American Airlines is planning to retrofit existing Boeing 787-8 aircraft with new Flagship Suites. Right now, they have fantastic business class seats, but they have too much variability in their widebody premium product. The 787-8s don’t have enough premium seats, and they have an older business class product, but the airline had been silent about plans for the aircraft until now.
- Boeing 777-300ERs have old Zodiac Cirrus lie flat seats
American Airlines Zodiac Seats On 777-300ER - Boeing 777-200s have both front- and rear-facing ‘Concept D’ seats and Super Diamond seats
American Airlines ‘Concept D’ Seats On 777-200 - Boeing 787-8s have both front- and rear-facing ‘Concept D’ seats and Super Diamond seats
American Airlines Super Diamond Seats On Boeing 787 - Boeing 787-9s have both Super Diamond and Adient Ascent seats
American Airlines Adient Ascent Seat On Boeing 787-9P
The 777-300ERs are losing first class and will be standardized with the business class suites that debuted last year on new delivery Boeing 787-9Ps. Boeing 777-200s are going to be refreshed with that seat as well.
However the 787s have previously been left with a hodge podge of seats. The 787-9s might have smaller business class cabins and older (though perfectly nice) seats, or the new flagship product. Meanwhile, 787-8s have two different older seats – one that was designed before US Airways took control of the airline 13 years ago.
And the 787-8s just don’t have enough business class. There are only 20 seats in the cabin. That’s was once fine for leisure-oriented routes, but even leisure has gone upscale and an airline with American’s cost base needs a layout of seats designed to maximize revenue. This layout made no sense on flights to London Heathrow, their primary transatlantic destination where joint venture partner British Airways is hubbed.
However, American’s management had focused on the low end of the market and got themselves in a financial hole. When they took over the airline at the end of 2013 they began removing business class seats from planes. The US Airways experience was they only sold those through discounting. That was the wrong model.
American Airlines Has Been Aggressively Adding Great New Premium Seats
American Airlines has been adding premium seats to planes, and business class and premium economy are both a step up. American’s new premium Boeing 787-9 entered service last year with 51 Flagship Suites with doors, 32 Premium Economy seats, a redesigned coach cabin and the product is just gorgeous.
The premium economy seats also are a huge leap forward compared to American’s prior version that lacked footrests.
The Airbus A321XLR has entered the fleet and is a narrowbody aircraft with business class suites with doors and premium economy. These are used on premium cross-country flights and short transatlantics from the Northeast.
The business class seats are narrow, and a bit awkwardly designed, but better than business class American was flying cross country on premium routes previously – and the doors on the suites have finally been certified for use.
slight difference in statement on dates: pic.twitter.com/x7CQsxZI2p
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) July 18, 2026
They’re Already Retrofitting Boeing 777s
American is retrofitting Boeing 777-300ER planes to this new standard (sadly losing first class) and will retrofit Boeing 777-200ERs as well.
A year ago I wrote that American was considering extending the lives of its Boeing 777-200s and that a retrofit would accompany a life-extension decision.
And I ultimately scooped that American intended to retain its 47 777-200ERs, replace Panasonic connectivity with Viasat and refurbish the interiors American confirmed the program in October 2025. Extending the airplanes’ lives defers roughly $7 – $9 billion in replacement spending through the end of the decade.
Narrowbodies Get More Premium Seating, Too
American is also putting Airbus A319 and A320s into service with an additional row of first class, larger overhead bins, and a redesigned cabin. These are denser in coach, and there’s less space for flight attendants to work, but overall they’re nice planes. Regional jets also got high speed wifi and more mainline-style interiors.
I wonder why American believes it’s in its economic best interests to refurbish 777-200s while almost every other airline has retired them and are already looking at the 777-300 as a product at the end of its lifecycle. Is it subsidized financing that makes new aircraft more attractive to foreign carriers than US ones? What economic factors make retaining older aircraft more economically attractive to US carriers than to foreign ones?
It’s ironic that United is often criticized on here for running their P&W 777-2 (non ER) into the ground since the engines aren’t supported anymore, and AA is now being complimented for treating their 772ERs with Rolls engines like they treated their MD80s. It’s sad they dumped all their 767s since some of them were younger than the 777s.
Finally!!! Those 788s are a nightmare out of ORD. Only 20 J seats and the ones they do have are crappy concept D, impossible to even get space on!
Disagree about the new 321XLE business class suites with doors. Very uncomfortable, I book away from that plane.
