American’s Boeing 787-9 Inaugural Flights are Now Bookable!

On Thursday American announced details of the launch of their new Boeing 787-9 aircraft.

  • It’s the first plane that will have American’s new business class seat, the Super Diamond from B/E Aerospace.

  • It’s their first plane that will have a premium economy cabin.

Inaugural flights have been loaded into American’s schedule and are now available for sale.

The domestic inaugural will be October 6, flying Dallas – Los Angeles.

Then the international inaugural will be November 4, flying Dallas – Madrid.

Business class seats are available for sale and assignment (they are ‘first class’ on domestic routes).

Premium economy seats aren’t for sale as such. Until early 2017 they’re selling economy seats and treating Premium Economy the same way they treat Main Cabin Extra seats which offer additional legroom. That is, they are available for assignment by elites (Platinum and above at booking, Gold at checkin) and are available at an upcharge for others.

However as of this writing seat assignments in the economy cabin appear unavailable.

If you’re interested in flying the inaugural, always a fun experience, you’d better hurry and book.

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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  1. @gary
    Gary, as you say, no seats available for assignemnt
    I need to book my return from GRU on Nov 5 (inaugural from GRU)
    Last night it was showing 787-9 as aircraft but with 777 seat map
    today is 787-9 seat map but all seats blocked for assignment, presumably as they try to reassign those who were already booked….
    any guess on when this could be fixed?
    tks

  2. Hubby and I are flying business class MAD DFW 12 November and are excited to fly on the 787-900. I checked this morning and AA has changed the aircraft online AND reassigned our seats. Looking at the AA seat map, one cannot tell that some of the seats are rear facing. That may bother some people. I checked SeatGuru and noted that the AA seat map does not show that the last 2 rows in business class – 6 and 7 – are separate from the rest of the business cabin. AA does show that row 8 is business whereas SeatGuru does not. Since we both want a window seat for the flight, I’ll be flying backwards.

  3. I’m going the other way, PHX-LAX-DFW-PHX, got a nice fare in F, need my miles and Rev to keep EXPLT

  4. Got this itinerary on hold, need a bit of help here please:

    F on the Inaugural. Selected row 4, hoping the config is similar to the 800 and this is a forward facing row.

    On the return I have a few options and wanted to see what y’all would do:

    I currently have the 777 on hold for the ride back to DFW. Being a Plat I was able to select the angled biz seats for free.

    BUT

    I would really like to try out PE on the 787-9 on the way back but as Gary mentioned all the seats are currently blocked so not even sure if I would even get to try it out. Only being a Plat I’m assuming there will be a long list ahead of me.

    Good problems to have and probably way to much though being put into it just wanted to see what y’all would do.

    Anyhoo super excited to check it out (my first inaugural) and looking forward to meeting everyone.

  5. @gary
    Gary, don’t know how to thank you for this
    I am booked economy tonreturn from GRU to YVR via DFW on november 5, which will be the inaugural for the return GRU DFW
    I was checking the seatmaps all day yesterday and now after your alert managed to book seat 10 which is premium economy but for now offered as MCE so grabbed that!!
    Can this be considered a “reverse inaugural”? Presumably it will be big deal at GRU as AA is by far largest foreign carrier in Brasil
    Tks again

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