When I first covered American getting these large regional jets, I noted the press release said nothing about internet. I tried to confirm whether the planes would have internet or not, and the folks at American I spoke with hadn’t heard anything about equipping them with internet.
It turns out that there will eventaully have internet. I suspect this is a decision that was made after the initial aircraft order. Current aircraft deliveries don’t come internet-equipped.
However, they do have 37-inch pitch in first class which is fairly close to mainline standard.
Hat tip to AAdvantageGeek, here’s a video tour of the aircraft. The video was posted by the Chicago Tribune and their interest stems presumably that the aircraft will predominantly be service Chicago routes. (American’s revenue out of Chicago tends to lag United’s, and so a reduction in mainline service there may make sense — but it will be interesting to see how new management at American treats such a competitive environment where they aren’t the number one carrier in the future.)
The video mentions seat power — “one for one” in first class meaning each seat up front will have power. They don’t mention the extent of power available throughout the rest of the cabin, so presumably that’s less than one power port per seat.
Indeed, while the show first class and the legroom in main cabin extra they don’t show standard main cabin seating at all. Heh.
Nonetheless, large regional jets mean more amenities like a second lavatory and overhead bins that will allow rollaboard bags rather than requiring that they be checked planeside.
Only one side of the aircraft has such a bin however so one imagines that boarding order will matter here to avoid needing to check bags for planeside collection. American refers to this as valet service, though I prefer Alaska Airlines’ “A La Cart” nomenclature.
Check out this extensive review by a customer who toured the plane for more detail on the experience.
Sounds great. I think the Embraer 70/75/90 is one of the most comfortable narrow-body planes in the sky.
Good to see. I’ve flown US 175s a couple times on routes like DCA-MHT (also operated by Republic) and greatly enjoyed it. The coach seating is much better than CRJs and I think the F seats are more comfortable than most in the mainline AA 737s.
Do you know if there are any plans to streamline/standardize equipment specifications between the US Airways and AA brands? For example, as I mentioned before, US runs these 175s in their confiuration. Now it seems that the AA ones, albeit newer, will be slightly differently configured (I think there are only 8 F seats on the US planes). I am just curious as to if you have heard anything – will AA and US maintain their respective legacy vendors and layouts or will they align them and streamline their equipment specification? Are there any large equipment orders in the pipeline that could be affected? It seems it would make sense for them to minimize the diversity of equipment they are operating.
No ovens on the E-75 I see, so cold meals only. Well AA get the E90/95 jets?
Given that all US Airways Embraer 170/175 jets have wifi, I would imagine the new AA would move in that direction in short order.
To me, the only reason these new “large, roomier regional jets” are news is because AA lags soooo far behind the rest of the industry in terms of this aspect of their fleet. With the exception of the in-flight power, AA is only now finally catching up to what US/DL/UA have been providing for years with these planes. Gary, don’t let your AA tinted glasses impair your ability to see that this is a move going from crappy to the standard, and not the standard to something amazing!
What Andrew said.
Are these the planes DL plans to use for its hourly shuttle service between SFO and LAX?
@nsx at FlyerTalk — Yes, Delta’s new west coast Shuttle will be operated with E175s. The existing east coast Shuttle routes (LGA-BOS/DCA/ORD) are also operated with a mix of E175s and the slightly smaller E170 (69 seats vs. 76).