Rather have the 2×2 more comfortable J seats. Flyertalk thread mostly agrees.
Wonder how many more they can squeeze onto the 788 with the ascent. The premium economy cabin is a good size on these 788s and is often full. Between ordering less of them and the 788 refurb, this screams “we know the 321xlr isn’t great” and won’t be used on some transatlantic flights. Considering a 789 can be filled to napes and nice, AA is finally catching up to the 788 is too small; something United figured out 10+ years ago. Should’ve kept those a332s…
@MAK,
US carriers generally keep planes longer than their foreign counterparts, particularly when it comes to wide body jets. Older jets are often fully or near fully paid for, thus less expensive to operate, or at least, those lower costs can help offset other expenses. They also allow US carriers to open up new routes that can’t be economically flown with a newer jet, particularly long and thin routes.
The 777-200ER though is not a very efficient plane for a lot of the routes that American Airlines depends on it for. It is a heavy jet. It burns 25-30% more fuel than a 787 or an A339 or A359. It is not right sized for certain markets that American flies these jets on, which is why AA cuts the seasonality of some routes very short, notably where it doesn’t have a lot of feed, like JFK.
The AA 777-200ERs are between 24 and 27 years of age, delivered between 1999 and 2002. That does not make them as old as the bulk of Delta’s 767-300ERs or United’s for that matter, but they are getting up there in age. Their utilization rates though are a bit lower.
American has a lot of debt on its books, stemming from a refusal to follow the industry in the early 2000s and file for Chapter 11. It then finally did so in 2011, and placed the then largest order in aviation history to re-fleet and in the process, added $30 billion in long term debt to its books. Hence the problem.
Good. Finally got to experience the new 789P with the Flagship Suites recently, and I cannot say enough great things about it. Please, upgrade all cabins to this hard-product. It’s a winner!
@ lavanderialarry — I suspect that they keep old planes to offset high labor costs.
@lavanderialarry
Don’t forget, different countries have different aircraft depreciation schedules and tax treatments. That alone can make older widebodies more economical to operate for some carriers than others.
Larry got it mostly right.
AA could have afforded its massive refleeting between 2010 and covid if it didn’t buyback so much stock whle its earnings were so low.
The Rolls Royce engines on the 777-200ER are still supported; that is not true with the Pratt and Whitney engines on a chunk of UA’s 772/ERs.
the 777s are much less fuel efficient than newer aircraft but AA and UA made massive commitments to them, including end of production line 773ERs. It makes far more sense to buy new generation widebodies and less fuel efficient narrowbodies but neither AA or UA have done that as they retain their 777s.
of course, persistent high fuel costs could and reportedly are causing AA to reconsider its decision to refurbish the 772ERs.
I bet now that DL will have the oldest fleet of the Big 4 for years to come, that it will now be a good thing according to TD. 😉
@rebel — Is that… “Econ 101” again?
It’s all Greek to you.
@rebel — Maláka…
1990 demonstrates more intelligence after 5 G&T than you do completely sober, rebel.
Fleet age really doesn’t matter much if at all – but UA has the oldest mainline fleet age.
The big difference in fleet economics comes from AA’s high use of large use; more than half of their domestic flights operate on RJs. There is no such thing as a MAX or NEO RJ in the US fleet.
UA, OTOH, doesn’t have anywhere near the RJ scope allowance that AA or DL have so UA uses those patently ridiculous CRJ550s and they are doubling down on stupid with the CRU450 – which is a 42 seat CRJ220 with a few premium seats and even worse economics than the CRJ550..
UA’s fleet fuel efficiency is the lowest of the big 3 BECAUSE Of their extensive use of small RJs and their large fleet of 777-200s..
DL not only is retiring older aircraft – including the 763 and older 757s and 320s but has no 50 seat RJs in its contracted fleet. DL’s 717s – a fuel inefficient aircraft by mainline standards – is far more economical than any RJ in the US carrier fleet.
And DL, like AA, uses its new generation widebodies almost exclusively on its TPAC routes (longest in their networks) while UA uses its wretched and tired 777-200/ERs if they are even flying (a good chunk of the 200As are not).
and UA’s fleet age wont’ go down until it starts retiring older widebodies, something they have refused to do because of FOMO. As DL breathes down UAs neck in TPAC, UA is likely to hold onto as many planes as possible, keeping their maintenance and fuel expenses above average.
