Rejoice: American Stops Collecting Bang & Olufsen Headphones Early

While minor in the scheme of things, here’s something that long haul premium cabin passengers on American Airlines will certainly appreciate.

American changing premium cabin headphone policy

American offers Bang & Olufsen headphones in first and business class on long haul flights. That’s a really nice feature, as it’s rare to see airlines offer such nice headphones in premium cabins (even on top airlines).

The one annoyance is that crews collect those headphones well before landing, so premium cabin passengers often can’t enjoy the entertainment with those headphones for the last 30-45 minutes of a flight. Crews do hand out cheap, disposable earbuds, but that’s hardly an ideal alternative.

So there’s some great news on this front. As of April 23, 2025, passengers in premium cabins can leave their headphones at their seats before deplaning, as they’ll no longer be collected before landing. This will initially apply to passengers on all US inbound flights, as well as Hawaii Flagship Service and American Flagship Service flights. Meanwhile it’ll launch for international flights departing the US as of later this year.

American shares that this is also great for flight attendants, who will be able to focus on taking care of passengers during the flight, as part of the company’s “commitment to enhancing the customer experience.”

My take on this subtle but positive change

First of all, I’m curious about the logistics of this policy change. Obviously the reason that headphones have been collected before landing is to make sure that no customers try to take the headphones off the aircraft (not that they’d be that useful, given that they’re wired).

Will American have some way to still track these before passengers deplane? Are they adding some sort of additional signage to indicate that the headphones can’t be removed from the aircraft? Is American just prepared for more headphones to potentially go missing? I’m curious how American is approaching this internally.

Second of all, I’m really getting the sense that American is starting to take customer experience a bit more seriously. It seems like this was genuinely motivated by wanting to eliminate one of the minor pain points of the customer experience on long haul flights.

We know that American realizes it needs to become more premium, and realizes it needs to compete on customer service, and not just schedule and price. Now, that doesn’t mean American will suddenly install seat back TVs on all planes, but we’re seeing this in other ways. For example, American is introducing free Wi-Fi, has improved its million miler program, and more. Of course the airline has a long way to go, but I’m happy to see some generally positive steps being taken.

Bottom line

American will soon stop collecting premium cabin Bang & Olufsen headphones before landing. This policy will change as of April 23 for all flights to or within the US, while it’ll change as of later this year for flights to international destinations. This is hardly the biggest development ever, but it’s definitely a minor frustration that many passengers have had.

Anyone else happy to see this headphone policy change?