We know that American Airlines is trying to once again become a bit more premium. In the summer of 2025, the airline rolled out pajamas and mattress pads in business class on some ultra long haul flights. There’s now a positive update, as American is now rolling out mattress pads on even more flights, so let’s go over the details of the flights on which you’ll find these amenities.
In this post:
American improves Flagship business class amenities
In the summer of 2025, American rolled out pajamas and mattress pads in business class on flights to and from East Asia, the Middle East, India, Australia, and New Zealand. Both the pajamas and mattress pads are from Nest, and the pajamas come in size S/M or L/XL.
Eligible flights for the full amenities include those to Auckland (AKL), Brisbane (BNE), Delhi (DEL), Doha (DOH), Seoul Incheon (ICN), Shanghai (PVG), Sydney (SYD), Tokyo Haneda (HND), and Tokyo Narita (NRT). These flights are operated out of Dallas (DFW), Los Angeles (LAX), New York (JFK), and Philadelphia (PHL).
There’s now a great update, as American is expanding the flights with mattress pads. As of next week (late March 2026), American will roll out mattress pads on all international Flagship branded business class flights, as well as Flagship branded business class flights to Hawaii.
These amenities are offered in addition to slippers, dual-sided pillows, and duvets. As this change is described, “American is constantly collecting customer feedback to reinvigorate the travel experience with changes that align with customer needs.”
The rollout of this comes shortly after American introduced its new long haul business class seats. However, this soft product improvement is unrelated to which aircraft a flight is operated by. So you’ll get these amenities regardless of whether your flight features American’s new or old business class seats.
This is a positive change, and it isn’t too surprising
We know that American has been trying to improve in recent months. The airline is greatly lagging Delta and United when it comes to financials, and we’re definitely seeing a bit of a vibe shift at the moment.
American appointed Heather Garboden as Chief Customer Officer, and we’ve seen the airline announce it wants to become more premium and customer focused. We’ve started to see some positive changes, and many of those have simply been reversals of previously dumb policies. Each month, we seemingly see multiple positive changes.
For what it’s worth, American offered pajamas and mattress pads in business class on some long haul flights until the spring of 2024, at which point they were cut. So they made a comeback a little over a year after they were eliminated. However, now things are going to be better than ever on that front, with shorter flights also getting mattress pads.
While I wouldn’t say it’s the norm, a good number of airlines do offer pajamas in business class. For example, United offers pajamas on flights of over 14 hours, and also has the industry’s best business class bedding.
Arguably, American’s policy on pajamas will actually be more generous, since even the (relatively short) flight from Tokyo to Los Angeles will get pajamas. Meanwhile American will proactively offer mattress pads on a lot more routes than United, though United’s overall bedding setup is still spot on.
Bottom line
In the summer of 2025, American introduced pajamas and mattress pads on all flights to and from East Asia, the Middle East, India, Australia, and New Zealand. American has now taken this to the next level, though, and is adding mattress pads on most Flagship branded business class flights, including those to Hawaii.
It just blows my mind how much time American spends waffling on what kind of an airline it wants to be. But hey, things finally seem to be headed in the right direction.
What do you make of American’s business class developments for mattress pads and pajamas?
Interesting… United and American still do pajamas… yet, Delta is ‘too good’ for that. Hmm….
Your article contradicts itself:
American will roll out mattress pads on all international Flagship branded business class flights, as well as Flagship branded business class flights to Hawaii.
> important word FLAGSHIP
Then you state:
However, this soft product improvement is unrelated to which aircraft a flight is operated by. So you’ll get these amenities regardless of whether your flight features American’s new or old business class seats.
> old...
Your article contradicts itself:
American will roll out mattress pads on all international Flagship branded business class flights, as well as Flagship branded business class flights to Hawaii.
> important word FLAGSHIP
Then you state:
However, this soft product improvement is unrelated to which aircraft a flight is operated by. So you’ll get these amenities regardless of whether your flight features American’s new or old business class seats.
> old seats (i.e. 77w) are not branded Flagship Business they are showing as Business on the AA website
As AA languishes well below Ryanair in the World Rankings, who believes that a few frills on the dead donkey will change anything?
Best way to deal with jammies? I wear under my clothing. I strip on flight and sm ready for beddy bye. Nice to know all these high flying businessmen have solid opinions about airplane jammies!
Well, that decides it, no more Cathay, JAL or Qatar, AAmerican all the time now!
Well …. I’m enjoying your sarcasm Mike …. :-)
I feel the Polaris bedding became overrated. The mattress pads are not as plush as AA's. The blankets (both the linen and the filling) do not stand out either, albeit carrying S5A's brand. Add that to the de facto 2-4-2 layout and it became much more crowded in the seats. On balance, AA's bedding is no worse than either UA or DL imo, having flown all multiple times.
