American Airlines To Squeeze Even More Seats Into Its Smallest Mainline Jets – View from the Wing

American Airlines To Squeeze Even More Seats Into Its Smallest Mainline Jets

by Gary Leff on January 31, 2024

I wrote this morning that American Airlines would add more first class seats to its Airbus A319 fleet. Currently these planes have just 8 first class seats along with 120 coach seats.

According to aviation watchdog JonNYC, when Airbus A319s that had been part of American Airlines before US Airways management took over a decade ago, they will:

• Be changed over to the new standard “Oasis” product which means taking out seat back TVs and adding bigger overhead bins
• Get an extra row of seats in order to add first class. They will go to 12 first class seats while keeping 120 seats in economy

And needless to say– not that I imagine there was any doubt– out go the in-seat PTVs during any Oasis’ing

At this point, I consider it confirmed that the 32 LAA A319s will be 12F + 120Y and therefore simply -have- to be space-flex lavs in the back.

— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) January 31, 2024

This means squeezing the cabin for extra inches to stick another row of seats into an aircraft that’s already densely configured. There are only 3 rows at the front of the plane, for instance, that are considered ‘Main Cabin Extra’ extra legroom seats.

They’ll be getting some of those inches with a smaller lavatory, but that doesn’t get them what they need and that means inches will need to be squeezed from the rest of the (seats in the) cabin. Expect less legroom than today on this aircraft both for first class seats and for seats in economy.

Current Airbus A319 First Class Seat

American Airlines New ‘Oasis’ Coach Seat

The timing for this change is not yet clear. American has been planning to add more first class seats to sell for over two years. However, they needed to complete retrofits of their Airbus A321s to the new cabin standard before turning their attention to this plane. And they’ll be getting more A321s for reconfiguration from Alaska Airlines. Soon, though, these A319s will lose seat back TVs, legroom, and even get squeezed at the lav.

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