American Airlines will debut its new Boeing 787-9P aircraft – new delivery planes with all-new interiors – in about a week. It will initially fly Chicago to Los Angeles and then Chicago – London, before being added to routes from Philadelphia.
And we now know the stats on seats in the cabin. American Airlines publishes each of their aircraft’s features on its website – from the width of the seats to how much pitch (distance from seat back to seat back, a proxy for legroom) there is.
Here’s what American says about their existing Boeing 787-9s, for instance:
I’ve been sent a copy of the mockup for this page that’s expected to go live on June 1 for the new 787-9P by a new source. I am not sharing any of the other information they provided because I have yet to vet it, but this appears to be a mockup of the new page.
I’ve referred to the new plane, which features business class suites with doors and a new premium economy seat as offering a dense configuration. They find every last nook and cranny of space on the aircraft to squeeze in seats, which is how they’re about to fit in so many premium seats.
You’ll see that premium economy seats are being squeezed by half an inch, and coach seats are too. There’s less space between seats than before. I’m not sure how noticeable this will be, except to point out that American already offered less space than many airlines.
It’s typical for long haul planes to offer more space to passengers than domestic ones, so many airlines will have 32 inches or more between seats in coach and 38 inches in premium economy.
Business class shows seat width (unchanged from previous aircraft) but not seat pitch. I understand that pitch will vary between 42 and 44 inches for the new seats.
There are fewer seats overall on the “789P” but a lot more premium seats. The plane goes from 30 to 51 business class seats and 21 to 32 premium economy seats. Those take up more room, so they’re able to fit fewer seats overall – but they don’t want to give up more seats than they have to.
THE GHOST OF OASIS!
Yup, alright, sure, looking forward to trying this new cabin… (Anyway, Gary, get on the United/jetBlue news! C’mon, sir! What’r you waitin’ for! UA’s coming back to JFK!)
The title says legroom is being cut in coach because of business class. That is why AOC must be president. She will punish the rich, make them pay their fair share, hurt them, make them bleed. The top tax rate should be 200% and prison. If you earn more than 100k miles per year in a frequent flier program, you board last answer have to pay double for food.
“many airlines will have 32 inches or more between seats in coach”
…but not any of AA’s main competitors to Europe (the place they appear to use this the most and their largest intercontinental market by far). UA and DL are 31″, which are AA’s 2 biggest competitors. VS is 31″, AF is 31″, etc.
@derek — No. You mock, yet, once this 2nd Gilded Age is over, and a new Progressive Era emerges, much of the blatant corruption of the current administration must be held accountable. It’s not about legroom. And the folks taking advantage of us aren’t flying ‘business’ class; oligarchs fly private (and yes, I know, some politicians, both sides, do, too, but that’s not real issue either).
Logic says the space has to come from somewhere, so this is no surprise. The airframe is what it is.
No problem for me. I fly mainly business and some PE. 1/2 inch from PE will likely not be noticeable. As for coach let those that have to fly there suffer a little I don’t really care.
I don’t understand why in these articles American is seemingly always compared to the likes of JAL and Emirates and not United, their direct competitor. Who has the same space between seats or worse
Hey look, an article about airplane seating configurations on a blog about flying. I think I’ll comment about politics. :-P
Anyways, seems like they’re trying to encourage more business class flyers by making coach and premium economy more and more uncomfortable. It’s reached the point where flying coach is something I try to avoid at all costs, so they’re obviously succeeding.
@1990 you say I mock the situation. I do not.
I have flown business class with lie flat seats and privacy. When I did, I felt like a big shot, better than those trashy people in economy class. This is bad. I shouldn’t have felt that way but did. That is why the rich must be punished. Tax them to punish them. Taxation is a legal alternative to false arrest and beating.
No most European and U.S. airlines have 31” legroom in economy.
I’m on the initial flights out of O’Hare to LAX and back. PE west and Biz back east to Chicago. AA sent out an insanely inexpensive offer to be a tester for the 787-9P shakedown round-trip on June 5 before the late evening trip from ORD to LHR.
It is not that AA just squeezed other cabins’ pitch for more business class. Your table is missing the actual pitch for business class. Looking at the seatmaps, it appears business seats are squeezed together too.
@derek – If you look at the marginal tax rates over the past 75 years you’ll see that JFK lowered the maximum marginal tax rate for the rich from 90%. Sure, rich people found ways to screw the country over by evading taxes as they always do even before the reduction but 90% was pretty harsh. I don’t recall AOC suggesting returning to 90% rates, just making it so that the rich pay an equal proportion to the middle class. Interesting that the rich continue to try to weasel out of paying their part except for Warren Buffett. Please link to the 200% tax rate or are you just making stuff up?
AUS-AMS using AA miles:
B-777 115,000 miles R/T J
B-787 457,500 miles R/T J (same day connect thru ORD or DFW)
I LOVE the B-777!!!
The rip-off fares for one way travel using miles or $$$ … it’s less expensive for me to buy an advanced purchase R/T than buy a One Way and use a Non-Rev pass for one direction. Plus I’m not on Standby or heaven forbid Economy center seat.
@One Trippe — I’m with you on the 777 (and AMS). Beautiful aircraft, excellent airport.
@derek — Alrighty then. If you do feel strongly about progressive tax codes, I would also recommend strong unions and worker protections as well, for the social benefits, and also as an alternative to vigilantism (less ‘frontier justice,’ more collective bargaining…).
I wonder if the 0.2″ increase in economy width will feel noticeable. Certainly an area of ‘growth’ for America.
I think 0.5″ reduction in premium economy is not significant. Still better than most domestic first offerings which have trended towards 36–37″ and that USA customers are now used to.
I will say that going from 34 MCE seats to 18 MCE seats is not exactly terrific news – as an AA elite I love getting MCE seats for free when booking medium-haul with the family, they work really well for instance on a daytime flight to London. No great interest in paying the upcharge for PE, although I don’t think they’ll have any trouble filling a 32 seat PE cabin.
I think the real question is how many of the economy seats are 30.5″ and how many are 31″. If it’s just 31″ at the exits and 30.5″ everywhere else… kind of starts to feel a little tight on a medium-haul flight. Not the end of the world and still 0.5″ more than most AA seats, but easy enough for economy passengers to choose a different plane for now as these roll out.
Final note – what really matters the most to me in economy on a medium-haul economy flight is the padding for one’s undercarriage in the seat. I’d happily fly AA at 30.5″ if there is real padding versus, say, BA at 31″ where the padding on their new planes is atrocious.
All in though, these cabins look great – looking forward to flying them!