American Introduces Awesome Aviation Junkie Amenity Kits: #OurHeritage Homage to the Carriers That Make Up the Airline

American has launched a series of new #OurHeritage amenity kits. These are branded with several of the airlines that have merged over time to create the current American Airlines.

The kits come wrapped in plastic with an identification of the legacy carrier on the plastic.

These are the 9 carriers:

This isn’t truly comprehensive of course, American itself was initially founded out of something like 80 different airlines around 1930. And I don’t see the 1970s acquisition of Trans Caribbean Airways on the list. From the US Airways side there’s no Lake Central, Empire, or Trump Shuttle. But the biggies are there.

American sent me a TWA kit to sample.

The first thing I noticed is a new product brand — red flower — which I understand has become the airline’s standard and will also be used in Admirals Clubs.

There are (9) versions of the new kit. These should be on all international routes which receive amenity kits, plus first class on the premium transcon (New York JFK – Los Angeles and San Francisco) A321T flights too.

There are 3 kits out now – TWA, Reno Air, and Piedmont – and they will cycle each quarter.

The tag on the kit says it has been designed to fit a mini-tablet, although it seems just a little bit small for an iPad mini to me.

I like these. It’s nice to see them change up and do something interesting with the amenity kits. It can be little things that combine together to give a sense that care is taken with the product, and that’s an important signal to see .. and one I’ve been seeing surprisingly often of late.

Here’s the previous business and first class amenity kits, noting that the only difference between the kits was the case, not the contents — business class is a toiletry bag while first class an iPad case.


About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. What a wonderful idea. Hopefully the other legacy airlines will follow suit. Wouldn’t it be great to see a Pan Am amenity kit again?

  2. Check out eBay for PanAm amenity kits. They pop up there regularly. I’ve got about a half dozen international AA flights over the next two months so looking forward to collecting a variety of these (as well as finally flying on one of its 77Ws). I see the Red Flower items were in the older kits too instead of the previous brand. Have several I haven’t opened from flights towards the end of last year so must check one out.

  3. @ValueTravelerOz

    It was PSA that had smiling planes. AirCal was their intra-California competitor. It’s funny to think these two former rivals would eventually wind up with their respective purchasers (USAir for PSA and AA for Air Cal) merged.

  4. Re “noting that the only difference between the kits was the case, not the contents”: This is not quite true. The old F kit had a microfiber cloth for cleaning glasses, and maybe one other thing that the J kit didn’t.

    And @nazila’s point is quite accurate: the F rubber/plastic is really stinky. Probably unhealthily so.

  5. The kits are also being distributed in business class on JFK-LAX, JFK-SFO and MIA-LAX, as well as first MIA-LAX.

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