Just about every American Airlines meal I can think of in domestic first class or premium economy has come with bread. Usually it’s a roll of some kind, but sometimes it’s pita bread. Even enchiladas come with bread (not chips)!
However, American Airlines is testing a change to see whether customers will abide losing bread. According to aviation watchdog JonNYC, American will be dropping bread from coach and premium economy flights from Charlotte, Raleigh and Boston to London Heathrow.
AA: So the A321XLR is obviously not going to have as much space as a widebody.Some amenities are going to suffer. AA is testing getting rid of bread and butter in coach and premium economy, on widebody flights from CLT/BOS/RDU to LHR to see what that does for the footprint vs the customer experience
— JonNYC (@xjonnyc.bsky.social) May 7, 2025 at 5:02 PM
The idea is to test and see how much customers complain. They know that they are going to be moving a lot of international flying to their Airbus A321XLR narrowbody aircraft, once those start to arrive. And those planes are going to be tight. They’ve packed in the seats. They have full-sized overhead bins. There’s just not a lot of room for passengers to move around outside of their seats like you’d have in a widebody aircraft. And there’s not a lot of room in the galleys, either.
Flight attendants won’t have much room to work, and there isn’t a lot of room to store food. Yet these planes are going to operate on longer routes that will often have two meal services. So the airline is trying to get ahead of things, figuring out what they can cut down on since there are going to be food and amenity tradeoffs with these new planes.
Plus, not serving bread and butter is cheaper! And it wouldn’t be the first time they looked to bread for cost savings. In 2019, American Airlines started buying pre-bagged bread rather than bagging the bread in the catering kitchen, because it was cheaper.
Naturally, bread cuts are focused on the less premium parts of the aircraft. That reminds me of Emirates eliminating all of the paper from seatbacks in coach on their Airbus A380s – offsetting weight from the water for the first class shower suites.
Tells you everything you need to know about AA that their plan is to cut something and see if people complain. For sure thats how premium experience companies act. What a F-ing joke Isom is. The mindset is so demoralizing for customers and employees.
Every post makes me happy I never fly AA.
Good – fewer carbs and calories which is something that is actually healthier. Most Americans are over weight and many are obese so anything that can help that, regardless of the motivation, is a good thing
American keeps saying they will start operating the new a321XLRs in 2025… hmm, we’ll see. Regardless of bread, the new seats and extended range (up to 11 hours) will be great. From what I’ve seen, the new Flagship cabin’s proposed layout and seats seem similar to jetBlue’s newer Mint on their transatlantic a321LR. Wonder if the first row will be like the Mint Studio. jetBlue is able to serve bread and excellent meals on theirs, so I don’t see why American can’t do the same. Odd.
I would be sad to see bread & butter go, as it is usually the only thing edible on an AA long haul flight.
That is not bread they serve but it’s good for plugging leaks.
Just serve colas,cookies, peanuts and chips- It’s hard to screw those up that at 30,000 feet.
The last few times I flew international long haul in Mai cabin, the hockey puck of bread was not worth eating. Those Main cabin meals are horrible.
Many years ago when I flew long haul coach the bread always came in a plastic wrapper on the tray. Not warmed up. Not sure why that can’t be done for coach. Yes for PE that would be really tacky.
I won’t fly a narrow body to Europe, do no big deal.