American Airlines will be modifying their Airbus A319s to have an additional row of first class. They won’t be taking out coach seats – they’ll net be adding seats to the planes and reducing legroom.
The A319s that had been ordered by American Airlines prior to being taken over by US Airways management had seat back entertainment screens. These new, densified aircraft will no longer have seat back screens.
The planes have only 8 seats up front, compared to 16 on Boeing 737s and 20 on Airbus A321neos.
American has limited its revenue potential without enough first class seats to sell to passengers. It’s not that upgrades are tough on these planes – buying first class can be tough on many routes.
Legacy American Airlines Airbus A319 First Class, With Just 8 Seats And Entertainment Screens
It’s not just legroom that’s going to be squeezed on Airbus A319 planes to fit in more seats. They nip and tuck everywhere on the aircraft. For instance, this is the last row of the ‘densified’ Oasis configuration 737 that American Airlines flies.
They squeeze the lavatories for space. They squeeze the galleys for space. They’re even going to stick a flight attendant jump seat on the lavatory. Here’s a sketch from the crew manual:
And here’s the layout, showing the number 4 jump seat attached to the lav in the rear galley:
When American Airlines introduced smaller lavatories, with sinks nost deep enough so water sprayed back onto passengers and with doors that slammed into each other, then-CEO Doug Parker defended their cabin layout decisions as being not as bad as Delta’s, whom he mocked for a lavatory setup he thought was worse… putting in jumpseats that blocked the lavatory.
What did Delta do with these same lavs though, Delta had like the crew seat on the door or some ridiculous thing (cackles) that’s not a threat, I just.. I don’t know why I felt.. that’s really funny.. I don’t know why I felt compelled..
United now does this, with the Spaceflex lavatories they use on their Airbus A321. Here’s what it looks like:
With the A321N becoming more frequent, please keep this in mind.
byu/InformalCommittee507 inunitedairlines
Parker, though, doubled down and promised American Airlines would never do something like this,
Delta has done an amazing job with their product and their customer service. They get more seats on the same size airplane than we do. They do things for example like put flight attendant jump seats on the door of the restroom. I promise. You can’t sit in your jump seat if someone wants to use the restroom. We’re not ever gonna do anything like that.
Yet that’s exactly now what they’re doing. It’s not just customers who get squeezed at American Airlines – it’s flight attendants, too.
I’m old enough to remember where you could be comfortable on a Pan AM flight even to Japan. Flight attendants were always courteous and helpful. Ready to do anything to help your flight be more enjoyable. Entertainment, you had full screens for movies and they provided books for your children to read and even slippers so your feet could be more comfortable. I Miss the old days.
Bring back the weight restrictions for the FA.
There’s got to be something illegal about making the flight attendants sit on the lavatory seats. For one, there’s no safety belt. I imagine there’s other safety issues, too.
You can blame the CEO all you want, but if they fire him, the next guy will do the same or worse. The greedy shareholders want a great return and will elect a board who will appoint a CEO. AA is 98% collectively owned by you and me (through funds and individual stocks). So enjoy your ride.
This is exactly why I would rather drive for 12hrs than I had fly for 2. At 6’7″ tall there is no place to but my body, especially legs. I can just spread out in my 3/4 ton crew cab Ram pickup and drive in comfort.
This seems like much ado about nothing.
I could see being upset if the new A321 XLR’s had this set up (like Iberia’s do.)
A319’s mostly do short haul, sub 3 hour flights.
They only have 3 FA’s.
So one will be in the front and two in the back. Suring cruise. There are still two spare jump seats for the FA’s to sit in besides the one on the lav door.
The FA’s must really hate CRJ-700’s where the rear jump seat pulls out in front of the lav door.
Cue more APFA whining.
