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Possibly in the hope that more people will soon be traveling and that international travel may once again be an option for people to consider, American Airlines has announced that its introducing new amenity kits for its premium cabins.
American’s New Amenity Kits
American Airlines has partnered with ‘Shinola’ (bags) and ‘D.S & Durga’ (scents & cosmetics) to come up with three new amenity kits for its premium international and domestic trascon cabins. These partners will be replacing ‘This is Ground’ (bags) and ‘Allies of Skin’ (scents & cosmetics).
This is the amenity kit that has been designed for American’s international First Class cabin (only found on the airline’s 777-300ER aircraft) and possibly for the First Class cabin on any domestic routes where a true First Class product is sold on a 777-300ER:
This is the amenity kit that will be offered in the international Business Class cabins and the domestic transcontinental First Class cabin (found on the A321T):
And this is the amenity kit that passengers will now find in American’s international Premium Economy cabins and the domestic transcontinental Business Class cabin (found on the A321T):
Based on the images provided by American, it looks like another change that these amenity kits will be introducing is a new toothpaste. The toothpaste in the current amenity kits is from Crest while the new amenity kits appear to have Colgate toothpaste.
These new amenity kits are already being rolled out on American’s routes to London Heathrow and will be rolled out across other long-haul international and American’s domestic transcontinental flights as the summer progresses.
Quick Thoughts
The first (and probably most obvious) thought that I had when I saw the images of the new kits was “where are the hand sanitizer and the hand wipes?” Considering how the need to keep our hands and environment as clean as possible has been drummed into us day after day for the past 15 months, I’m struggling to understand why any airline would choose to introduce a new amenity kit right now without including a small bottle of hand sanitizer and some wipes.
Let’s face it, for most people amenity kits are just something that takes up space around their seat and aside from possibly the dental products, the contents of most amenity kits don’t contain much that passengers actually want or need (I’m not including the more premium amenity kits here). Hand sanitizer and sanitizing wipes are actually useful and would probably be appreciated by a lot more people than a hand and body lotion or a pen that will probably be lost down the side of a seat before a flight is over. This seems like an oversight that I’m surprised no one picked up on before the contents of the new amenity kits were given the go-ahead.
Overall, there’s nothing particularly special about what American is introducing – I’m pretty sure I’ve got an American Airlines Business Class amenity kit from a few years back that looks very like the new First Class bag – but I guess those of us who like being offered an amenity kit (I consider myself to be in that group) should be grateful that these kits haven’t been eliminated as part of a money-saving exercise disguised as a Covid health and safety measure.
Bottom Line
American Airlines has started to roll out new amenity kits across its premium cabins but it’s hard to get excited about what’s coming our way. Still, I don’t want to sound completely ungrateful (I’m pleased that amenity kits are still around), and given the choice of nothing or the new kits above, I’ll happily take the new kits with a smile and thank you when one is handed to me on my next premium cabin flight.