I really don't get what's so great about United's bedding. To me their materials feel incredibly plastic, I mean, they are made with 100% polyester albeit recycled. You get a lot of static shocks with those polyester materials, especially in the dry aircraft cabin. People are so easily swayed by branding - "Saks", "Missoni", but take a closer look and you see lots of snags and loose threads on those cheaply made materials. I have...
I really don't get what's so great about United's bedding. To me their materials feel incredibly plastic, I mean, they are made with 100% polyester albeit recycled. You get a lot of static shocks with those polyester materials, especially in the dry aircraft cabin. People are so easily swayed by branding - "Saks", "Missoni", but take a closer look and you see lots of snags and loose threads on those cheaply made materials. I have to defend AA here as I genuinely think they have some of the best blankets and pillows in the sky now, they actually feel like cotton and good to the touch. I've only experienced the mattress pad twice on their long haul F, and they are very good. If it's going to be the same mattress pad, then I'd definitely say, AA's bedding will be leagues ahead of Delta's/United. As for the pajamas, they're too thin and tight, I feel naked wearing those on the plane, not cute. AA should correct the pajamas' fabric and fit.
The UAL internet Defense League is out in force tonight.
AA PJs are basically one time use. They are unbelievably thin.
No DFW to IAH? SMH
Can you cover how ITA’s Volare is being ended rather than merged into LH M&M? This is the first time I can recall that an airline is being acquired and the FF program isn’t merging 1-for-1. My guess it’s because Volare was too generous with giving away status.
This new PJs are flimsy compared to other airlines. They are too tight (they stretch a little) but the legs are tight and hard to change into (even for someone with skinny legs). The previous ones AA had were top knotch - up there with the best FC ones.
You are correct. I wear small medium on any other airline. The AA pants are so tight at the ankle that I need to ask for a large xl set for the pants and s/m for the top. A waste.
Mattress pad is great and good to see everyone gets one now. So silly that it was only the bulkhead.
I agree. The AA PJs are not even branded as AA. Yeah, there is something on the inside of the collar but what a miss. But considering how thin they are, maybe best not to advertise the corner cutting.
So this means the A321 XLR gets the upgrade also.
This look much more premium than UA pajamas.
Also, UA changed away from the 14 hours and is basically now everywhere except Europe. Got some KIX-SFO a few weeks ago.
“Pajamas are available upon request on all flights to Africa, Asia, India, Pacific, and Middle East.”
You don’t need to request, United has only approximately 10 pajamas per flight.
You need to grab one during boarding, otherwise, none will be left before all business class passengers seated.
I never got any pajamas on Tokyo route. After I put my carryon into head bin, all pajamas were gone.
Interesting. The FA's were proactively offering to everyone, including in the smaller cabin. They had well over 10 sets as most people said yes. This was only three weeks ago so maybe a change. Nowhere near Nest quality, assuming the AA PJs are the same or similar material to the Nest AA slipper bag.
I chatted with a purser who said my guess of 30% of J seats would not be far off their standard provisioning. UA's new PJs are nothing to write home about either, almost unbreathable.
I would love to see more airlines have matrass pads in business. Could not care less for the pyamas, but seats tend to be so hard that sleeping is virtually impossible. So on flights to and from europ matrass pads would be great in my opinion.
My recent flight back from Australia was the first where I was oferred PJs. As always, I moved the bedding to the overhead and never used it. It was my first time in the 787-9P (and in a bulkhead preferred suite). I found I like the regular 787-9 J better. To be sure. I'd never pay extra for the bulkhead seat on the P. I would pay a little extra for the J bulkhead seats...
My recent flight back from Australia was the first where I was oferred PJs. As always, I moved the bedding to the overhead and never used it. It was my first time in the 787-9P (and in a bulkhead preferred suite). I found I like the regular 787-9 J better. To be sure. I'd never pay extra for the bulkhead seat on the P. I would pay a little extra for the J bulkhead seats on the newer AF 350s, though.
Oh, BTW, service on my BNE-DFW flight was excellent (though there was no 100th anniversary meals or anything special on that flight). Service was also solid DFW-Home.
There was this guy who used the subject of PJ's as an excuse for giving his latest trip report, which nobody was actually asking for....
There was a guy who didn't found a post didn't interest him, but took the time to comment on it anyway....
I bet those pajamas are polyester. I never!
No thank you! I’ll stick with flying delta. And my Amex centurion card. AA and shiti bank are for the poors.
You can thank Vasu Raja for all the good things at AA after he left.
Can't get any worse.
Very well put.
It's like once you remove everything that was good about a company and whatever service culture they had, the only thing your replacement can possibly do is additive.
I'm shocked TravelinPenis did NOT blame trump for AA's woes. Shocked. It shows he can muster more than two brain cells if the need arises.
I don't fly American. How could they not be offering mattress pads on any of their J class flights? That is crazy to me.
I did get 2 sets of Nest PJs recently to/from EZE:
outbound : MIA-EZE (Feb 9th) in J , available upload request
inbound : EZE-JFK (Feb 24th) in F , also mattress pad