American Airlines is launching business class suites with doors on new Boeing 787-9s that they take delivery of. They’re also retrofitting Boeing 777-300ERs, removing first class and adding these new suites.
That retrofit plan is called Project Olympus. Bulkhead business class will have extra space, and will be treated to elevated amenities.
Credit: American Airlines
These Boeing 777-300ERs are getting a lot more seats – and a lot more premium seats – 84 to 114 total premium seats, without losing any coach seats. I will miss having a true first class product on the airline’s flagship aircraft.
Boeing 777-300ER First Class
Current configuration:
- 8 first class
- 52 business class
24 premium economy
- 216 coach
New configuration:
- 70 business class
- 44 premium economy
- 216 coach
Credit: American Airlines
That’s an increase of 30 seats, all in business and premium economy which means seats that take up more room. And all they’re giving up is 8 first class seats to get that. In order to do this, it means that current seats have to be squeezed.
Aviation watchdog JonNYC expects the aircraft to lose one lavatory, and to reduce the amount of space each business class and Main Cabin Extra (extra legroom coach) seat gets by one inch.
On this, I'd speculate:
business class goes from 43" to 42" pitch (entirely new seat-type so doesn't mean anything I don't think), MCE goes from 35" to 34", one less lavThen, the lav in front of the L1 door becomes two lavs maybe, lots of optimization of existing space to..
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) August 23, 2024
I had heard the same thing about reduced premium seat pitch, and American Airlines declined to disabuse me of that understanding.
I’m excited to see the new business class product. Even with one less inch, these new Adient Ascent seats should be excellent. And having more premium seats should ultimately be good for award and upgrade space, too. I do not like squeezing extra legroom coach, however. They’ve already done that on their domestic narrowbody fleet and those seats don’t really seem better than Southwest’s anymore. However one less inch in Main Cabin Extra would still be competitive with similar offerings from United and Delta.
Meh. Not progress. I like the smallness of the old 1st class format.
70 J seats? They going ham! Award bookers rejoice
No confidence in those AA management clowns
Maybe my math isn’t so good but I don’t see how losing one inch and one Lav can possibly pay for all these extra seats in business and premium economy. Something is missing here.
@ David p – those First Class suites took up A LOT of real estate (sq ft).
We’ve only seen actual confirmation of number of J and W seats but nothing official on Y (I’ve looked everywhere). My bet is that the Y number will be revised to something closer to 190 from 216. Looking at how Air France did their 773 (non F config) gives us some clues as to how AA’s layout could look but with a larger J footprint in zones 1 and 2…. I do think that they will remove a lav and possibly optimize some galley space as well.
70J seats. Pffft. Delta’s E175 is more profitable.
Will the AA brain trust do a full size mockup this time or will it be another debacle like the last time? AA has stated they won’t be spending any more money than they have to (haha) on customer experience. Yet they wonder why the flying public is out of love with them because they decided that executive compensation is more important than having a hard (or soft) product that is better than mediocre.
None of this will mean very much until they spend the time and money to upgrade the soft product (food quality, quantity and service) to go along with these new seats. I travel Internationally every 2 weeks. I’ve not heard many complaints about the hard product (seats, wifi, entertainment) but EVERYONE complains about the food and wine (and often the F.A. attitudes.). Last week, the best red wine on offer to Paris was a Malbec that was selling at retail in my local Kroger for $10.99. In my experience, they are not competitive in Business Class with ANY trans-oceanic carrier. Zero. None. The sooner they invest in the soft product, the faster the hard product will pay off. Right now, it’s embarrassing.
Having flown on what should be a very similar seat on Qatar Airways, I’m not looking forward to this at all.
Despite their age, the seats on American’s 777-300ER aircraft are still very good and I would choose them every time over the seat I had on QR.
Who cares! Another tired airline story!!!
So, what you are saying Gary is that AA continues to downgrade the experience. Fewer lavs, less pitch. Tell me again why I would want that experience? More and more becoming Greyhound of the sky.
Losing first class is no biggie as most airlines are going to all business. Now having more lines at the lav and of course coach passengers now trying to use business class lavs (which supposedly on International flights passengers aren’t allowed to use lavs in the cabin they’re not ticket) will become an even bigger issue.
@Gillian – they did do a mock up, right before Covid. I was one of the testers.
The bathroom situation for all passengers on this plane type will be much worse than is currently the situation.
I must say from experience that losing an inch is always bad. AA should pay attention.
