American Unveils New Amenity Kits & Bedding

I wonder if this means that pajamas will be going away for business class on AKL, SYD, and other ultra long haul flights?

I must say that I am not at all convinced that we still need amenity kits.
In my experience, the vast majority of business/first class passengers are regular passengers, taking a dozen or more premium class trips a year. I have noticed that ,any of them (I count myself among them) use the toothbrush,but that’s about it. Many of the kits remain on the plane or at their hotel room before heading back.
I ask myself, hypothetically, if those kits were offered for purchase at, say, $25- how many of us would actually buy them more than once ? I dare say not many.
About the collection value - I guess that’s personal taste. I find very little use to kits that small. Really the only ones I am using are a very old ( but ideall size) BA one and a similarly brilliant qantas one from the early 2000.

AGREED!!!

I pack a few things in my personal item and skip the kits. They are crap-quality as reusable pouches anyway, though I still use shoe bags that held amenities from BA a decade ago or even DL's BusinessElite 25 years ago.

(except for Iberia's eye mask. Honestly, the best I've ever used. I use them on all flights, and hoard them for a bleak future when they're changed for something worse.)

I have a box of probably 75-100 of them sitting in one of our hall closets. That's from pre-pandemic. I keep meaning to go through them and chuck out all the 5-year-old+ lotions and toothpastes. Maybe then I'll donate the remnants to a homeless shelter or something.

Thankfully when I started traveling again, I convinced myself to not even open them at my seat. Definitely don't need a thing from them that I haven't brought myself.

The only kit I've truly relished is EK F's. Those faux-leather pouches are really durable, great for toiletries and storing cables or other small items. And the disposable razors in the EK F kit are fantastic.

Absolutely cost saving under the guise of "customer feedback." Cutting costs is fine and personally, I find the amenity kits wasteful--a really good solution here would be to invest in amenities that customers find useful, and offer them on-demand like Finnair, Singapore and others do. Most people want the tooth brush and eye mask, the latter of which fails to meet two important criteria: 1) being comfortable and 2) keeping light out. The AA eye masks are a complete joke, and slapping their greyhound logo on it does nothing to address the two critical failures.

However, what really bothers me is the greenwashing corporate press release-speak. Recycled bedding means it's made from PET (aka plastic), which is not necessarily bad, but it's definitely a downgrade from all cotton (and less breathable, which is bad if you run hot on airplanes).

I have toooooo many amenity kits in my house. I usually give them away to everyone afterwards. But still too many.

Like if my family travels in business on a trip, that’s 6 amenity kits (3 each way). And worse if we have more than one segment of long haul. That’s 12! I usually have a carry on with half of the space dedicated to amenity kits!

I usually use one kit and donate the "return flight" kit to the Salvation Army or a local shelter. They love getting them, verses lose toiletry items. So consider donating them verses just keeping them.

If you have too many amenity kits/are complaining about their existence, idk, maybe just don't take one? Doesn't seem too difficult to just leave it at the seat unwrapped/hand it back to an FA.

Kinda ironic how these frequent J travelers are demanding for cuts to amenities some people value, but any other cuts and they're the same one threatening to never fly AA again

They will, alongside the mattress pad. Another sad cost-cutting downgrade by AA.

Love how they advertise the noise canceling headphones that they undoubtedly will ruthlessly and rudely collect with an hour remaining in the flight. Also what is a foldable wheat straw?? More garbage from a garbage airline.

So the cardboard box is the standard kit?

And their slippers are a joke. I'm sure it's probably nice but my last few trips they forgot to load them, yes it's always you LAX.
Ironically, the cleaning crew left one side for me because it was stuck in the tiny foot coffin and too deep for them to throw it out?

With the headphones, they just need to let people know it wouldn't work outside an airplane, don't steal them.
Then get influencers to do a TikTok showing they don't work and stealing lands them in jail.

With the straws.
More garbage from a garbage airline?

At least it is biodegradable in a year, but no green wash will tell you it takes a few years to fully decompose which in the mean time if not properly disposed would end up polluting the environment and attract pests, bacteria, algae, etc.

