American Airlines has 100 A321 ‘neo’ or ‘new engine option’ planes on order (22 of these deliveries have been deferred). It would be a new ‘dense’ configuration with more seats than the airline has ever put into an A321 before. And that it would become the template for going back and adding seats to existing Airbus A321s as well.
At the end of September I revealed the details of just how American would be squeezing more seats into their Airbus A321 fleet just like they are doing with their Boeing 737s as well as adding more first class seats.
- Legacy American A321s (not the cross country A321Ts) get 15 more seats in the same amount of space while legacy US Airways A321s get 9 more seats.
- A321neo aircraft will have 196 total seats (remember: one flight attendant per 50 passengers, one more row would have cost them more money to crew the planes).
- It’s 20 first class seats (5 rows, rather than the current 4), 47 Main Cabin Extra seats, and 129 regular coach seats.
American Airlines took delivery of their first aircraft in January, and the first photos were made public on twitter by JonNYC.
AA’s new A321Neo, N400AN. World premier interior pics 🤠 pic.twitter.com/6ST0kVTwzQ
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) February 1, 2019
American’s defenders will say that this plane has just 4 more seats than Delta’s Airbus A321s. Three years ago Delta had 195 seats (compared to American’s 196 in this layout) but took away 3 seats because it was just too many and didn’t leave crew enough room to work.
Indeed it was just a year ago when American’s CEO Doug Parker mocked the 195 seat Delta configuration, that they walked back, joking that it required putting crew seats on the lavatory doors.
The goal is that these planes will fly Phoenix and Los Angeles to Hawaii and Los Angeles to the East Coast. Hawaii flying with the aircraft is expected to start in the fall.
Apparently American Airlines is performing an evacuation test on their Airbus A321neo, which is required before they’re certified to fly it in revenue operations.
looks to me like they are doing the evac. exercise today then it’ll be back doing station visits Thursday through the weekend
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) March 12, 2019
The FAA requires that aircraft can be safely evacuated within 90 seconds. I did not realize that an evacuation drill (as I think I read JonNYC to be implying), rather than a computer model, would be required to certify the aircraft though these tests are outside my area of expertise.
There’s controversy over whether today’s more densely packed planes — more seats, closer together, with higher load factors — can be evacuated that quickly under real world conditions, but I’ve argued that misses the point. Evacuation standards need to be so stringent in order to account for the delays that happen when frightened passengers actually leave the aircraft in real world stress.
- Passengers stop to grab their bags from overhead bins.
- And then they take selfies.
Nonetheless this photo which was shared with me seems unwise and illustrates the lengths that American Airlines will seemingly go to add that last row of seats to their aircraft.
There’s no question that this is permissible. Indeed American’s international Boeing 757s feature a similar protrusion into the exist at row 9. With that many passengers, many of whom are larger than the average passenger used to be (myself among them, sigh) I’d want as much room as possible.
I speculate that densly packed planes cause health problems that kill more people than the worst case scenerio of the Max. It you get a clot from being crammed into a plane, it loosens 3 months later, and you have a stroke. No way to track it, but you died just the same.
Why does anyone even bother flying this crappy airline’s crappy planes?
Oh, right, because there’s not much to choose from now that we’re stuck with a government sanctioned airline industry cartel.
Isn’t crony capitalism great?!?! 😉
DL A321 CEO are seating 192 verses AA’s 190 and DL A321 NEO will seat 197 compared to AA 196. So Compare Apple to Apple. . .DL is putting 1 to 2 more seats in their A321s than AA, DL has also shrunk the bathroom on their A319 and a320s which AA has not done, is using a similar bathroom on their 737-900 as AA’s Max/Oasis craft (SW and Alaska use the same too).
While AA is adding seats, DL is adding more to the exact same plane. So who’s the evil airline now?
@Sun Viking why are you comparing to American’s pre-renovation ceo? american is going back through their whole domestic fleet to do this after they already did it post-merger
Sun Viking 82
You are correct. Those are undisputed facts.
How convenient Gary did not mention them. The defense would be that Delta has seat back AVOD so that compensates.
That sounds about right.
This is about blocking exit row egress, not AVOD
If Delta and American have A321neo configurations at around 196-197, what is it like for low cost carriers?
I wonder…. are ultra low cost airlines helping or hurting passenger comfort on the full service airlines? Why don’t they seem to segmenting out lower-yield passengers? Is it just not profitable to offer a comfortable main cabin product?
I get that, on many levels, it’s tough to compete on anything other than price on Google Flights. In that venue, almost nothing else can be effectively marketed. But, at some point, is there enough of a market to pay a small revenue premium to not to have an ultra low cost carrier type experience on the ground and in the main cabin?
The FAA tests are a joke. They pay people to orderly exit a plane. The people are excpecting the evacuation and practice it several times. In a real evacuation people panic, other people grab their carry on, there are young children and disabled people on the plane, sometimes slides fail on some doors which causes even more chaos.
Less room throughout coach.
@Sun Viking @Guyo +1. Unfortunately, those facts don’t further his narrative, so they will not be discussed. I am shocked the size of the MAX lav wasn’t rehashed in this story. Again.
Ugh.
I’m 6’4″ and my “second home” is traveling MIA-LAX-MIA . AA currently has 9 daily non-stops, 6 using the “321”, 2 using the new Sardine Can (MAX) and 1 triple 7.
Obviously I prefer the 777 in J and score 50% of the time, otherwise it’s the 321.
When this “oasis” conversion baloney is finished I’m considering applying for disability since both my back and knees will cease functioning after all is said and done. MCE be damned.
The next thing that will happen is increasing the seat count to 199 on these narrow tubes.
787’s please?
I flew Jetstar from Adelaide to Cairns last week. Looked up the pitch and it is about 17.5 inches. Never again. And none of the new AA configuration when I get home. Life time AA plat but it’s JetBlue from now on.