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American Airlines eyes new perks – and packs in more seats

American’s single-aisle planes will get new seats — and more of them per plane. (Image: Jim Glab)

American Airlines CEO Doug Parker said this week that he has a plan to make sure his airline will never have another money-losing year. Part of that plan involves providing more perks for passengers; but another part involves cramming more seats into American’s single-aisle aircraft.

One new perk that Parker promised is free in-flight text messaging for passengers, using apps like Apple’s iMessage. It’s the same free service that Delta just announced it will offer to passengers starting October 1, and that Alaska Airlines introduced last winter. Parker didn’t give a date for the launch of American’s free texting.

He also said that in the first half of next year, American will introduce free drinks and dedicated overhead bin space for customers who buy American’s Main Cabin Extra seats, the economy class seats that provide extra legroom and priority boarding (took that from the Virgin America playbook). And he said that the airline will make more AAdvantage award travel seats available at the lowest award levels – in response to customer complaints that such seats are too hard to get.

American is also rolling out new Casper brand sleep products – including pillows, pajamas, blankets and slippers – for premium passengers on long-haul and key domestic transcon flights.

American is introducing new Casper sleep products for premium passengers. (Image: American)

But American also has plans to renovate its 737-800 and A321 aircraft (except for A321Ts specially configured for AA’s primary transcontinental markets) by installing new, thinner seats. When airlines announce the installation of thinner seats, it generally means they will cram more seats onto each plane, and that is what American intends to do.

The A321s will each get another nine seats, and the 737-800s will get another 12. However, Parker said the airline intends to stick with a standard 30-inch pitch in economy class (except for Main Cabin Extra). The cabin overhauls won’t start until 2019. And the work will not include the installation of seatback monitors for in-flight entertainment. The company noted that with nine out of 10 passengers carrying their own personal electronic devices, streaming entertainment systems will make seatback screens unnecessary in the future.

With these changes and other trends in the industry, “I don’t think we’re ever going to lose money again,” Parker said. He noted that American has earned more than $19 billion in pretax income over the past four years, helped by lower fuel prices, a lot more passenger fee revenues, and a decline in competition due to industry mega-mergers. He said that even in a “bad” year, American should earn at least $3 billion in profits.

Do you fly American Airlines much? What do you think about the changes AA pushed out this week? Please leave your comments below. 

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Should airlines lock seats upright?

Delta

Life beyond the curtain. Seat 40D SFO>ATL (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

I first noticed I might be a bit claustrophobic at about eight years old. Whenever I was especially obnoxious or irritating to my siblings, I’d get locked in a coat closet for a few minutes. In that tiny, dark space stuffed full of wool coats and mothballs, a sort of panic would set in. After a few minutes of almost ripping the door off its hinges, they’d let me escape.

These days, that same feeling returns when I don’t get the upgrade I was hoping for and end up wedged into a window seat in row 40 on a 757. Only there’s no escape on a five or six hour transcon flight.

And it’s not just the cramped seats….

What really sets me off in this situation is when the person in the seat in front of me reclines his or her seat all the way back. What are these people thinking? Probably something like, “It’s my seat, I paid for it, and I’m going to get every inch out of it.” Apparently, consideration for others in this new age of ever-tightening seat space never enters the equation.

As sort of a karmic protection, I’ve stopped reclining my own seat when flying economy, hoping the person in front of me won’t do it either. But sometimes it doesn’t work, and I find myself much closer to a stranger’s scalp than I really want to be.

Sometimes I have no choice but to just recline as well, risking similarly offending the person in the seat behind me, and perhaps setting off a domino effect all the way to the back of the plane.

I have a 6-foot-2 friend who’s a militant anti-recliner. He recalls a recent flight to Seattle in which the guy in front of him immediately reclined his seat after takeoff — then spent most of the flight leaning forward to work. Arrgh!  When the guy finally did sit back, my friend positioned his knees squarely in the offending passenger’s kidneys (easy to do with the newer, thinner “slimline” seats).

The average distance between seats is once again on the decline- last week American Airlines said it would reduce pitch in some economy class seats to a severe 29 inches. And as we all know planes are flying fuller than ever. Personal space is at a premium, creating tiny little wars throughout the coach cabin.

Why can’t airlines impose a partial truce by locking seats upright, at least for short flights?

I asked a handful of TravelSkills readers what they think about this. Many — especially taller ones — think it’s high time for a seat-back lockup. “It is already cramped enough at the ‘back of the bus, but to have your space encroached by the person in front of you for that extra two inches of non-space is terrible,” said reader A.E.

Reclining seats can also be a threat to laptop computers. P.B. from Atlanta said his laptop case was cracked “by some yahoo who thrust her seat back full force. … I had the screen resting against that dangerous well that houses the tray table.” Brown now asks for a “recline alert” from the person in front of him when working on his laptop.

Knee room in economy – non existent of passenger reclines (Chris McGinnis)

Some business travelers think a middle road would be best. P.V. suggests airlines adjust the seats so that they recline only half way. Many others suggested locking seats upright for short flights only. T.T. hates government intervention, but he thinks the solution is “a federal regulation providing a minimum amount of space between seats to permit comfortable reclining.”