Repost what I said a while back.

People flying premium but complains like a socialist.
Tomorrow go tell your employer I don’t need the extra money, just pay me enough so I can buy only things I need to use. Extra disposable income would just allow me to spend more on stupid and environmentally irresponsible purchases (like flying in premium cabins).

So now hypothetically Mike, if you're already living a comfortable life but is offered an income raise (same job, same workload, no strings attached, just more money), say 25% how many of us would actually decline them? I dare say not ANY.

So on a narrowbody plane the Flagship Business kit is better than the Flagship First kit??

The whole "celebrating milestones" aspect of the new amenity kits actually excites me! What if they had special ones for new routes? AA anniversaries? New plane types/etc? Or even better yet.....to recognize members who qualify/requalify for Exec Plat or CK? Million Miler? Lifetime Platinum? I always am jealous how United and Delta seem to celebrate their members milestones while AA barely notices me as an EP.

I agree with Eskimo. All of y'all who have been flying in F & J since the late 90's can retire already. I just started flying in Premium Cabins (on my OWN dime mind you) the last 5 years, and I want, use, and keep the Amenity Kits that I PAID FOR. Y'all want to save the environment: cool. Y'all want to leave them in the seat: also cool. Most flyers don't pay attention to blogs and aren't as seasoned as y'all old heads are. Make room for the next generation and let us experience 10% of y'all have.

Literally who cares? So you travel alot in Premium Cabins? Wow. Good for you. The next generation wants to experience the fine things too. We want Amenity Kits and other bells and whistles. Go fly FinnAir where it's on demand and stop posting brag comments on blogs. "OH MY WHOLE CARRYOM IS FULL OF BUSINESS CLASS KITS, WHOA IS MY FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS".

EXACTLY!!! AND ITS SO BOOMER of them to say they don't mind having something they have enjoyed for decades now taken away completely for the current and future generations. Thanks to the Boomers for keeping us all out of the housing market, destroying entitlement like SSI, and generally making me and my generation a slave to society for 2 decades longer than you would have had to have been. I can't wait to retire when I'm 75 and with so safety nets to speak of!Selfish & Greedy Baby Boomers.

Why are you blaming boomers?

Did it ever occur to you the boomers were just victims of another grand propaganda.

-Buy a house. And get in huge debt. But banks get rich.
-Retire. Because we don't need expensive work force. And lower costs of corporate America.
-Live off SSI. A program entire different today than what FDR was selling. SS is a huge rigged system that siphons your paycheck to buy treasury bonds to fund spendings like defense (hi Boeing) then print money to repay SSA. If SSA runs out of money, they rig the contribution and the age or few other things.

SSA running out of money is a myth. They won't ever run out. But you will be getting less without realizing it. We can go on this topic so far but let's save it for another day.

Just pointing out that don't blame the boomers too much. They're also victim to an effective way to control the middle class. There is no such thing as retirement, it's just another tool against us.

Wow.. I can't even afford main cabin on most AA flights and all these rich people complaining about their Free Amenities kits being crap, well it just breaks my heart for them ..(not)
Hey, here's an idea how about American airline doesn't give anything away for free and they lower the price of their flights..
Genius!....

I would rather have a reduction in airfare!

Oh wow, the stupidity of some people, just wow.

If you're so concerned about retirement, maybe instead of spending hard earned money on achieving EP status on American and invest/save for retirement fund? Or just yolo and not worry about retirement, who knows what the future brings, a heart attack or some freak accident is all it takes to avoid even getting old.

The new bedding for business is just plain sad. Not nearly as nice as the Casper bedding. Delta here I come.

Well, st least for PE, the Ostrich lumbar pillow is a huge downgrade from the Caspar pillow. I flew out LHR in October and I was very disappointed in how uncomfortable the pillow was. I can't under why they would switch out a great product for a lumpy piece of junk. These pillows will be even worse at the one year mark. I am also really offended when they present a clearly downgraded product as an upgrade. By doing so, they are implying that we are stupid enough to believe them. It is just plain insulting.