustrating that either my seat or someone in my party's seat doesn't work properly or you're expecting fully flat and you get a swap and it's not fully flat. I know there was a merger, but didn't that wrap up nearly 2 years ago? AA has no issues implementing items that reduce customer service or customer comfort, but are slow to make the customer experience better.
Based on AA's schedule looks like the 777-200 will update on July 5 on the DFW-FRA route. 10 wide in economy like the 300ER.
Ben, do you read FlyerTalk from time to time? because there is a thread where it show the progress, so far 29 of 47 777-200 have been converted plus 4 more that are in HAECO, leaving 14 more to go and they are doing around 3 planes per month.
They are swapping 772 with Zodiac to B/E too, it may take few more months but I was able to report one of them a couple...
Ben, do you read FlyerTalk from time to time? because there is a thread where it show the progress, so far 29 of 47 777-200 have been converted plus 4 more that are in HAECO, leaving 14 more to go and they are doing around 3 planes per month.
They are swapping 772 with Zodiac to B/E too, it may take few more months but I was able to report one of them a couple of weeks ago (originally was Zodiac but nobody noticed that it went to HAECO for the new B/E Aerospace).
@Tim Schaff the post is about 777-200 not 777-300, which they have F seat and flat bed seats since day 1.
The B/E fitted 772 looks considerably superior to the Zodiac 772, is that the case in reality?
It's a shame that so many 777-200s and 788s will still have that sub-standard "business suite" product, what with feeling your neighbor's every move and zero privacy for many seats.
AA should retrofit all aircraft to the new B/E and/or Zodiac product. At least the old angled flat product, which for its generation was arguably the best, was consistent across the entire fleet.
They still fly 757's internationally? Who wants to fly for 8 hours in a narrow body? Or is it just hops to Canada?
Yes! Great news. The 772 retrofit has been painfully slow.
Although one small loss is elite passengers snagging free "Business Class" seats when the three cabin 772s are operated domestically.
I won't be excited until all the klunkers are retrofitted or retired. The potential for equipment swaps has increased since the merger. They need to accelerate the process for all their aircraft.
This can't come soon enough. I have a GRU-MIA flight in March in J and there's been two equipment swaps so far from angled to reverse herringbone and now back to angled. It's frustrating and disappointing that the end of my trip will be the lowlight of that shoddy biz product. Especially after the first equipment swap got me all hot-and-bothered.
United has had fully FLAT for at least ~7 years. While their seats are also uncompetitive, I still find it fascinating everyone LOVES AA, even though a large portion of their widebody fleet still does not feature a lie-flat product and you could get stuck bigtime. I'm glad to see they have FINALLY announced a time-frame.
> Let’s hope they stick to that timeline.
Let's get realistic. I can't remember when it was the last time that AA actually implemented a product improvement to an announced timeline.
Seriously, do you remember an example? It was probably in the 1990s
"That means all of these planes will feature fully flat seats in business class, and none of them will feature first class anymore."
Not entirely true, the 777-300ER will continue to have first class.
Lucky your pic is of the outgoing 763 seat not outgoing 772 seat. They are slightly different you know...