Same ol’ story from USAirmerican, cut, cut, cut. I agree, less lavs for more people is a “GREAT” idea! What idiots! Again, I ask how a CEO can lose 1.5 billion because of bad business decisions regarding their booking system and still keep his job?!?!? It’s INSANE they are still in control of the continued destruction of that airline. It is so sad. That kind of incompetence would not be tolerated anywhere else. Even if they do FINALLY get rid of Parker and posse, their golden parachutes will softly land them on the ground for destroying a once great airline.
Anyone on here old enough to remember Continental Airlines Business First? Corporations will support their employees paying Business Class but not First Class fares. Almost 90% of the First Class cabin is occupied by no fee upgrades and non revenue employees.
Kind of amusing how some on here will talk about the Oasis Mockups at AA then ignore how DL had the same F up with their airbus reconfigures (bulkhead F with horrible legroom) but never fixed it or even acknowledge it… when AA not only responded to customer feedback on the same issue but also fixed the issue.
then assume that AA’s new 77W will be upgrade heaven while ignoring that AA has JV partners at the #1 business class destinations on earth.
But apparently everyone is a world-class expert on lav-seat ratio
So you reference premium economy – and then talk about reduced seat pitch in main cabin extra. I’m confused – those are two different things – mice is simply coach with more legroom – pe is actually a different seat and additional amenities above coach.
Compare it to UA:
70 business class [UA 60]
44 premium economy [UA 24]
216 coach [UA 266]
It looks doable, but trading 5 UA Y rows to get 30 J and PE must make things tighter in AA. But UA offers 62 Y+ seats vs. 28 for AA, so. . .
Bunch of people complaining about bathrooms. I’ll gladly take standing 5 mins in the galley in exchange for potentially more J award availability with such a huge cabin.
Between L1 and L2 on the 77W, AA fits 16 seats vs UA’s 28 seats. That alone buys them a 12 J seats. Now I don’t like the Polaris seat as much, it’s clearly a lot tighter, but not hard to see how AA has a lot of space optimization that can come from eliminating F.
US mainline carriers are literally trash. People will debate which is the worst but I can make a great case that it’s American. United might beat your about the head when they drag you off the flight, here and there, but American is the only airline currently that will without warning email you in the sky that they have bumped you from your connection— even tho you are landing before it departs. Booking a flight on American is more like a suggestion.
It’s the old low cost carrier America West Airlines masquerading as what used to be full service American Airlines.
300 seats? Does this aircraft even belong in AA’s portfolio anymore?
The A330 made so much more sense for AA.
Am just picturing the two FAs AA will allocate to the PE cabin that’s doubled in size failing to give the pax any kind of “premium” experience and the pax realizing they’d have been better off sat at the back in Y and saving a grand.
There are customers (businesses) that actually pay for tickets, to get a supposedly premium seat. Then there are the award seekers. Which one is more valuable to the airline? The one that has signed up for the airline affiliated credit card. The airline knows it can do the minimum for a premium cabin experience since it is “free” for many of those occupying the seats.
I was scheduled to fly PHX—LHR on a 777-300 this November. AA has since canceled that flight for the Winter because they are taking the aircraft out of service for the upgrade. But they were kind enough to automatically rebook me through JFK with a 45-minute layover.
Seems kind of odd that their premium economy is offering the same pitch as the basic econmy on a lot of the Asian airlines. That seems like it wouldn’t be a very good value.
@ Gary — More J seats should be an improvement. I hope the layout is better than BAs, which is a bit over-crowded.
Looks like they are keeping the 43″ pitch.
The savings are from eliminating first and increasing density in Economy.
So AA hasn’t confirmed the seat pitch of the new seating arrangements, nor if they are removing any lavatories, but your rank speculation yields a headline that says they are surely doing both.
Way to poke the crowd for no reason.
More bad food and fewer johns to use. should be the other way around.
@wes, AA never flew the -300 PHX-LHR. The -200 was on that route. I flew it many times.
I could see the lav at the L2 door going away, and the closet at L1. That’s gonna free up a ton of space.
From looking at the comments for coach in SeatGuru, ten wide in a 777 just doesn’t do it for me. No reason for me to even consider flying American. People also complain that the arm rests do not go up. If a person buys an extra seat for comfort, they cannot get the comfort that they are buying.
The first class already didn’t have room in the overhead AT ALL for the window seats in the first row.
Is it true that first class FA’s will now have to spend 14:30 of the 15 hours from SYD-LAC ignoring even more customers in business?
To better understand who’s getting a lot less space, let’s break it down.
The B777-300ER has 4 cabins, Business class being the highest rank should start from the first cabin.
Most Airlines can fit 28 business class seats in cabin 1.
AA Fits 44 business class seats in cabin 2.
28 + 44 =72
Note that AA plans to retain the galley position at door 2 (it goes deep into cabin 1 rather than being centralised) this should allow them fit 22 seats in cabin 1 and 48 seats in cabin 2 giving a total of 70.
