American Airlines Revamps Its Business Class

Oct. 3, 2006
After the switch, AA will still have 30 seats in business in a 2-2-2 configuration.

Business-class travelers on American Airlines can look forward to newly designed seats that recline to "almost flat" in a completely redesigned cabin. During a preview tour in AA's Fort Worth headquartersearlier this summer, Business Traveler got an advance look at a mock-up of the revamped section, which is now in rollout phase.

The new AA business-class seat will recline to an "almost flat" 171-degree angle. "That way it can fit in the existing footprint of thecabin," explained Codi Baker, senior program manager for inflight products at AA. "We'd lose a whole row of seats if we went completely flat."

After the switch, AA will still have 30 seats in business in a 2-2-2 configuration. "Besides," she reported, "in our testing, people prefered lounge positions to flat."

There are two new features: a two-part tray, and a seat that slides forward. "We've designed a working environment as well as a sleeping environment."

The food tray table that lifts out of the armrest can be locked toanother tray table that folds down from the seat in front; together they form one large workspace. A touch-button LED display above the tray functions as a task light for this area.

"The seat can track forward as much as 10 inches," Baker said, allowing the passenger to adjust their distance from the fold-down tableand the entertainment system.

Each business-class seat will have a new portable entertainment unit mounted in the seat in front. "It looks somewhat like a laptop, and it opens 180 degrees. There's a 10.6-inch monitor with a touch screen. It has a battery, so it can be unplugged from its power outlet for viewing flexibility." Baker added, estimating that when the unit isused on battery-only, it can run for four hours.

Both armrests can be lowered to give more elbow room. The seat cushion itself is 20 inches wide.

The new AA seat has no mechanical lumbar adjustments. "Our customers complained about that feature more than any other aspect of the old seats," Baker said. "We took it out and replaced it with cushioning."

A new cross aisle has been added in the front of the cabin, so those seated in the bulkhead row won't be disturbed by foot traffic.

The seats are designed so that components can be swapped out when repairs are needed, Baker reported. "We estimate an eight to 10 year lifespan for business-class seats."

In addition to new seats, the business-class cabin has been redesigned to give passengers more headroom. "It's still too low for most of us to stand up in front of the window seats," Baker reported, "but it will be possible to do so at the four remaining seats in each row." The highest point in the ceiling is, of course, over the aisle.

The first passengers to fly in the new seats were on a San Francisco-Dallas-Santiago route in early June, although AA also did about two and a half weeks of testing on flights from Chicago to Europe before that--with an extra flight attendant on board to monitor seat usagequestions and problems.

The upgrades are being done first on the B767-300 two-class planes, and then on the B777s, with completion slated for the end of 2007. Half of the planes should be done by this December, Baker noted.

The B767-200 three-class planes flying the JFK-LAX route will remain unchanged.

The new AA business-class seat was a long time in the planning. "We started on this in 2000," Baker said, "but, then there was the travel slowdown after Sept. 11, so the project took longer than usual. Wehad a lot of time to go 'window-shopping'."

Lufthansa has the same basic model of this seat, but AA customizedit. "[Lufthansa's], for example, does not track forward," she noted.

The new seats are made by Recaro Aircraft Seating, a subsidiary ofKaiper Recaro, based in Germany but manufactured in Fort Worth. Jean-Pierre Foulon, director of programs and engineering for Recaro, saidthe seats are capable of more than what is currently planned by AA.

"Software defines the 'envelope' in which the seat is free to move," he pointed out during a recent factory tour, but the seats are infinitely adjustable using five separate motors. There are releases forthe controllers, so a flight attendant can adjust the seat manually if any of the motors malfunctions.

If the airline were to change the configuration of the plane, "we could change the software to allow the seat to recline fully flat," Foulon said. There would be no need to buy new seating, just to createa new plastic shell enclosing the seat.

Weight is a crucial consideration in all aspects of airplane design. The metal parts of the undercarriage of the seat are pierced by holes in a pattern that is optimized to reduce weight, while allowing for stress, Foulon said.

Mary McKee, managing director of in-flight products for AA, said that the airline has had problems with the business model for onboard Internet access. However, "within the next 12-18 months," AA expectedto offer in-air wireless access on domestic flights at a cost of about $7 or $8 per trip.

She also reported that there would be more drop-down screens over the aisles in coach, but that AA would not be installing individual monitors. "Technology has leapfrogged that screen in the seatback," McKee explained during the recent National Business Travel Association meeting in Chicago. "More people are bringing their own entertainmentdevices on board."

C. David Cush, senior vice president of global sales for AA, notedthat business class is "the most profitable cabin in the aircraft," and that "the demand for those seats has expanded rapidly due to globalization."

During an interview at NBTA, he also commented that business-classtravelers are growing more demanding of the airlines, especially on the ultra-competitive transAtlantic routes where AA's main competitors are British Airways and Virgin Atlantic.

"They travel for sometimes 10 or 12 hours straight, and have to bein a meeting three hours after landing," he explained. "Business travelers demand a hassle-free experience. They need to arrive well-rested, and have a place to shower and change clothes before heading out of the airport."

Cush doesn't see fully-flat seats as a passenger concern. "Planes fly at a four-degree incline," he muses, "so, a 180-degree recline actually puts your head below horizontal."

Later this fall, Cush said, AA will add new self-service devices that will read passports to allow for faster international check-ins.

New terminals also are part of the service strategy. Half of the new AA terminal is already open at New York JFK, with the remainder--including two new Admirals Clubs--to be finished by April 2007.

At Dallas-Fort Worth, AA has a new terminal, and a new facility isunder construction in Miami. Major upgrades are in the works at Chicago O'Hare, AA's largest international gateway. The AA terminal in Los Angeles, shared with Qantas, is just a few years old, he noted.

Cush hasn't flown in the new business-class seat yet, although he pointed out that all U.S.-based AA executives have tested 10 or 12 seat prototype mock-ups during development.

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