American Airlines is about to take the last standard domestic planes that still have seat back video screens, and rip those out. These Airbus A319s that were ordered before US Airways management took over are going to see more seats squeezed it, and they will get larger overhead bins. Aviation watchdog JonNYC reports that the first one will go in for prototyping the new cabin in the spring.
AA:
AA A319 will go in for Oasis prototype in Spring on '25. This is for the group of AA A319's , 32 of them, delivered around 2013
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) September 13, 2024
The retrofit of American Airlines Airbus A319s is a long time in coming. For three years they have been talking about adding first class seats to these aircraft. That finally appears to be happening.
- The planes have only 8 seats up front, compared to 16 on Boeing 737s and 20 on Airbus A321neos.
- American has limited its revenue potential without enough first class seats to sell to passengers. It’s not that upgrades are tough on these planes – buying first class can be tough on many routes.
- However, this project had to wait until they’d finished retrofitting other domestic narrowbody planes (Airbus A321s).
Legacy American Airlines Airbus A319 First Class, With Just 8 Seats And Entertainment Screens
American Plans To Add First Class Seats To Airbus A319s
American Airlines will be adding a row of first class to these planes (four seats). They will not be removing any coach seats to accommodate this. That means squeezing more seats into the plane. The space will come from smaller lavatories, and likely also an inch being shaved from existing first class and coach seats on these planes.
Putting In American’s Less Comfortable Domestic Product
Seven years ago American Airlines launched a new domestic product with less legroom; less padding in the seats; no seat back entertainment screens; and smaller lavatories.. but bigger overhead bins (which help board faster and reduce delays).
Over the coming years American began retrofitting their existing planes into this (“Oasis”) configuration. That meant removing seat back screens from planes that had them. This slapped together project didn’t even get a cabin mockup first. There was so little thought into the product that they had to re-retrofit planes that had already been retrofitted (“Project Kodiak”) to fix mistakes.
However Airbus A319s never received the treatment. When American Airlines ordered the planes, before being taken over by US Airways, they were already in a dense configuration so they just updated the US Airways planes to match the American Airlines configuration (sans entertainment screens, and without taking the opportunity to add bigger bins).
Now the more padded seats will be ripped out, and with them seat back entertainment. American is literally putting a worse product into these planes.
Some Fleets Still To Be Converted To The Oasis Product
With legacy American Airlines A319s getting the Oasis treatment and more first class seats, that will leave a couple of domestic fleets still untouched since the merger.
- American’s premium cross-country Airbus A321T planes are going to be replaced on these routes with Airbus A321XLRs when those are delivered, and the 321Ts will be converted to American’s standard configuration. That doesn’t just mean ripping out first class and lie flat business class seats from these aircraft. It means less legroom in coach, and the elimination of seat back entertainment, too.
- American’s basket of deplorable Airbus A320s still have their old US Airways configuration. They got new seat covers in first class but beneath that are the old, dirty beaten up seats. They don’t have bigger overhead bins or true extra legroom ‘Main Cabin Extra’ seats either.
The plan for these perhaps ought to be retirement. Instead they’re going to be retrofit with an additional row of first class seats, too.
Delta and JetBlue have seat back entertainment screens. United is adding them. All three plan to offer fast, free wifi while American’s inflight internet is the most expensive in the industry. They are charging more and giving less.
outstanding journalism, Gary
“Delta and JetBlue have seat back entertainment screens. United is adding them”
AA’s A320s are older than DL’s 717s, btw
I might be in the minority, but I find AA’s A320 coach seats among the most comfortable in their domestic fleet. The seats might be old and maybe a bit beat up, but at least they have thick padding in both the cushion and back.
what are they going to do to the LUS A319s and the 319s they acquired from Frontier?
“American has limited its revenue potential without enough first class seats to sell to passengers. It’s not that upgrades are tough on these planes – buying first class can be tough on many routes.”
When will AA (and other legacy carriers) roll back to 10 years ago when first class was quite expensive? The footprint of a set up front is considerably larger than those in back. Just now, I am not certain that the ratio of fares between first and coach is greater than the ratio of footprints.
Based on what I’ve seen, American’s A319s will have exactly the same number of seats, 132, as Delta’s. Yet American gets flak, and Delta gets praise. Based on this apparently deliberate lack of clarity, it’s no wonder I get the impression that you want American Airlines to be liquidated.
@DesertGhost – Delta provides seatback TV’s and free wifi on their A319s (and many other aircraft types). So Delta deserves some praise.
In fairness to AA, only 8 seats in FIRST on the A319s always seemed pretty anemic.
The worst part of the “new” AA’s approach to FIRST seating is that the seat pitch ain’t as good as the peers. Domestic FIRST? I’ll throw Timmy a bone and concede there’s no comparison– DL’s FIRST product is better. No doubt these AA re-configured A319s are going to be just as packed together as the bigger Airbuses.
