In late 2025, we saw American Airlines start to take delivery of Airbus A321XLRs, the carrier’s new long range, narrow body planes (though they’re initially being used primarily for premium transcontinental flights). These planes have new business class seats, and one of the features was supposed to be that they feature privacy doors.
Initially the airline wasn’t actually allowed to use those doors, though that’s now changing. However, it’s only happening over a few months.
American gets A321XLR business class doors certified
Aircraft seat certification is a real pain nowadays for airlines, and can greatly delay new aircraft. In the case of American’s new A321XLR business class seats, they fortunately got certified pretty quickly… for the most part. The catch is that the seats have privacy doors, but up until now, they’ve been locked, and couldn’t be used by passengers.
That has now finally changed. As reported by JonNYC, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has finally certified the doors for use, meaning these can now be opened and closed. However, the business class doors on all planes won’t be unlocked overnight.
Instead, the doors are initially being unlocked on one plane, with the registration code N302NY, which is also the most recent A321XLR that the airline took delivery of. Then over the coming weeks (“through the fall”) the remaining planes will also have these suite doors unlocked, but with a phased approach. American notes how tech ops has to activate the doors.
Ultimately doors at business class seats aren’t some sort of a game changer, though if the planes have them installed, then it’s of course nice to have the option of using them.
It’s perhaps interesting to note that FAA requirements require more flight attendants when planes have suites with doors. You need one flight attendant for every 50 passengers (or fraction thereof), and then an additional flight attendant if there are doors. So since these planes are equipped with 155 seats and suites have doors, they require five flight attendants. Then again, that’s the minimum number of flight attendants with which American staffs these flights anyway.
I’m curious why the door activation takes so long
American only has six A321XLRs, so I’m curious, does anyone have any theories as to why it’s taking months to unlock these doors? The doors are physically on the planes, so my assumption was just that the “key” to unlock the doors wasn’t being given to crews, to ensure that they weren’t accidentally used.
Is there more to this, and why is tech ops required to get involved? Like, how heavy is the maintenance required to complete this project? Or even with the FAA certifying the seats, is there some additional work required with each plane?
American has actually had pretty good luck with seat certification, all things considered. United still doesn’t have its new Dreamliner business class seat doors certified, while Delta seemingly can’t get its new A321neo seats certified, to the point that the airline is likely ditching its seat manufacturer.
Bottom line
The FAA has finally certified American’s new A321XLR business class suite doors. Up until now, these doors have been locked due to lack of certification, but that has finally changed.
However, don’t expect them to be in use across the fleet effective immediately. While one plane now has the doors unlocked (and it should start flying passengers today), the other planes will only be activated in phases, “through the fall.”
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