American reveals details of upcoming Boeing 777 retrofits, new Airbus A321XLR routes

The onboard experience on some American Airlines jets is about to get much better.

In 2022, the Fort Worth-based carrier revealed its new Flagship Suites business-class product, as well as a new premium economy recliner and other improvements coming to some of its new and newly retrofitted planes.

The airline hasn't formally announced when these new seats and aircraft will take off. However, Brian Znotins, American's senior vice president of network and schedule planning, shared some updates that are sure to grab your attention.

Airbus A321XLR will replace the A321T

American has outstanding orders for 50 Airbus A321XLR, or extra-long-range, jets. These single-aisle Airbus planes are primarily expected to connect some of American's biggest Northeast markets with secondary cities in Europe that aren't as highly demanded.

But when the A321XLR deliveries start, American isn't going to immediately deploy them to Europe. Instead, those planes will fly the airline's premium transcontinental routes from Boston and New York City to Los Angeles and San Francisco.

That's because American is retiring its existing premium transcontinental aircraft, the Airbus A321T; it is currently configured with 10 Flagship First suites, 20 Flagship Business lie-flats and 72 economy seats (half of which are in an extra-legroom layout). The A321T will be converted into American's standard "Oasis" configuration, leaving the A321XLR as American's primary premium transcontinental aircraft.

"As the A321XLRs come in, they're going to be focused on replacing the A321Ts on transcons. So that's our first priority with those airplanes for reconfiguration of the A321Ts and for maintenance reasons of the A321Ts. We probably won't be seeing new A321XLRs on long-haul flying at least until deep 2025 or 2026," Znotins said.

The Airbus A321XLR won't feature Flagship First. (In fact, American is completely retiring this cabin.) However, these jets will sport 20 new Flagship Suites business-class seats in a 1-1 configuration, as well as a 16-seat premium economy cabin.

American's Boeing 777-300ER retrofits are starting soon

American is also retrofitting its existing fleet of 20 Boeing 777-300ERs. These planes will lose their Flagship First cabins in exchange for an all-new Flagship Suites business-class product that, based on the renderings, looks to be top-notch.

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Znotins said that "the 777-300ER reconfigurations are being worked on this summer and winter moving into next summer as well."

Once the retrofits are complete, these planes will feature just three cabins in the following configuration:

• 70 Flagship Suites
• 44 premium economy recliners
• 216 economy seats

With this new configuration, American is adding 18 business-class seats and 16 premium economy recliners to these jets without touching the economy capacity. (The airline is removing the eight-seat first-class cabin.) This is a "'have your cake and eat it too' situation," Znotins explained. "I get to add all of these great seats to the airplane and not have to give anything up. Economically, it'll be fantastic."

Znotins wasn't ready to speculate about when travelers could expect to experience the retrofitted jets.

"As we see that program progress, we'll be able to get really good visibility on when those airplanes will be available, and we'll start publishing the new configurations of where they're flying closer to that time," he said. "We just don't want to do it too far in advance when there's still so much uncertainty."

Znotins focused on London's Heathrow Airport (LHR) when discussing where these retrofitted planes will fly.

"Heathrow is the leading premium-heavy market in the country [internationally from the U.S.], and so whenever we have premium-heavy airplanes, it will not be exclusively focused on Heathrow, but it'll be disproportionately focused on Heathrow," he said.

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New 787-9P Dreamliners are coming soon

American's wide-body fleet consists exclusively of Boeing 777 and 787 Dreamliner aircraft. These planes don't all have the same interior configuration, and yet another layout will debut in the coming months. American's upcoming deliveries of the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft will be arranged in a 787-9P layout.

The P stands for premium, and these planes will feature:

• 51 Flagship Suites
• 32 premium economy recliners
• 18 Main Cabin Extra seats
• 143 standard economy seats

Originally, the plan was to inaugurate the 787-9P configuration on the airline's upcoming new longest route from Dallas-Forth Worth to Brisbane, Australia. Unfortunately, that's no longer the case since the airline is facing delivery delays from Boeing, but the airline is "taking a number of them next year," Znotins said, referring to the 787-9P configured jets.

"The 787-9Ps will be in the network the next summer," he added. This week, the carrier announced its hotly anticipated summer 2025 transatlantic schedule, which includes five new long-haul routes. The carrier isn't deploying the 787-9P on any of the new routes but plans to use existing aircraft that will be freed up by introducing the 787-9P into other existing markets.

Znotins isn't sure exactly when the 787-9Ps will arrive, so he isn't ready to assign a specific configuration to a given route.

"I can't say what that date is, but the bar that we have to pass is that we don't want to be in a situation where we're having to downgrade airplanes and deal with oversales up front ... we'll forgo some selling capability on it in order to make sure we can deliver for our customers," Znotins said.

Reading between the lines, it seems like American is planning to "soft-launch" the 787-9P configuration. That should spell great news for travelers looking for upgrades since the plane has many more premium seats than the existing configurations.

Either way, TPG will closely follow the delivery and route schedule and will update you with more information as it becomes available.

Related reading:

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• Everything you need to know about flying basic economy on American Airlines