American Airlines has announced that the new premium economy seats and The Flagship Suite in business class will make their debuts in 2024 with the delivery of Airbus A321XLR and Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. Additionally, American will remove the eight-seat first-class cabins from its 20 current Boeing 777-300ER aircraft starting in late 2024 and upgrade them with the Flagship Suite and the new premium economy seat.
According to Julie Rath, the company’s vice president of customer experience, “the arrival of new long-haul aircraft and the bespoke seat design of the Flagship Suite seats will provide customers a genuinely exclusive premium experience on our long-haul fleet.”
By 2026, premium seating on long-haul airplanes will increase by 45%, according to American. Instead of the present layout of 30 business-class seats and 21 premium economy seats, the new 787-9 configurations will have 51 Flagship Suite seats and 32 premium economy seats. 25 of those airplanes are on order from American.
American Airlines’s 50 Airbus A321XLR planes will have 20 Flagship Suites and 12 premium economy seats.
The 777-300ERs will be outfitted with 70 Flagship Suites and 44 premium economy seats. This is in contrast to the current configuration, which includes eight first-class seats, 52 business-class seats, and 28 premium economy seats.
Flagship Suites will have a sliding door, a chaise lounge seating option, and more personal storage space than existing business-class products in the United States. Furthermore, moveable partitions will allow passengers to connect suites in order to dine and spend time with travel companions.
According to American Airlines, the new premium economy seats will have twice the storage space of American’s current premium economy product. They will also have larger entertainment screens and arms that extend from the headrests for added privacy.
American also announced on Tuesday that it will discontinue the use of A321 aircraft interiors for transcontinental flights. The A321T has ten Flagship First seats and twenty Flagship Business seats. American stated that the planes will be reconfigured to match its existing A321s, which have a single premium cabin: domestic first class.
The airline announced that it will rely on Northeast Alliance partner JetBlue to provide transcontinental lie-flat seats between New York and Boston.
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