Back in March American Airlines Chairman Doug Parker described the Boeing 767 as a bad customer experience and suggested they needed to retire the aircraft sooner. Indeed shortly after that the airline announced a big order of Boeing 787s.
While offering a less spacious business class than other widebodies, and overall an antiquated interior, in some ways it’s the best plane to fly in coach because the seats are wider — by half an inch compared to Boeing 777s and even up to a full inch compared to American’s Boeing 787s.
American Boeing 767 Business Class
Talking about flying widebodies on domestic routes, American Airlines Vice President – Planning Vasu Raja told employees in Chicago last week that they’ll see more of it in winter and less of it in summer. That’s presumably because over the summer they use widebodies more for seasonal routes to Europe.
There will always be some domestic widebody flying in and out of Chicago for utilization purposes, spare aircraft time that’s not enough to send the plane on an another international trip.
We can expect to see more Boeing 767 flying domestically though going forward. He explained,
As the 767 is retired, as it’s going through the process of retiring it, we will bring it increasingly into the East Coast to go die and fly fewer trips into other hubs.
We’ll start to see Boeing 767s flying domestic routes simply because they view the product as being uncompetitive with international flying, certainly in premium cabins. And the aircraft isn’t reliable enough for once a day international routes either.
Just sell them to FedEx. Just like the DC10s. I personally like the 767, in any class.
So des this mean in PHL I’ll see more of these when I fly as opposed to the fabulous A319-321’s we get now?
@ Stan D – sure, a few times per week on two random routes?
But what about new international markets?
Vasu is all over the place.
The 767 was great on United and American up to approx 2005
They had marvelous seating and good catering back in the day
First and business may not have had beds but I remember many a comfortable flights and delicious food
Even coach in an exit row/bulkhead was great
united had a few business class seats in business that were trul;y private and had a little table next to them.Loved them
Today I fly other carriers because both United and American suck terribly
Now I have ) reason to fly them they have ruined their brand credibility with inferior uncomfortable seating horrible food and beverage and terrible Consumer relations when if things go wrong
No trust or interest in doing business with these now sad carriers
It is a shame to fly such an old plane on JFK-CDG.
Seat width aside, the 787 experience is so much better this is welcome news. AA has only 24 of these birds left and while a good aircraft, their time has come, just like the 707 before them. It would be awesome to see them flying PHL/BOS/CLT to PHX to Hawaii over the winter season (Let’s hope). As for the onboard experience, the AA bashing is by a lot of people who don’t fly them. I fly them 2 to 4 times a month and they are at par with DL domestically and their international product is the best of the big 3 now and much better then BA or AF IMO. Like food, we all have our preferences and tastes. AA and DL are the best of the domestics that matter now. Glad to see the new planes and new interiors / seats too. It’s about time.
Routes to South America is a great place for the 767s to be!
American’s product compares favorably to Aeroflot
@NoNOyeah Yep, South America routes are where old AA aircraft go to die. MIA-MVD always gets the oldest ones.
With the 2-3-2 seating in economy, the 767 has only 1 middle seat per row. It has a stellar safety record, enough wing sweep for a decent cruise speed, a nice and quiet ride, stability in bad weather, and short field performance. Lacking the latest infotainment and cabin bling, unless retrofitted, the 767 is all business and no fluff.