Despite the recent outcry, complaints and congressional hearing, I doubt we’ll see much action on this issue. The airlines seem much more interested in revenue than comfort in economy class. None of the majors is likely to step out front with a seat lockup that would be criticized by some as another service reduction even though a it could be considered an enhancement. (Only the Ultra-Low-Cost carriers like Spirit and Allegiant have non-reclining seats.)

Maybe the best we can hope for is a little better application of the Golden Rule.

If you don’t like the idea of someone planting their scalp a few inches from your face, don’t do it to the person behind you. Think before you recline.  Recline slowly or only halfway.

In the meantime, I’ll be reminded of that coat closet every time I squeeze into my economy seat and have the misfortune of sitting behind a recliner. Unless, of course, I snag a roomy exit row, bulkhead seat or, better yet, luck into an upgrade premium economy or first/business class.

What do you think….Should airlines lock economy seats in the upright position? Halfway? Not at all? Should the feds set seat space standards? Please leave your comments below. 

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Are seatback screens becoming obsolete?

Seatback screens are still staying on American wide-bodies like this 787 -- for now. (Image: American)

Seatback screens are still staying on American Airlines wide-bodies like this 787 — for now. (Image: American)

American Airlines has decided to do without seatback video screens in its newest single-aisle planes, and it is betting that passengers won’t care.

The carrier is due to take delivery of its first four next-generation 737 MAX aircraft this year – it has ordered a total of 100 – and they will come without the traditional seatback screens. American will still offer the screens on wide-bodies used for international routes, for its three-class A321Ts used on lucrative transcontinental routes, and on some other single-aisle aircraft, including 40 A321s and other 737 models due for delivery this year.

Instead of using seatback screens, passengers on the new 737 MAX planes will be able to see entertainment programming on their personal electronic devices, the airline said in a memo to employees.

The carrier said more than 90 percent of AA passengers now bring along their own tablet, laptop or smartphone, and that passengers prefer to use those devices. The airline will allow passengers to access its collection of movies, TV programs and live TV at no charge.

Satellite-based Wi-Fi links will be available for a fee, so that passengers can stream on-demand video entertainment from other providers. All of American’s new 737 MAX aircraft, and several hundred of its other domestic planes, will be getting new satellite-based Wi-Fi technology from ViaSat, the same vendor used by JetBlue.

Direct streaming to tablets and laptops will preclude the need for seatback video screens in the future. Photo: Chris McGinnis)

Direct streaming to tablets and laptops will likely preclude the need for seatback video screens in the future. (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

The new technology will permit much faster Wi-Fi for easy video streaming from sources like Netflix and Amazon. The ViaSat Wi-Fi should be on about half of AA’s single-aisle fleet by mid-2018.

American hasn’t decided yet whether it will extend the “no screens” policy to other aircraft types in the future.  But its memo to employees did say that the company expects seatback monitors to be “obsolete within a few years.”

Other carriers seem to be taking the same approach; United’s new 737-900s rely on entertainment streaming without video screens, and Alaska also uses streaming-only in-flight entertainment, although on longer flights it offers rental tablets that are preloaded with movie and TV programming.

Readers: Do you care if your domestic flight has a seatback screen as long as you can stream entertainment directly to your laptop or tablet at a reasonable speed?

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FAA: Keep out of the seat back pocket

Keep your stuff out of that nasty seatback pocket (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

Keep your stuff out of that nasty seatback pocket (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

How do you use your seat back pocket? We received an interesting observation and query from TravelSkills reader J.U. this week that led to a discovery.

I love reading your daily column, and learn a lot. This is the first time I’ve had  a question I thought you could check out. Yesterday I flew on Southwest, and was startled by an announcement at the beginning of the flight, saying that we were not to put any personal items in the seat back pockets! The flight attendant actually said, “The seat backs are for our magazine and safety information. You are not to put any personal items in them – no water bottles, no books, no computers, …” I noticed that the seat back pockets have in fact gotten very tight, with hardly any room for anything other than the magazine. (I had in fact put my water bottle in there, and it barely fit.) This seems very strange to me – what next!? Maybe we will have to pay for a seat back pocket with a  little more room? Have you heard anything about this? The person sitting next to me was also a frequent traveler, and neither of us had heard of this before. I would love to know if you have any information on it.

I could not think of a time when I’d heard an announcement like this, so I grabbed a Southwest spokesperson who told TravelSkills that this wasn’t new and in fact an FAA regulation designed to prevent encroachment into space needed in case of the need for a quick exit.

Now’s the time to book summer flights to Europe

The verbiage from the DOT rule about seatback stowage.

The verbiage from the DOT rule about seatback stowage.

I also kinda cringe when I think about seatbacks and avoid them like the plague (pun intended). Did you know that seatbacks are the dirtiest part of the plane and the place were nasty germs like MRSA live the longest? So I’d refrain from putting any personal items in there on account of that! Maybe the FAA rule is there to protect us from germs, too.

–Chris McGinnis

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