But how else will you get from ELP to SHV?
I had left Delta/SkyTeam in 2015 for American/OneWorld. While I was generally fine with the OneWorld partners, I saw the Oasis program on the horizon and in 2019 jumped back to Delta. The only other legacy airline I would consider being faithful to now is United. AA is America West, make no mistake.
I’ve flown on a lot of the LUS 319s this summer and many have been retrofitted. The coach cabins feel tighter, but no more so than on any other legacy airline. Ultimately, the 319 has too few First Class seats and thus too few options for additional revenue streams, so this all makes sense.
It’s so good to see little Timmy happy with an article, for once.
Congrats, Gary. You made his day. Ok, you made his afternoon… ok, you probably made him happy for about a split second before he starting raving about “Mini brain” on OMAAT
Just another reason not to choose American. The poor lose circulation, get sore, and are vulnerable to blood clots because they can’t move while the upper class can buy more comfort. Who wants to fly an airline that takes so much from the backs of the middle class?
A319: Mostly from US Airways. Tired, old, and bereft of nearly every expected accoutrement in 2024. AA places them in low-profile, low-expectations routes, e.g. PHX-ABQ, ABQ-ORD, etc.
Not unlike flying a 707 in 1975.
MK,
Not exactly. The A319 is the backbone of a lot of DCA routes, and flies pretty much across the system. Not all of them are LUS / LHP machines. American bought brand new ones through its 2011, pre-bankruptcy re-fleet order. Those are the ones currently outfitted with seat back TVs.
The LUS frames stem from a 1996 order for 400+ planes. Deliveries began a few years later. Many LUS A319s are newer than the DL and UA ones. DL’s (NW order) are mostly from a 1989 order and the UA ones from a 1992 order, with a top up in 2002.
The comparison to DL’s A319s is only valid IF AA also puts the double lavs beside the half galley at the rear of the aircraft.
DL did that to its A320s and A321CEOs but not its A321NEOs which have full rear galleys.
Moving the 2 rear lavs to the back of the aircraft gains the space for an extra row of seats.
Is or is not AA moving the rear lavs as part of this refurb? if not the same number of seats as DL yields a tighter cabin for AA.
Tricky Tim,
I think the average person trying to fit into one of two Lavs sharing that TIGHT space with the galley in the back of a Delta Airbus would disagree that Delta is somehow more spacious by doing so.
There’s a reason that Lav layout is a common feature to Delta, Frontier, and Spirit Airlines in the US. United and AA didn’t do that “crappy” layout
Delta seemed to think that customers are excited about the wafts of the Lav being directly next to the food and drink
If the tradeoff is passenger space in the cabin or lav space, I can assure you where the vast majority of people want that space.
You also apparently don’t understand that vacuum toilets vent smells out of the lav?
And do you really think there is a difference if a lav is right in front of the galley or beside it?
If anything, having the lav at the back of the aircraft keeps passengers and their smells out of the cabin
thank you for confirming that AA’s A319s, 320s and 321s will have less passenger space because AA uses more space for lavs.
don’t you have a busy weekend to get to?
“thank you for confirming that AA’s A319s, 320s and 321s will have less passenger space because AA uses more space for lavs.”
Any person that actually knows about this sort of topic, knows they can quickly go to delta.com or aa.com and find out that Delta has less legroom in first class on the airbus than aa and the same 30″ in the back. nice try though.
I do have a busy weekend. But, if you improved your reading comprehension, you’d remember I told you it wasn’t starting just yet so I have time for you, Timkerbell
AA always looking for new ways to degrade the experience.
Watching them swirl around the drain with a mixture of sadness and evil glee.
Wow @maxpower maybe you’re “right”, but what a douchebag.
Everyone should realizr OASIS really means
Only
Asses
Sitting
In
Seats
Its too bad US airways management dosen’t realize that most of us don’t want to fly the crappy US airways peoduct. OASIS is why i fly Delta or a one world partner whwnever possible.
When will they start hanging passengers from hooks in the ceiling?It could create extra space on board to sell
Worst is they fly the oasis A321s to Peru, Ecuador and other countries. No IFE, no blankets or pillows and cold food on an international 6 hour flight.
American isn’t “charging more”: from their 10-Qs, flying a mile on AA is something like 9% cheaper (to memory , and it fluctuates) than on DL or UA. If you ask me, that’s not a good deal, but am sure there’s some unfortunately souls that don’t have the choice to fly DL or UA instead of AA.
As an EGE based flier I am all for this. Tough as nails upgrade with only 8 seats in F
One thing continues to be apparent: Gary sure hates American Airlines.
Southwest seems to do fine without seat back TVs being the largest US domestic airline. With everyone having a phone, it’s not a big deal to stream off it for a couple hour flight. Economy is a comodity product for airlines.
