When Does American Open Blocked, Desirable Economy Seats?

Many airlines block some bulkhead economy seat assignments in advance, primarily in the event that those with reduced mobility need to assign these seats. However, a certain amount of time before departure, these seats can be booked by anyone. This can be a great opportunity to snag a good seat, especially if you’re only reserving your flight last minute, and seating options are limited.

In this post, I’d like to go over the details of American’s blocked economy seats, and when they open up. Over time, American changed the window when these seats become unblocked, so let’s go over everything.

Which economy seats does American block in advance?

Let’s start by talking about the bulkhead economy seats that American generally blocks in advance. As far as I can tell, American won’t let most customers assign the following seats in advance:

• Airbus A319 — seats 8D and 8E
• Airbus A320 — seat 4A
• Airbus A321 & A321neo — seats 8D, 8E, and 8F
• Airbus A321XLR — seats 16D, 16E, and 16F (note that these aren’t bulkhead seats)
• Boeing 737-800 & 737 MAX 8 — seats 8D and 8E
• Boeing 777-200 — seats 17K and 17L
• Boeing 777-300 — seats 20A and 20C
• Boeing 787-8 — seats 10J, 10K, and 10L
• Boeing 787-9 — seats 12J, 12K, and 12L
• Boeing 787-9P — seats 21J, 21K, and 21L
• Embraer E175 — seats 8D and 8F

In most cases, these seats are in the Main Cabin Extra section, which is American’s extra legroom economy seating (which also includes complimentary alcoholic drinks). This seating is available for all passengers at a cost, or alternatively, select AAdvantage elite members can assign these seats for free.

Bulkhead seats have a lot of extra legroom, which is a big draw of these seats. While many people typically don’t like being in bulkhead seats due to lack of floor storage space, on most of these narrow body jets, there’s actually still under seat storage, as there’s not a proper bulkhead.

When do these blocked seats become unblocked?

Nowadays, American generally opens up blocked seats exactly 24 hours before departure, coinciding with when the online check-in window opens. This is actually different than in the past — going back a couple of years, these seats opened up 12 hours before departure, so the window of them opening up has been extended.

Since I often book tickets last minute, I find this to be really valuable in terms of being able to secure the best seats possible for economy bookings. I also think this is a super useful “hack” for AAdvantage Gold members, since they only get access to Main Cabin Extra seats on a complimentary basis 24 hours out. These seats are perfect for that!

Bottom line

American’s Main Cabin Extra bulkhead seats that are blocked in advance become unblocked exactly 24 hours before departure. This can be worth understanding if you’re in a situation where you book close to departure and can’t otherwise assign a good seat, or if you have AAdvantage Gold status, where you get access to Main Cabin Extra 24 hours out.

I find these bulkhead seats to be great, given the amount of legroom they offer, while still having under seat storage.

Anyone else use the trick of snagging the typically blocked seats 24 hours out?