American Will Start Selling Premium Economy For Flights As Of Next April

Pretty sure I pointed this out back in the middle of September - TPG's staff are slipping 🙂

I booked a flight last week in row 9 for a Lax to Hnd flight on April 7. Will this premium economy?

So MCE is gone on those flights with PE?

@Nathan No it won't be.

LAX-HND is served by the 787-8 Dreamliner (AA27) which has yet to have a Premium Economy cabin fitted. The Dreamliner being discussed in the blog post above is a 787-9 and is not scheduled to fly LAX-HND (as far as I know).

@Ziggy I wasn't sure it was you but, I knew someone had pointed it out quite a while ago

I think we can take the fact that economy to business upgrades will be a thing of the past once this becomes the norm on the fleet. Like other airlines before, you'll have to buy a PE ticket to use your upgrade to business. I'd be amazed if they didn't .

Another important question is what connecting flights book into. There is a good possibility they map to Y/B, making upgrades much more likely.

Ben - are you sure these seats are being sold as Main Cabin Extra? Going through every DFW-MAD departure between now and Nov 12 shows every one of these PE seats as unavailable, with plenty of regular Main Cabin Extra seats still available. Are they maybe blocked for the gate agents?

I'm not so sure about the upgrading thing. PE is a product created to generate revenue from those who can't buy J either for corporate travel policy reasons, or personal budgetary, but could afford a small premium over regular economy. Why would AA, or any airline offering a true PE product, give it away with advance upgrade options? Remember that upgrades are tightly controlled, it is more likely the larger capacity J cabins will still have empty seats, while the objective of PE is to sell every seat. That would suggest to me that SWU or miles upgrades would still be from Y to J for a while longer, at least until the fleet has been at least 50% or more converted.

AA has already annoyed we ExecPlats by reducing the number of SWUs we get. And increasingly advance confirmation of SWU upgrades on overseas flights is becoming a thing of the past, clearing a day or two prior to flights, or at the gate. To limit them to "next cabin" on flights with PE would severely reduce the number of open seats by flight day, while there could be many more open J seats going out empty. And every PE seat taken with a SWU upgrade means AA doesn't get the enhanced revenue it's after.

It would be in AA's interest to modify the wording for this transitional period as cabins are reconfigured, and specify Y>J or J>F on such aircraft, and perhaps offer ExecPlats comp upgrades to any empty PE seats at the gate. BA often upgrades its Gold and even OW Emeralds from World Traveler to WT+ on a comp basis when there are open WT+ seats. I an see AA doing this, not guaranteed but as a courtesy every so often, until it comes up with new SWU policy, or even an upgrade credits system ala Air Canada.

Once AA makes it possible to redeem for PE, I wonder if they'll raise the redemption rates for business.

@DavidB, I was gold for a while and I never really got any WT to WT+ op-up neither across the pond nor to S.Africa. The times I've flown wt+ is when I paid for it. Wt+ was wide open. I'm not going as far as saying it's a myth but I had better luck on LH as a SEN with Y to C upgrades