I like the A320 fleet because they are paid off, like my car.
“One thing continues to be apparent: Gary sure hates American Airlines.”
He has a lot of company, with good reasons.
American Airlines deserves the ridicule it gets. I’ve never seen a company do everything possible to make their product worse. I don’t get it and really don’t care because I refuse to fly AA.
Brian W,
do you realize that Delta generates more domestic revenue seat miles on its own metal (not including regional carriers) than Southwest?
Delta clearly flies further routes than Southwest but has the 2nd largest number of mainline flights
behind Southwest.
People are far more interested in diversionary activities on long flights and that is part of why Delta decided to put AVOD on its fleet more than a decade ago – other than the 717s which do not have an electrical system that can handle it but they are used for short flights largely as a replacement for regional jet flights at AA AS and UA; DL has 200 fewer contracted regional jets in its fleet than AA or UA
AA’s strategy is to heavily use regional jets and to connect small and mid-size cities and its shrinking presence in major competitive markets like NYC and LAX make its strategy not to use regional jets more justifiable.
the problem w/ AA’s small city strategy is that DL, esp. in the south and southeast, serves most of the same cities but uses mainline aircraft in most of them – some are with 717s but some are also mainline aircraft with AVOD – while AA uses a higher percentage of regional jets to split the traffic between CLT and DFW. DL’s entire regional jet system is about the same size as the number or regional jet flights that AA has just at CLT and DFW.
as for the 319, it will have less space per passenger unless AA moves the rear lavs to the rear of the aircraft with the Airbus SpaceFlex package. They aren’t doing that but are going to put the same number of seats on the 319 as DL. The 319 is used largely for 2-3 hour flights so a full galley for meal service is not needed. Passengers would far rather have more space in their seats than in the lavs.
@Tim Dunn
Uh, have you forgotten that AA has a major hub in Miami?
Because it sounds like you forgot that AA has a major hub in Miami.
I almost always find decent upgrade offers ($54 to $97) on the shorter A319 routes (usually run on LUS 319s) and even some of the longer routes the upgrade offers aren’t bad. Earlier this year I got DFW/MRY a few times that I flew that route for an upgrade fee of between $250 to $300. MIA/PIT around $200. Most of the time on LAA319s. But yes upgrades are really tough and there may be one seat available if there are any.
I recently moved to Charlotte, and JetBlue just pulled out. Really makes me question living in an AA hub city, which is already among the most expensive to fly in and out of. American’s domestic first is an insult, too.
I think I’m gonna start flying Spirit bc the comfort and service isn’t really all that different. Except Spirit is honest that they are trash, whereas AA tries to gaslight you
The America West mentality and management need to go. They’re not even trying to sell a product anymore, they’re just trying to sell AAdvantage and their credit cards. These decisions are reflected in their stock value. Isom and company need to go.
What needs to be “Gutted” more is the U.S. Airways management team flying the airlines into th ground! 5 yrs ago we were in the top 5 best and now they’re at the very bottom!
Burt,
I am well aware that AA operates a hub in MIA but it is not intended to connect medium to small cities in the US. It is to serve the booming local market in S. Florida and connect to Latin America
If UA would status match my AA ExPlat I would jump ship ASAP. I used to be 1K and miss UA. Alas being based in Dallas it is hard to avoid AA. I managed for a while as multi year 1K.
I rather like this for a very selfish reason. I prefer a non-bulkhead F seat with an F seat behind me. You can’t do that with two rows of F in their current layout.
“Any person that actually knows about this sort of topic, knows they can quickly go to delta.com or aa.com and find out that Delta has less legroom in first class on the airbus than aa and the same 30″ in the back.” Except, AA only lists the current a319 layout on their website. So, you’re comparing DL to what AA is getting rid of. How will the AA a319 have more F legroom and the same Y legroom after adding a row of F and removing no Y seats?
the irony of the statement about the seat pitch on AA and DL 319s is that delta.com says economy pitch is 30-31 inch, not the 30 inch that Max says while aerolopa says DL has 31 inch while AA shows at 30 inch.
and aerolopa shows 1 inch more pitch in AA FC on the 319 but 2 more inches (2 rows of FC) is not going to create the same amount of space.
UA has 6 less seats than DL and still has 30.1 inch economy seats according to aerolopa.
The attempt that some people use to deny the reality that AA is going to create a tighter cabin is frightful.
Honestly, the people who are criticizing AA for this move are whining fools. 50% more first class seats and you’re COMPLAINING? Wow. No TVs? What is this, 1998? You don’t have a device with you to use with their streaming entertainment? Sigh.
In an era when literally everyone boarding a plane has a screen or two in their pockets and bags, why do we need seat back screens? It’s a huge waste of money and weight. But that makes WiFi all the more necessary — AA should at least give WiFi to elites for free.
AA is a case study in how to go out of business. Who would fly them if a better airline is available?