Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Status Of American Airlines Boeing 777-200s

by Gary Leff

Over the weekend I wrote about American Airlines offering premium economy on certain Hawaii routes which will be operated by Boeing 777-200s. At the end of the post I showed a photo of the fully flat business class as well.

Eagle eyed commenter AG noticed that I used a photo of an American Airlines Boeing 777-200 with Zodiac seats and not Super Diamond seats and asked whether that’s what would be flying to Hawaii. Sharp eye!

American Airlines was helpful in helping to construct the full status of their Boeing 777-200 fleet and their upcoming plan. Indeed only one Boeing 777-200 so far has been retrofit with premium economy, and as I showed it has Zodiac seats. However the second one being retrofit is in process now (it flew up to Paine Field yesterday) and that one has Super Diamond seats.

So the answer is there’s no way to predict which business class seats you’ll get on a given flight — except if the seat map shows 45 seats rather than 37 then you know it’s the Zodiac seats.

Here’s the evolution of American’s Boeing 777-200 Fleet:

  • American Airlines has 47 Boeing 777-200s. All planes that are in service have new fully flat business class seats with direct aisle access.

  • 13 aircraft have 45 of the the Zodiac ‘Concept D’ seats and 215 coach seats. This is the planned legacy American Airlines configuration.


Boeing 777-200 Zodiac ‘Concept D’ Business Class

  • The great thing about that subfleet isn’t just that it has more business class seats. It also still has Main Cabin Extra seats with more legroom in a 9-across configuration, and some of standard economy too. Density on the rest of the aircraft comes from 10-abreast seating in all of economy (including Main Cabin Extra).

  • After US Airways management took over they decided on a ‘dense’ configuration (more seats) but they didn’t go back and retrofit the 777-200s that had already been given 45 business class seats.

  • There are 5 planes that have 37 of the Zodiac concept D business class seats and 252 coach seats. This is the original ‘dense’ configuration that new management went with.

  • Zodiac had production problems and failed to deliver seats on time. American Airlines sued and terminated their contract, selecting B/E Aerospace as their new seat provider.

  • For business class they selected the ‘Super Diamond’ seat which is excellent, except that center seats have no divider between them.

  • There are 26 planes that have 37 B/E Aerospace Super Diamond business class seats and 252 coach seats.


B/E Aerospace Super Diamond Business Class

American is installing their new premium economy seats in Boeing 777-200s. So far only one aircraft has this. The configuration is 37 Zodiac Concept D business class seats, 24 premium economy seats, and 212 coach seats. Premium economy comes at the expense of coach seats, not business class seats and is similar to domestic first class but with a foot rest or foot bar.


American Airlines Boeing 787-9 Premium Economy

In addition two 777-200s are currently receiving retrofits.

One plane with B/E Aerospace Super Diamond business class already is receiving a retrofit to add premium economy at Paine Field.

And one last plane is currently having the old angled business class seats replaced with Super Diamond business class seats in Hong Kong.


Old American Airlines Angled Business Class Seats

All 47 of American’s Boeing 777-200s will ultimately be retrofit to offer Premium Economy. A spokesperson tells me they intend to keep the 13 aircraft subfleet that has 45 business class seats.

I absolutely love the introduction of premium economy as a product. Eventually I expect it not to be great for upgrades (that in the future upgrades will be from coach to premium economy, and not to business class). And I absolutely love American’s direct aisle access seats, especially the new Super Diamond seats which are the best seats I’ve flown in business class.

The Boeing 777-200s are interesting because they run the gamut and tell a story of the evolution of American’s thinking over the past half dozen years.

