It’s a pretty exciting time when it comes to passenger experience announcements at American Airlines. In a separate post, I covered how the Fort Worth-based airline will be bringing back seat back screens on all mainline narrow body planes as of 2028.
That’s only part of the announcement, though, as the airline has also revealed plans to add a lot more premium seats across its entire narrow body fleet, and this is great news.
American growing premium seating from 25% to 40%
Unrelated to American’s relative “premium” position in the market, there’s no denying that one general industry trend has been the increase in premium seating demand, whether it’s for first or business class, or even for extra legroom economy.
So along those lines, American has announced that it plans to greatly increase its amount of premium seating across the narrow body fleet, as part of the same project that will see the airline install seat back entertainment.
American plans to significantly increase the number of first class and extra legroom economy seats (marketed as Main Cabin Extra) throughout its fleet. This project will come both by retrofitting existing aircraft, and by taking delivery of new aircraft with an updated configuration.
The airline states that currently around 25% of seats on narrow body aircraft are premium, while when this project is complete, 40% of seats will be premium. That’s a really meaningful change.
How many more premium seats is American installing?
American isn’t revealing the full details just yet of how the layout of various planes will be changing, though the airline is providing some information:
- American’s Boeing 737 MAX 10s will be delivered (as of 2029) with 24 first class seats, and American will also retrofit its Airbus A321neos with 24 first class seats (the project will start in late 2028); currently, you’ll find at most 20 first class seats on any American narrow body plane; this complements American currently retrofitting A319s and A320s to add a row of first class seats
- American will retrofit a majority of its narrow body fleet to meaningfully expand the number of Main Cabin Extra seats, so that there are more opportunities for elite members to assign these, and also for all passengers to purchase them
- American will also refresh the interiors of virtually all narrow body planes, including adding more storage, redesigned seats, and enhanced lighting
This is a change at American I’m excited about
If you ask me, American changing its cabin layouts is an even bigger announcement than the airline installing seat back TVs. One extreme point of frustration I’ve had with American is the lack of Main Cabin Extra seats.
American’s most common type of aircraft is the Boeing 737 (the 737-800s and 737 MAX 8s have identical layouts), and the planes have just 24 Main Cabin Extra seats. 12 of those seats are in exit rows, then there’s the bulkhead row (two of those seats are blocked until 24 hours out), and then there’s one more row of Main Cabin Extra.
It’s just ridiculous how hard it is to score one of those seats, especially if you’re traveling with family, and can’t sit in an exit row. Compare that to the same planes at United (which has 54 Economy Plus seats) and Delta (which has 36 Comfort+ seats). So I’m very much looking forward to that.
Meanwhile when it comes to the increase in the size of the first class cabin, it’s awesome to see the airline going for 24 first class seats on its larger narrow body planes. I think sooner rather than later that will become the norm in the US, as Delta is expected to install a similar number of first class seats on its upcoming Boeing 737 MAX 10s.
Bottom line
American Airlines has announced that it will greatly increase premium seating in its narrow body fleet. Beyond what has already been announced, the airline has committed to installing 24 first class seats on newly delivered Boeing 737 MAX 10s and on existing Airbus A321neos. The catch is that the project will only begin in late 2028, more than two years from now. Furthermore, the airline will greatly increase the number of Main Cabin Extra seats, which is long overdue.
Between this and plans to reintroduce seat back screens, it’s the single biggest passenger experience announcement we’ve seen from American in a very long time. The only issue is that we’ll have to be patient, as it’ll be the early 2030s (best case scenario) before this project is complete.
What do you make of American’s plans to increase premium seating?
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