I wrote about the new business class seat that American would select five years ago, and suggested in March 2021 that it was looking like the one they were choosing. It was announced in September 2022.
Credit: American Airlines
When American announced new service to Brisbane a year ago, in response to massive subsidies from the Queensland government, that was supposed to commence with a brand new Boeing 787-9 with these new seats. That didn’t happen.
Credit: American Airlines
Boeing has had production issues, and deliveries of their Boeing 787-9s to American have been delayed. But American couldn’t have flown these planes even if Boeing could have delivered them. That’s because the business class suites hadn’t been signed off on by the FAA, on something of a technicality.
- To accommodate passengers with disabilities, regulations require that a portion of seats in the cabin have a movable armrest that “moves or folds out of the way” while the seat is upright, so that a passenger can be transferred from an aisle wheelchair into the seat.
- Like many similar business class seats, the armrests don’t fold up and out of the way. Instead, the armrests lower to the same level as the seat. They are able to support 500 pounds of weight. There’s no problem moving passengers across from the aisle into the seat.
These seats accomplish the objective of the rule, but do it in a different fashion, as many seats on various airlines have done for many years. However, American had to request an exemption from the specific rule on the basis of an “equivalent alternative determination.” And after several months, the FAA has finally granted that request.
- This request has been granted only for American’s Boeing 787-9s and their 777-300ERs.
- So far, the airline has not announced plans to put the seat into anything other than the new delivery -9s (leaving older seats in place on existing aircraft) and the 777-300ERs they’re going to retrofit and remove first class from.
- However, if American should desire to put the seat into Boeing 787-8s or Boeing 777-200s, they’re going to have to go back to the Department of Transportation for separate prior approval.
Credit: American Airlines
In addition, the airline has to provide “specialized training to their employees and contractors, as well as the employees and contractors of any other entity that will be transferring persons with a mobility impairment to or from the seats” on how to move the armrests, where the seat controls are, and how to move the passenger from the aisle into the seat. This training must be refreshed annually, with training records maintained and all complaints forwarded to the agency.
Credit: American Airlines
This isn’t the first bureaucratic hurdle American Airlines faced with these new seats. Although airlines put doors on business class seats all the time, there’s actually a rule forbidding doors inside the passenger cabin. You don’t want passengers to have to walk through doors going from coach to premium economy or business class when they’re trying to evacuate in an emergency.
Of course, these doors aren’t those doors and so exemptions are regularly granted. American requested theirs in September 2022.
About a month later the FAA informed them that their request would not be considered because the letterhead used for their electronic submission did not include the airline’s headquarters address at 1 Skyview Dr, Fort Worth, Texas or (optional) fax number, as required by 14 CFR § 11.81.
The FAA knows where American Airlines is located, of course. There is literally an American Airlines certificate management office of the FAA. And, ironically, the FAA was able to reply by letter to American Airlines to deny consideration of the request. Ironically, the FAA’s letter failed to include a date on it.
Last year, of course, United Airlines was forced to ground a fleet of planes because the no smoking signs did not turn off, even though that’s how modern no smoking signs are designed since smoking is never allowed on board.
An old regulation, from back when smoking was permitted, required crew to be able to turn them on and off. United forgot to ask for an exemption, and flights had to be cancelled since they couldn’t fly those planes until they got one.
Forgive me if I have some skepticism that every one of the more than 57,000 employees of the Department of Transportation (of which 45,000 are employed at the FAA) is engaged in critical safety work, when certain probationary employees of the agency are let go.
(HT: Paxex Aero)
Bureaucracy and power ego trips at its best!!!
yes, it is government at its worst but AA should know to follow the rules
I think bureaocratic delays like this will be fewer now that the adults are in charge of the government once again.
That should therefore mean that 7 789 will be available over the next ~60 days or so. N842AA-N848AN. These have been completed at Boeing (the 1st since April 2024) – 3 are currently in Flight testing verification.