It is getting worse! Even European flight from Rome to Philadelphia I couldn’t get on!! Who works there is horrible are they American employees??? They had no knowledge at all. I had to buy a ticket on Southwest to get home.. DISGRACE!! These CEOS are worthless! Get millions of dollars ruin a Company that has been around 100yrs they get there severance pay again in 10/ 20 million and say goodbye and another company hires them!! Flight attendants no where to sit.. soon there will be no flight attendants and CEOS and board members will be RICHER!!
Ummm… Parker resigned as CEO in 2023, Chairman shortly after that the Chair of the board. Not sure what his years old rambling has to do with anything.
Guess I’ll be flying other airlines and not AA Dallas as my monthly business trips. Flight attendants getting treated like this is terrible
These Companies keep on biting the hands that feeds them and then when the public gets fed up with them and they go broke, the government bails them out with our tax dollars… the government should let them go broke so they learn… we keep on letting them abuse us. Don’t fly them!! Fly cheap airlines, at least you get what you pay for :-).
Shame, shame making those stewards set on toilet seats. If they sit on them you and your family should have to sit on them also. You should have to serve them also.
I’m not using that airline any more.
As a 40 year veteran of aviation I have found that the airlines have decreased the pitch or distance between seats to the point a 6’5” individual is barely able to sit comfortably. I am like the one reader and travel by car and be comfortable and take my time and not have to deal with airports and all the BS at airports. A long boycott is the only way to stop this insanity.. Also the crew seat on the door will increase greatly maintenance costs
The author of this article needs to start using spellcheck!
The corporate greed is out of control. The consolidation of power and elimination of competition is truly at the heart of the problem. When we few or no other options, they have us where they want us. We can thank our spineless elected officials for this.
AA A319’s were already a POS. Where did they get those?
@Craig Jones — No union label today, sir?
If I recall correctly, AA acquired some a319s from US Airways, and others from Frontier… (Gary even posted about it back on September 10, 2018). Ironically, back then, Gary said it was an ‘improvement.’ Bah!
However, I wouldn’t knock the a319, generally, because it is indeed a versatile aircraft, especially for challenging airports, shorter runways, mountainous areas, etc. AA is just being a little greedy here, forcing additional seats to pad their profit margins.
It’s this kind of stuff that gets flight attendants to seek other jobs.
Who flies AA anymore? My AA card hasn’t been used in two years – everything I read about AA management and service priorities has earned it my “America’s Worst Airline” award again. Our biggest airline is our biggest industry embarrassment.
First of all, there is a seat belt for the FAs on the jumpseat that is on the Lav door. If we are in the jump seat, more than likely, the seat belt sign is ON. Therefore, passengers should NOT be getting up to use the Lav. IF, they really need to use the Lav, there is another one right next to the one the FA is occupying the jump seat on. And if you don’t want to fly AA because of this, then you probably shouldn’t be flying on other airlines as well.
That’s the beauty of Market Power. Deregulation is sold as enabling competition and while companies are consolidating there’s often deals to be had but eventually things settle down to a few players who start to strangle the market, squeezing every dime of profit they can and eventually compromising the product. Government becomes an accomplice with its only real function to ensure that the barrier to entry for competitors — especially foreign ones — is kept high and to intimidate passengers (in the name of ‘security’) into being unable to complain.
Delta might have FAs sit on lavatory doors but they also have more FAs like dedicated attendants for Premium Economy, etc.
In the next version, they could consider affixing a jumpseat harness to the toilet itself, rendering it an FAA-approved takeoff and landing station for the flight attendant.
AA isn’t worth the price anymore. Tell me something you get with them that you don’t get with Spirit Airlines. I would rather fly spirit to be honest. I have been a loyal customer for 20 years with AA and where has it gotten me? I have been flying with them round trip to the middle east like clockwork every 35 days for 20 years. I now get 10% of the miles I used to and it’s been 7 years since I have gotten an upgrade. They should work on value.
So the rumor about them revisiting the domestic IFE decision seems to be incorrect as this would have been the time to test deployment of it.