American Airlines has officially unveiled a new product within its business class cabin it will call a Flagship Suite Preferred Seat. Let’s look at what will distinguish this product from the other seats in business class and why this is a realistic product evolution from an airline that has refused to invest in truly distinguishing its first class product from business class.
American Airlines Will Offer Flagship Suite “Preferred Seat” On 777, 787
American Airlines will debut a Boeing 787-9 aircraft in October 2024 featuring brand new Flagship Suites in business class. The aircraft will operate flights between Dallas (DFW) and Brisbane (BNE). Over time, American Airlines will retrofit its Boeing 777-300ER jets, removing first class and installing the same Flagship Suites.
Up until now, there was some question as to what American Airlines would do with the first row of seats. The Adient Ascent product allows for extra space in the bulkhead rows and today AA announced it would call this front row Flagship Suite Preferred Seats.
In addition to featuring more legroom and storage, these seats will offer extra amenities, including:
- Nest Bedding
- mattress pad
- throw blanket
- memory foam lumbar pillow
- pajamas
- Exclusive amenity kit featuring additional skincare products (versus business class) from Thirteen Lune by Joanna Vargas and Relevant
No pricing has been announced for these seats. In fact, you can still reserve them for free if booking between Dallas and Brisbane. Will this seat eventually come with access to Flagship Check-In, Flagship Dining, or the exclusive Chelsea Lounge at New York JFK?
As an aside, this is the nature of the next generation of business class. It is why United Airlines is considering something very similar on its next generation of business class seats. It is what Lufthansa will shortly debut with its Allegris product or like JetBlue’s Mint Studio (in the first row of business class) or Virgin Atlatnic’s “Retreat Suite” on its Airbus A330-900neo.
I don’t blame American Airlines for wanting to capitalize on these seats that have a lot more room for your feet. I also think the upgraded suite falls well short of a first class product, but American Airlines has failed to properly invest in first class for years. Rather than use its position as the only US carrier still offering a true first class product to distinguish it, like Air France, Lufthansa, or SWISS, it has made first class even more like business class.
That ship has sailed, though, and that is why I think this approach makes more sense: it’s a low-hanging fruit that can bring in ancillary revenue without having to really invest in a separate cabin of service.
I picture it exactly like Mint Studio on JetBlue: a bulkhead seat with extra legroom (and even extra amenities, unlike JetBlue), but exactly the same service onboard. Same food. Same wine. Everything else stays the same. And for that reason, the extra amenities seem trivial to me, though I think passengers will be willing to pay some premium (maybe $200-700, depending on the route) or extra legroom and a more spacious suite.
CONCLUSION
American Airlines has officially unveiled a new product within its business class cabin it will call a Flagship Suite Preferred Seat. It makes sense that AA would want to charge more for these roomier bulkhead seats. Now, though, the question is how much will passengers be willing to pay for a little extra space.
image: American Airlines
Lipstick on a pig. Unless you are extremely tall, paying for extra space in business class makes no sense. As long as I can sleep fully flat, I am ok with regular space. Now, having different bedding and amenity kit is a terrible idea as there is no separation from the other seats like used to be in first class. A total non sense to me.
Not everyone has the same views and needs and standards as you do. And that’s ok.
@Santastico … I agree because I have the same views and needs and standards as you do . OK .
No surprise there lol
What is the seat width? that’s also important. SQ on their A350 offers 28″ wide seats.
This will 100% boil down to simply paying for (a tiny bit) more room. I fully expect that the soft product will remain unchanged despite initial PR garbage from AA. They’ll roll out some new, shiny stuff then quickly and quiety rein everything back in so it’s a standardized product across the board.
Also staying abysmal: the level of service from the FAs – which is to say it’s already a low bar and don’t expect it to be raised. At all. AA has an employee morale problem, not a hard product problem and this is not going to alleviate that. If anything, it will simply make them less behind their JV partners and other peers when it comes to seats (and doors!) than it will to actual being a world class airline. They’ve clearly given up on that.
So basically, it’ll end up being just like Air France with it’s new bulkhead seats.
I’m a little disappointed the mattress pad isn’t offered at every seat, especially considering that’s something UA gives, as well as most competing European airlines
Agreed. Nobody seems to mention this but it’s pretty clear they are removing this from this “improved” product. For me a mattress pad makes a big difference on a 16 hour flight!
I don’t really know how the “cabin within a cabin” idea is going to work. Seeing passengers ostensibly in the same cabin as you a row ahead getting mattress pads and different amentities are going to confuse and irritate a lot of people unless they’re planning on putting flashing neon signs or a dividing curtain on the ultra-business business seats, and on empty flights, people won’t understand why they can’t move into them when they’re in the same cabin and look nearly identical to the rest of the seats. This was a flop when US tried it on the Envoy A330’s, AA has to execute this really carefully to not just make it feel like they’re cheapening the bulk of the business class experience.
More and more carriers are doing this. Makes sense for AA to do this to eke out some extra revenue.
@Jan … AA is eking out too much extra revenue .
I flew in the bulkhead on Qantas and the extra room made all the difference for me. Slept so much better.
How is Jet Blue doing ? They have a similar setup. I’m guessing if no one purchases the seat it will either go to a business class passenger who hasn’t been assigned a seat yet , Concierge Key , EXP , or non rev.