The 787-8 has poor economics compared to the -9 and DL’s 330 fleet but AA made its decision and might as well invest in the interiors cuz they will be around for decades to come
LTD says, “Fleet age really doesn’t matter much if at all”
I wonder why the sudden change heart? Hilarious.
BTW, that DL cancellation problem definitely hasn’t been solved. Yikes!
@Tim Dunn — Bah! Depends on the gin. We talkin’ … Aviation (AA, WN)… Bombay (B6, DL, UA)… or, if you’re fancy Hendrick’s (seen it at Polaris)… I presume LH should offer Monkey 47, but it’s been a while since I’ve flown them.
as usual, you can’t help from flinging doo doo and in so doing can’t even get the facts right
I have repeatedly said that fleet age doesn’t matter; fleet costs and efficiency do. as well as the amenities that can be put on a plane.
You do realize that ATL has been under a ground stop due to T storms? of course you don’t bother to look at stuff like that.
and why was UA’s on-time yesterday 12 points worse than DL’s?
When you operate the largest mainline network among the big 3, you realize that cancelling flights in order to operate the remainder of the network closer to on-time makes more sense.
1990
doesn’t matter what gin you drink, you still have more intelligence than rebel can ever hope to have.
we don’t agree about everything but you are almost always a gentleman
almost
@Tim Dunn — Thank you for your attention to this matter. Almost, indeed.
It’s not the event. It’s the recovery that gives DL so many problems with cancellations. Remember months ago when you said it was fixed? +34%.
@rebel — You follow that story of how Mexican President Sheinbaum was originally scheduled to fly from Cancún to New York on a Delta commercial flight; however, “weather” led to the cancellation and delay of several flights, disrupting her travel. Instead of waiting, Sheinbaum used a Mexican military plane.
Unrelated, but still relevant is how the US (under you-know-who) imposed new restrictions on flights from Mexico and threatened the long-standing partnership between Delta and Aeromexico. Sheinbaum has publicly pushed back against these US DOT actions, calling them “unilateral.”
So, ironically, Mexico’s president seems to like Delta (and, of course, Aeromexico), but Delta couldn’t even get her to NYC. Not like she was gonna miss the World Cup Final, so she still got here, but needed her military to do what Delta couldn’t do. Oof.
(It’s basically the inverse of what former German Chancellor Angela Merkel had to do… recall the Luftwaffe couldn’t handle her a340, so she had to take a commercial flight on Iberia to the G20 in Buenos Aires back in 2018. How embarrassing that was.)
1990
you do realize that there were a whole lot more people that were caught up in this supposed phenomena called weather than Sheinbaum?
They don’t have military jets to jump in and cut the queue. How dare you talk about socialism and at the same time talking about the ultimate line cut.
Rebel,
the only data which you need to explain is how UA managed to blow a first quarter 2025 earnings lead over DL to end up $1.6 billion in the hole to DL by the end of the year.
And given that UA just delivered half of DL’s earnings in the 2nd quarter – $800 million – looks like they are on track to do meet or surpass their 2025 deficit.
And on the subject of operations, you can explain how UA managed to blow its lead against DL in both on-time and cancellation rates earlier this year.
and UA still loses bags at a faster rate than any other US airline – and they not only don’t seem to care but aren’t doing anything to improve it.
AA not only has free WiFi on nearly all of its aircraft flying from ORD but they also lose far fewer bags.
No wonder Scotty wanted so desperately to get rid of AA.
Asked and answered repeatedly Rapid growth (See Amazon).
@Tim Dunn — Presidents “La Doctora” is the only real person…everyone else in Cancun is an NPC. And, don’t you dare forget, in our workers’ paradise, we all get free ‘premium’ military jets with unlimited Biscoff, as is tradition… /s
*Presidenta (someone, anyone… en español, por favor…) or, they doin’ President-x these days… *self-own*
I flew the new Flagship 787-9 seats on LHR-ORD last week. Verdict: I prefer the Super Diamond seats. The new seat had less storage than the Super Diamond and the seat and TV aren’t on exactly the same angle–meaning that you turn your head every so slightly to watch TV, which is uncomfortable on a long flight (the angle distortion in the bulkhead special seats is even worse). Yes, the door is nice–but mine was (already!) broken, as was the under TV light/glowing tray table. The new ones are definitely an improvement over “concept D” but I don’t think they are an improvement on Super Diamond. The new 787-9 cabin does *look* sharp, though; it’s nice to see AA invest in some interior branding that isn’t 100% gray.