Premium economy starts at the Beginning of cabin 3 (similar to the old BA, non-club suite B777-300ER and current AA B777-300ER)
The current is 28 Premium economy +100 Economy.
I predict the new cabin 3 layout to be 44 premium economy + 86 economy (it’s either the economy class loses half an inch here or the premium economy loses an inch)
For the last cabin, AA have a sizeable galley in front of door 4 (the bigger than normal size deletes 8 economy seats compared to other carriers) it’s size will be reduced to regain those 8 seats (those rows with 2 seats per row will go to 3 seats per row).
Towards the back, AA have a large open space galley there too, it will have to go for the more compact galley with two lavatory flanking both sides.
Where the B777 tail starts to tapper, (and seats rows reduce from 3-4-3 to 2-4-2)
AA currently have 4 rows of this 2-4-2 layout (2 lavatory occupy the space of two seats at each side of the plane, they will remove those for more seats) this will now be reduced to 3 rows of 2-4-2 seats.
The current layout have 116 economy seats, this will go up to 130 economy seats (similar to what BA have on the current club suite equipped B777-300ER)
86 economy seats in cabin 3 plus 130 in cabin 4 gives a total of 216 economy seats.
In short, the number of seats stated is possible but at a cost of premium economy and economy class comfort, not business class.
OP plz keep their before & after cabin seat maps to compare in a future article. Thx!
Doors on the business class suites is a big plus, as is the huge increase in both business and PE. No domestic airlines have first class anymore, so I don’t see the huge deal, and getting main cabin extra to what DL and UA have is also not a big deal. To see more premium seats than Delta and UA is a big plus. Now, they really need to take a look at their hard product. I can understand bargain brand wine in coach, but should be better brands in PE and outstanding brands in business. Why AA keeps trying to sell less for more is beyond me. That’s not a strategy, it’s a pipe dream. Hope that FA attitudes make a massive improvement, up to that of DL and UA, once they approve a new contract. Right now their attitudes are absolutely horrible. Literally they are shooting themselves in their own feet!
We can all agree the USAir management should have bought Spirit because this is the way they think. It trickles down the infli..no well honest is catching a taxi for me now. I just look out the window and don’t bother to interact with these obnoxious Flight Attendants. Not all but they tip the scale sadly. I’m an Executive Platinum member of that flies international economy because there’s no value you are getting with these business class fare. A seat? No thanks. I have a window in Y section and I go straight to sleep. . They bring the meals and slop it down lol smh. Sometimes they are pitching it at you. In those times I tell them keep it. The food is already horrible already. I always say the flight needs economy passengers don’t be mistaken by that..sure they make money in J cares because the customer gets absolutely no return on their investment. They walk off the flight deflated lol.
They can reconfigure the physical space all day, American needs to reconfigure their business model to bilateral loyalty. Be loyal to those of us who actually pay for seats. Fix the service experience, demand the FA provide at least descent service. AA they don’t even acknowledge EPs anymore, on domestic product in economy they use to before COVID-19 give EP a snack. British Airways don’t acknowledge emerald members either. Cathay Pacific and Qatar are leading examples on inflight service. American leadership needs to spend sometime observing non USA based carriers to understand importance of customer experience and bilateral loyalty.
How stupid is this? Not only are you squeezing more people in and together, but now less bathrooms. Talk about rats crammed in a sinking ship! People angry about being so tight together with no space to breath. Fights on planes, and here AA goes and does this! Bet they never did a mockup and really saw how bad this is designed. Analyst drew it up on a computer probably, like the 737 Oasis. Which is another bad decision done by AA and Isom!
Will they, AA, never learn? Get rid of the problem child, Robert I some, and his cronies. Pure bad decisions, one after another.
@josh gates
Funny
Oasis was actually drawn and mocked up by Scott Kirby and his cronies that he took to United
He was the one in charge of it. Isom was still coo
In my opinion and from what I have read,it seems to me that the management of American Airlines does not comes up with good ideas that would result in customer satisfaction . Ex:taking widebodies off the transcon routes from Miami and JFK to LAX. What was the,latest fiasco where they ended up retro fitting aircraft twice,rather than using a cabin mock up.
It’s good to have more premium seats but we all know how Project Oasis went.
Hold off the applause until the seat specs are revealed.
I recently took American’s very old B777-200 from JFK to HND, and one of the J lavs was ENORMOUS—you know, like the size long haul J and F lavs used to be. That was THE MOST luxurious experience I’ve had in a while on North American Airlines. I’d much rather have that than J seats with doors…
@NYC212US the disability accessible lav…