American Airlines Will Offer Lie-Flat Seats & Flagship First Class On Its Los Angeles – Boston Route

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American Airlines has a small sub-fleet of Airbus A320 aircraft which offer premium cabins which are a significant step up from what you’ll find on most other narrow-body American Airlines aircraft.

These aircraft offer First Class, Business Class and Economy Class cabins and the two premium cabin come equipped with true lie-flat seats.

Since these aircraft were fist introduces a few years back they have been employed primarily on American’s transcontinental routes between New York and the West Coast – specifically on flights to LA and San Francisco.

These A321T aircraft are comfortably the best equipped narrow-body aircraft in the American Airlines fleet and now they’re going to be deployed on a new transcontinental route.

Starting on 2 April 2019 American Airlines will offer 3-class A321T service between Los Angeles and Boston 2x/day on the following schedule:

AA156 LAX 07:45 – 16:16 BOS
AA2455 LAX 21:55 – 06:22 BOS

AA211 BOS 07:24 – 11:10 LAX
AA2542 BOS 17:45 – 21:28 LAX

Here’s how American Airlines describes its transcontinental offering:

Customers traveling from coast to coast on the A321T in Flagship First and Flagship Business will experience fully lie-flat seats and a chef-curated menu, as well as premium wines and amenity kits. Those traveling in Main Cabin can stay connected with power at every seat, high-speed Wi-Fi and seatback entertainment. And, as part of American’s new collaboration with Zoës Kitchen, Main Cabin customers can purchase new light and healthy menu options.

Flagship First and Flagship Business customers have access to meals designed by chef-partner Sam Choy as well as a lumbar support pillow, duvet, mattress pad and other bedding from sleep experts Casper.

First Class passengers departing from LA will have a true Flagship First experience in that they will have access to the big three American Airlines offerings:

• Flagship First check-in (an area separate from the regular First Class desks)
• Flagship Lounge (reviewed here)
• Flagship Dining

Passengers booked into Business Class and flying out of LA also get access to the Flagship Lounge but not to Flagship Dining.

At Boston Logan things aren’t quite so upscale – both First Class and Business Class passengers will have to make do with the newly renovated Admirals Club (due to reopen in “early 2019).

It’s worth pointing out that the A321T also comes fitted with 36 Main Cabin Extra seats which a lot offer more legroom than the standard Economy Class seats (35″ vs 31”) and passengers reserving these seats also get complimentary beer, wine and spirits.

Thoughts

I reviewed the Business Class cabin on the A321T back in 2016 and, at the time, it was the best domestic Business Class product on the market (at least from a hard product point of view) – JetBlue’s Mint cabin is probably the market leader now.

Still, the A321T Business Class cabin is a very nice place to spend a few hours and it’s easy to get some work done or to get some sleep – the personal space is pretty good.

I’m told that the First Class cabin is an even nicer experience (as it should be!) but I cannot speak from experience.

If you’d like to get a feel for what the Economy Class cabin is like on the A321 you can check out my review of the A321S Economy Class cabin on a recent trip to Hawaii.

In summary this is what I wrote:

As domestic Economy Class experiences go this was a reasonably good one….but that had a lot to do with the fact that I was booked into an exit row and I didn’t have to pay for food.

Had I been crammed into a narrow seat with minimal legroom towards the back of the aircraft and had to pay good money for mediocre food I would probably have come to a different conclusion after 5.5 hours.

As that’s about the length of journey from coast to coast that review seems pretty appropriate.

Overall this is clearly very good news for premium cabin travelers and Main Cabin Extra travelers (less so if you’re in regular Economy Class).

American’s narrow-body aircraft are gradually making the flying experience more and more miserable but the A321T is bucking that trend….at least at the pointy end.