American Airlines is stepping up the retrofit program of its legacy Airbus A319 and A320 narrowbody airplanes, and while the new-look interiors offer a number of benefits for passengers, some compromises have inevitably been made along the way.
The first Airbus A319 to receive the retrofit treatment, a 12-year-old jet with registration N9002U, returned to commercial passenger service in February after undergoing an extensive cabin overhaul at a maintenance facility in San Salvador.
This aircraft acted as the prototype of American Airlines’ retrofit program for the rest of its older Airbus A320 series jets, which will have the same design language that launched on the Texas-based carrier’s new Boeing 787-9P aircraft and Airbus A321XLRs.
Along with an updated color palette and material finishes, the aircraft will also feature:
- New First Class seats with privacy wings, additional storage space, and two cocktail beverage trays.
- New XL overhead bins that allow passengers to store their rollaboards sideways, thereby increasing the number of bags that can be brought on board.
- Enhanced mood lighting.
- And in-seat power at every seat.
In addition, American Airlines is increasing the size of its domestic First Class cabins on these reconfigured airplanes:
- The A319 goes from 8 First Class seats to 12 First Class seats.
- The A320 goes from 12 First Class seats to 16 First Class seats
Despite the increase in the number of First Class seats, the number of Economy Class seats hasn’t decreased on the A319, with the confirmed number of Economy Seats remaining at 120 seats. For the A320, the number of Economy seats has reduced from 138 to 134, but that’s only because American Airlines wants to keep the total seat count at 150 in order to keep minimum staffing at three flight attendants (151 or more seats would trigger the need for an additional crew member).
In order to squeeze the same number of Economy Class seats in while also increasing the number of First Class seats, changes in the layout of the plane have been made that passengers and flight attendants are unlikely to be happy about.
Like many other airlines, American has opted to install the Airbus SpaceFlex galley on these retrofitted aircraft – an ‘innovation’ that first broke cover back in 2017.
The SpaceFlex is a new galley module at the very back of the plane, which essentially slashes the flight attendant workspace in half to squeeze in two slimline lavatories.
Traditionally, the two lavatories at the back of A319 and A320 aircraft were located just forward of the aft doors. With SpaceFlex is space is freed up for an additional row of seats.
It is not a stretch to say that SpaceFlex galleys are hated by flight attendants around the world. The working space has been miniaturized to the point that simple tasks become a massive effort, while the entire galley is taken up by passengers lining up to use the bathrooms.
SpaceFlex galleys are also infamous for the fact that a flight attendant’s jumpseat is literally stuck to the toilet door of one of the bathrooms.
What’s more, American Airlines’ former chief executive Doug Parker promised flight attendants that the airline would never install SpaceFlex because of the impact it could have on the customer experience.
Perhaps even more frustrating for passengers, though, is that American Airlines has decided not to reverse its controversial decision under the internally dubbed Project Oasis not to install seatback screens on retrofitted aircraft.
American Airlines began the process of ripping out seatback screens from its narrowbody planes more than eight years ago when it decided that it needed to compete against ultra-low-cost carriers. In recent months, however, the airline has been reported to be seriously considering reversing course and restoring seatback screens across its narrowbody fleet.
The airline has not, however, confirmed any plans to do so.
At the very least, American Airlines’ Airbus A319 and A320s are due to start being equipped with free and fast Starlink in-flight Wi-Fi from early 2027.
The A320 loses 4 coach seats. The total cannot go over 150 or AA would have to staff an additional flight attendant. That’s not gonna happen. Say goodbye to 5ABC and a random seat in the last row.
So there are more seats in first class but presumably the same number of flight attendants to service that, the same number of seats in the back but crammed into an even smaller area, bathrooms so small that even Doug Parker refused to install them, no IFE, and ridiculously small galley areas? Awful for both the flying public and crew. Didn’t American make some pretense about trying to become more premium, because none of this remotely confirms that?