American Airlines To Bring Back Second Daily Philadelphia – London Flight

an airplane on the runway

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American Airlines has announced that it will be reinstating the second daily Philadelphia – London Heathrow flight that was last seen in 2015 and operated by the then US Airways. The second daily rotation between the two cities is only being brought in for the summer season but, following Virgin Atlantic’s announcement of a 3rd daily flight to Los Angeles, is another example of the significantly increased capacity we’ll be seeing between the US and Europe in 2017.

American Airlines is introducing the second daily rotation from 25 March 2017 and will use its Airbus A330-300 on the route (the same aircraft that operates the existing flights between the two cities).

The schedule from 25 March 2017 is as follows:

AA736 PHL 19:20 – 07:45+1 day LHR (Daily) **New**
AA728 PHL 20:35 – 09:00+1 day LHR (Daily)

AA729 LHR 10:05 – 13:25 PHL (Daily)
AA737 LHR 14:10 – 17:20 PHL (Daily) **New**

The Airbus A330-300 is one of the few mainline aircraft that American Airlines flys that I haven’t had the joy of trying out (the refurbished 777-200 and the refurbished 757 are the others) but here is what I know:

There is no First Class cabin on the American Airlines A330-300 but there is a Business Class cabin consisting of 28 seats with all aisle access:

american-airlines-a330-300-business-class-seat-map

American promotes this cabin as having:

  • Fully lie-flat seats, all with direct-aisle access
  • AC power outlets and USB ports at every seat
  • Bose® QuietComfort® Acoustic Noise Cancelling® headphones for use in flight
  • Amenity kits filled with rejuvenating skincare products
  • In-seat entertainment with up to 300 movies (including nearly 50 new releases), 300 TV shows, 700+ music selections (including 18 radio channels) and 20 games

screen-shot-2016-11-29-at-19-23-44

While the Business Class cabin doesn’t look too bad at all the same can’t really be said for the Economy Class cabin.

Firstly, there is no Main Cabin extra option so, irrespective of elite status, all Economy Class passengers will be sitting in the same seats.

Secondly, American has done a great job of cramming as many seats as possible into the A330-300 Economy Class cabin…..

american-airlines-a330-300-economy-seat-map

…and that has resulted in 17″ wide seats with just 31″ of seat pitch (leg room).

That’s not going to be comfortable for anyone over 5″ 10.

The prime seats in this cabin would appear to be in row 25 as that’s the only exit row in the cabin….but, if a commenter below is correct, these won’t be available to passengers as they’re reserved as crew rest seats. Row 8 may look tempting but with a bulkhead right in front of the seats I would guess that the leg room will be poor.

Bottom Line

As I mentioned in my earlier post when I discussed Virgin Atlantic’s new flight to Los Angeles, this extra capacity between the US and Europe should help to keep prices low as airlines fight to fill the seats.

Presumably the airline’s revenue management team has calculated that the demand for these seats is out there or these extra flights wouldn’t be scheduled….. but I don’t see how the Business Class seats are going to be filled in July and August (low season for Business Class travel) without significant discounts to fares.

This being American Airlines it’s no surprise that the extra flights haven’t done anything for award availability between Philadelphia and London (I still can’t find any Business Class SAAver award space) but that may change if sales are weak over the coming months.

1 COMMENT

  1. Row 25 seats are used as crew rest seats when traveling to Europe on this 330 aircraft. Passengers will not be able to use these seats.

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