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American Airlines may have had to cut back on a number of routes due to the ongoing delivery issues with a number of Boeing aircraft, but it has managed to dig around its fleet and find a 787-8 Dreamliner to schedule on its Los Angeles – Honolulu route over Christmas and New Year.
Dream of a Dreamliner for Christmas
For most of the winter season, American Airlines offers three daily flights between Los Angeles and Honolulu using its A321neo aircraft. Around the holidays, however, American Airlines usually adds a fourth flight and that’s what’s happening again this year and, as an added bonus, one of the four daily flights is now scheduled to be operated by a 787 Dreamliner.
Here’s the schedule between 19 December 2024 and 6 January 2025 (the period during which the Dreamliner and four daily flights will operate the route):
AA031 LAX 08:40 – 12:46 HNL (Daily)*
AA1725 LAX 12:53 – 16:53 HNL (Daily)
AA143 LAX 15:50 – 19:48 HNL (Daily)
AA297 LAX 18:30 – 22:27 HNL (Daily)
AA1480 HNL 08:00 – 15:31 LAX (Daily)
AA162 HNL 14:16 – 21:49 LAX (Daily)*
AA298 HNL 21:30 – 05:01+1 day LAX (Daily)
AA144 HNL 23:30 – 07:01+1 day LAX (Daily)
*Operated by the 787-8 Dreamliner.
[HT: Aeroroutes]
The aircraft
The American Airlines 787-8 Dreamliner is configured with 20 Business Class seats, 28 Premium Economy seats and 186 Economy Class seats, and based on the current seat map (which shows some rear facing seats), the Business Class cabin will offer the airline’s ‘Concept D’ seats.
The good news hare is that these are true lie-flat seats, and as you can see from the seat map, all seats in the cabin offer direct access to one of the aircraft’s aisles.
The bad news is that these are the worst wide-body Business Class seats that American Airlines offers (American Airlines 777-200ER Business Class review – Concept D seat)
The seats can have a coffin-like feel to them when in lie-flat mode and these seats are fitted so poorly that if you’re in one of the center seats, you can feel your seat move when the person in the seat next to you moves.
Still, these are considerably better seats than any seats you’ll find on the A321neos that operate all the other American Airlines flights on this route.
It’s also worth noting that the Dreamliner offers a Premium Economy cabin (28 seats offering 18.5″ of width and 38″ of pitch), but anyone hoping that American Airlines would sell this as a 2-cabin flight (and so allow elite flyers to book Economy and sit in Premium Economy) is going to be disappointed.
Flights AA31/AA162 are being sold as 3-cabin flights while the Dreamliner is on the route.
Bottom line
For a very limited time, American Airlines will operate a 787-8 Dreamliner complete with lie-flat Business Class seats and an international Premium Economy cabin on its route between Los Angeles and Honolulu.
Disappointingly, the aircraft will only operate the route for the holidays (19 December to 6 January), but given that on most days there doesn’t appear to be much of a difference in price between the lie-flat cabin on the Dreamliner and the domestic First Class cabin on the A321neos, anyone prepared to pay to sit up front should make sure to book the flights operated by the 787.
