Earlier this year American announced that they would be introducing Main Cabin Extra fleetwide. This is a product similar to United’s “Economy Plus,” which offers a few extra inches of legroom in the front of the economy cabin. AAdvantage Executive Platinum and Platinum members (along with up to eight companions on the same reservation), as well as full fare customers, will receive complimentary access. Furthermore, through the end of 2013 AAdvantage Gold members will receive complimentary access. For anyone else that wishes to purchase Main Cabin Extra, the cost will range from $8 to $108 depending on the length of the flight.
There have been a few aircraft flying around with the new product for a while now, though it was totally luck of the draw whether or not you get an aircraft equipped with Main Cabin Extra.
Via AAdvantageGeek it looks like American has now updated their seatmaps on 757s and 767s to reflect Main Cabin Extra. Now, I’m not sure how far along they are in the reconfiguration process, though I suspect they’re erring on the side of caution by showing this seatmap for all 757 and 767 flights.
Here’s the 767 seatmap with Main Cabin Extra seating:
And the 757 seatmap with Main Cabin Extra seating:
You can find some pictures of the new Main Cabin Extra seating on Traveling Better. The 767 Main Cabin Extra sure is small at only three rows, and seems to have quite a bit of wasted space behind the last row.
Anyway, here’s to hoping the existing fleet is reconfigured quickly, and that international upgrade policies at American don’t change so us Executive Platinums never have to experience it. 😀
@ Sudamerica -- I'd say the exit row seats are probably still better.
So in this scenario (e.g. 767), are the exit row seats better or worse than the main cabin extra?
The 737-823 seats with blocking are currently merely blocked by a tray like device. As I understand it AA is negotiating with the FAA so they can leave the seat blocks instead of removing the entire seat to reduce capacity to 150.
All 757 and 767s have been reconfigured so the seat maps could finally be changed. All new aircraft are delivered with MCE. 772 will not get them until they go in to have F removed and the 762 will not get it at all. I dont believe the MD80s have even been started.
@ DWT -- Ah, makes perfect sense. So are they physically removing those seats, or will they just be permanently blocked? Those might just be the best seats in coach if it's a guaranteed empty middle.
It's because AA's 737-800s had 160 seats, requiring 4 flight attendants (1 per every 50 seats). After they took out one row of coach to create main cabin extra, the capacity was reduced to 154 seats. Apparently AA decided it was more economically viable to block off 4 seats, reducing capacity to 150 and only needing 3 FAs.
I don't know lol haven't been able to find the reason for that yet. If I find out I will let you know though
@ Ana -- I had never seen that before though just saw it for the first time. Why the heck do they have that?!
Have you notice the two rows after emergency exits with no middle seat on the new generation 737-800. I heard they have a tray table instead between seats. I just noticed it yesterday when checking a seat map.