Here’s the updated status of American’s 777-200 fleet:

N773AN 45C / 215Y Zodiac
N785AN 45C / 215Y Zodiac
N788AN 45C / 215Y Zodiac
N795AN 45C / 215Y Zodiac
N798AN 45C / 215Y Zodiac
N751AN 45C / 215Y Zodiac
N754AN 45C / 215Y Zodiac
N756AM 45C / 215Y Zodiac
N757AN 45C / 215Y Zodiac
N759AN 45C / 215Y Zodiac
N760AN 45C / 215Y Zodiac
N761AJ 45C / 215Y Zodiac
N768AA 45C / 215Y Zodiac
N770AN 37C / 252Y Zodiac
N772AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N774AN 37C / 252Y Zodiac
N775AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N776AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N777AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N778AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N782AN 37C / 252Y Zodiac
N783AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N784AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N793AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N796AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N750AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N752AN 37C / 252Y Zodiac
N753AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N755AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N765AN 37C / 252Y Zodiac
N766AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N789AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N767AJ 37C / 252Y B/E
N797AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N791AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N762AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N786AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N787AL 37C / 252Y B/E
N771AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N792AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N799AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N758AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N780AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N790AN 37C / 252Y B/E
N781AN 37C / 24W/ 212Y Zodiac
N779AN PE RETROFIT @ PAE B/E
N794AN B/E RETROFIT @ HKG B/E

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. Very cool tail number reference table to help determine which hard product you’ll end up with, especially since one is arguably superior to the other!

  2. “However the second one being retrofit is in process now (it flew up to Paine Field yesterday) and that one has Zodiac seats.” Did you mean to say B/E? I thought the 772 currently undergoing retrofit is a Super Diamond, but I could be wrong.

  4. Don’t forget that they still block out seat 1A for the pilots as a relief seat.

    I was just checking my flight back to HND in October. It shows 36 seats for business class.
    So 1 is blocked out.

  5. Your timing is excellent, Sir!

    We were just looking to book and I thought some of the 200s still had the old non-lie flat seats. Can book with more comfort we wouldn’t get a last minute swap to a barka lounger…

  7. Thanks for this, Gary. Could you also do an article on the 757 program? There are a number of aircraft flying around that have the old 22/24 seat recliner configuration, a number that have 16 angle-flats, and a number that have the 16 of the new lie-flats. I’d be interested in knowing what AA’s plans are for this fleet. As well, is there a tool or sub-option to determine where across the system, the 757s are deployed under any given schedule?

  9. Gary – weird question..

    .I fly American 275 about every other week on their fantastic 77W Biz hard product from MIA-LAX…when looking to book in November it looks like that aircraft has switched out…any tips to see if this is a glitch or if they are really changing equip on that route?

  11. Thanks for the post! Based on the table at the end, 28 of the 37J planes have the B/E seats and 6 have Zodiac. However, it says 26 and 5 above?

  12. Gary – are the single seats on the super diamond 777s all foward facing? We have a flight from HNL to DFW to May and I just did a seat count. Yippee – no zodiac seats.

  15. Gary, your numbers are off in the article, but not in your table… The correct fleet designations are:

    13 45J Zodiac 772’s
    *6* 37J Zodiac 772’s (you listed 5 in the article)
    27 SuperDiamond 772’s

    One remaining 772 in HKG as of today (N794AN), and will be the 28th SuperDiamond 37J plane.

    N758AN (not listed in your table) just came back from HKG a day or two ago. (37J S/D)

    Also, some random notes…

    N776AN (37J S/D) Is the Pope “Shepherd One” frame
    N751AN (45J Z) is the 75 Years Al Blackman frame

    N791AN and N796AN (37J S/Ds) are the Oneworld livery 777’s.

    http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/american-airlines-aadvantage/1344467-777-200er-2-class-772-refit-now-j-mce-pey-under-way-21.html

  16. Gary – I went back and reread comments. I may have gotten excited too soon. Even with counting 37 seats in business from HNL to DFW in May 2018 – and the AA seating chart for selecting seats shows 24 premium economy, it seems there really is no way to predict if the 777 in business we will be on will have the Zodiac or Super Diamond seats. The count on the number of seats is the in business. If I knew it was Super Diamond, we would sit in the middle seats. Don’t want to do that with Zodiac.

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