First Photos Leak Of Refreshed American Airlines Airbus A319—More First Class, Flight Attendants Sit On Lavatory Doors

American Airlines is about to put its first refreshed Airbus A319s into service and we have a sneak peak of what the new cabins look like.

• They’re adding 4 first class seats (a 50% increase), without removing any seats from coach. So coach gets a bit tighter to compensate. To make more room for the additional seats, two lavatories are being moved to where galley space used to be at the back of the aircraft. They’re even putting a flight attendant jumpseat on one of the lavatory doors.

• The A319s with seat back entertainment screens will see another downgrade – these planes get a new standard interior without screens.

• They get bigger overhead bins, and new seats throughout – the first class seats have wings at head level for a bit of an illusion of privacy, and American is using the new aesthetic scheme that rolled out with its Boeing 787-9P aircraft last year. So we see a bit of a design commonality with refreshed regional jets and with the Airbus A321XLR as well.

• During the transition where only some of these planes will have 8 first class seats and others will have 12 they will be overprovisioning passenger meals on flights scheduled to have an 8-seat first class cabin, in case of an aircraft swap. That way last minute upgrades will have meals, if a flight suddenly finds itself with four extra seats.

Employees crawl around the plane before it’s shown to customers. Here are some shots taken of the new cabin:

Our first look inside the American Airlines A319 retrofit. New updated upholstery and finishes. Airbus XL overhead bins, 4 additional seats in FC (12/120). New mood lighting scenes.
Noticeably lacking seat back IFE screens.#travel #airbus #a319 pic.twitter.com/R8yEm8nMhg

— ✈️ (@dfw_787) February 10, 2026

Here’s the new 3-row first class cabin:

And here’s economy. There’s clearly not enough extra legroom coach (Main Cabin Extra), which has been a problem for American. They didn’t think of these as seats they could actually upsell into (the way United and Delta do), so they don’t have enough premium buy up seats in their cabin. The ‘LOPA’ or cabin layout on American plans limits how much revenue they can earn.

You can also see the back galley in the photos shared online.

The retrofit plan for American’s Airbus A319s is something that dates back four years. It came long before the current ‘premium push’. So there’s a bit of a wasted opportunity, continuing to densify planes rather than offering enough extra legroom seats, and continue to take screens out of planes while Delta, United and JetBlue lean into them.

Basically, American bet on a lot of low yield passengers and giving them a stripped down product, competing with ultra-low cost carriers like Spirit exactly when passengers were looking to spend more for a better experience. It was a bet on a vision that turned out to be exactly wrong and that’s a lot of why the airline struggles today. They’re going to have more first class seats to sell, which is great. I happen to find the new coach seats attractive. But they’re still going to have a ‘premium problem’ with these refreshed planes.