The best American Airlines domestic aircraft is the one that it flies on premium cross-country routes like New York to Los Angeles and San Francisco. The Airbus A321T (T for transcon) features first class, business class and economy.

American Airlines Airbus A321T First Class

American Airlines is ending its Flagship First Class product over the next few years. Only two plane types have it today.

• When new Boeing 787-9 planes are delivered with business class suites with doors, they will also retrofit their Boeing 777-300ER planes – eliminating international first class, and adding these new business class seats.

• They will drop first class from these A321T planes. In fact they are going to modify the aircraft to a standard A321 Oasis domestic configuration with just recliner seats up front and coach in back. For premium cross country flights they’re expected to use new Airbus A321XLR planes which, once delivered, will have business class suites with doors as well.

While the Airbus A321XLR is still in the future – the aircraft hasn’t been certified yet, so Airbus can’t deliver any – American is beginning the process of switching its existing fleet of A321T planes into the standard, less luxurious configuration.

American Airlines Airbus A321T Business Class

As reported by aviation watchdog JonNYC they’re taking one plane out of service to retrofit it, to create the standard process for doing so – although they need to keep the rest of the fleet intact until those A321XLRs arrive. Now he’s reporting that the process begins Friday:

barring any delay– and god knows there are always delays with this kinda thing– I'd be looking for N115NN to go in March 8th from JFK

— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) March 6, 2024

Update: An American Airlines spokesperson tells me that it won’t be Friday and that while this aircraft will be the first one modified “we don’t have a solid date for when it goes in.. these things slip in the operations.” So it could be next week, it could be later, based on the current operational need for the aircraft.

Already down to just 16 planes in service, these aircraft currently have 10 first class; 20 business class; and 72 coach seats – half of which are extra legroom “main cabin extra” seats. In the new configuration they will go from 102 total seats up to 196 – 20 first class and 176 coach.

Even though American Airlines will be replacing these planes on cross country routes with a new aircraft featuring business class suites and premium economy, there are several losses.

• These Airbus A321T aircraft will get far less comfortable
  
• There will no longer be a true ‘first class’ cabin
  
• That also means the premium cabin will no longer come with access to American’s Flagship First Dining and to the Chelsea lounge at New York JFK
  
• The biggest difference will actually be in economy, where there will be less legroom and fewer Main Cabin Extra seats.

Meanwhile the big changes to the current fleet of aircraft will be:

• removing seatback entertainment screens
  
• Less padded seats and smaller lavatories
  
• Even removing a galley – passengers won’t be fed as much

American Airlines A321T Economy

American Airlines planned to eliminate true first class when US Airways management took over a decade ago. US Airways was used to being the low cost leader, rather than a premium airline, and couldn’t fathom selling those seats. They quickly learned that there was demand, especially from corporate buyers out of L.A. That’s dried up somewhat since the pandemic.

On the aircraft’s inaugural flight, right after the takeover, a Vice President that had come over from the US Airways side told me they expected to rip out first class from these new A321Ts back then. There’s always been a bias against premium from this management team.

American Airlines First Class Cabin On The A321T Will Disappear

They’ve believed that if they could only become operationally reliable, they’d be profitable. It turns out that reliability is just table stakes rather than enough, and a high cost airline needs to generate a revenue premium which requires quality product. The Airbus A321XLR should offer a premium product up front… but no longer in back.