Unless of course AA want to slow roll them further to lower immediate lease payments…
“yes, it is government at its worst but AA should know to follow the rules”
How is it possible that someone can maintain those two ideas in their brain simultaneously?
Which is why there should be mass firings at the FAA. Lack of common sense gets filled with moronic bureaucrats.
The firings won’t fix the issue. What needs to happen is a new leadership is put in place with an instruction to evaluate all of the existing rules. For a start focus on every instance in the last X years where approval was withheld and decide if that made sense. If not (like some of the examples in this article), then that rule needs to be updated. It seems that there are plenty of rules that need to go or be modernized.
You need the staff to do this analysis, so firing everyone is not a good idea. However once you go down this road, if any staff are being barriers to the new worldview (there will be some), then they get axed.
That is how any rational business would go about this work
Theu should never have eetired their 757 this early
many airlines around the world are facing seat certification delays. It isn’t just AA or because of regulators
Feds belong in the unemployment line.
This is right out of the tired familiar playbook of those who attack government. Find one or two examples of silliness or bureaucratic incompetence, and then generalize to justify cuts targeted not at the silliness but at the core mission of the agency. It’s up there with cutting “waste and fraud” that simehow never really gets identified beyond anecdotes like this. Let’s be clear: Trump is not cutting USAID to reduce fraud — he’s attacking the core mission of achieving diplomatic wins through aid and soft power versus carriers. Trump is not cutting hundreds of wildfire firefighters at the Forest Service because they’re woke bureaucrats — it’s actually unclear why, but one thing for sure is that when those firefighters — who have to be hired and onboarded now to prepare for summer fire season — aren’t there, he’ll take ZERO responsibility for the fires and look for someone else to blame.
Could Federal staff be cut somewhat — responsibly, thoughtfully and through the budget process ? Sure — but that’s ACTUAL WORK. He’d have to — gasp — negotiate with Democrats in Congress.
There will be real prices paid for the half-baked untargeted cuts he’s making — and he will take no responsibility for it at all. It’s up to voters to hold him and the Republicans accountable in 2026.
Delta follows the rules according to Tim Dunn.
Mayor Pete was so bad at his job, people knew who the Secretary of Transportation was.
He could sure take leave, though.
Don’t worry. King ConOld I will fix all our problems. :Rolls eyes.
So do nothing about the rules themselves, but rather fire a large chunk of the employees tasked with the bureaucratic mess of following said rules, and perhaps analyzing a correction to them. That for sure will fix the delays! That makes total sense ::eyeroll::
Boo! The current government has managed to make things worse not better. It’s only just begun. He is shooting his own government in the foot, thus the American people. king trump has already completely ruined our reputation across the world. This is not a good thing. Boeing beware!
Is the A321XLR suite included in the approval?
When if something happened and family was onboard you would be yelling “why didn’t the FAA look out for the flying public’s safety.
Every person as too sides to the same argument, it just depends on it you or family is on board or not.
Be glad we have the FAA.
Yeah, I don’t blame the FAA—this is on American Airlines. They got sloppy. They let down passengers.
And here I was told that there’s regulatory capture by the circular hiring between the industry and the regulators. I guess the agency was independent after all. Huh!
Sure, it’s easier to say ‘government bad,’ blame regulators, then have DOGE destroy agencies and fire the experts; but soon we’ll all wonder why nothing is safe, actually ‘efficient,’ or even ‘works’ anymore.
Feast on whatever propaganda you’d like, but self-governing, however imperfect, is better than oligarchs or corporate overlords deciding all this stuff for us. I still prefer incremental improvement over the extremes of total control or anarchy that is coming.
Forgive me when I think that firing new, young employees who bring fresh ideas and employees that have recently been promoted (i.e., probatori employees), while leaving the deadwood employed, is the opposite of what you need to improve an organization that needs change.
Also forgive me when I think that because of these random firings no intelligent college graduate will send their resume to a public agency given that he/she/they could be fired FOR NO REASON at all other than political theater.
Common sense and all. Political theater at it’s worst. Giving the impression you’re doing something when what you’re doing is making a situation worse.