American Airlines is developing a bit of a reputation for the state some of its planes have been allowed to get into: Nothing dangerous, of course, but cosmetic issues like broken tray tables, seats that won’t recline, non-functioning in-flight entertainment, and worn-out cabins do little to convince passengers that American is the premium airline it claims to be.
Then there’s the issue that faced several travelers on an overnight flight from New York JFK to Rome on July 23. A broken electronic window shade in the Premium Economy cabin of the eight-year-old Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner that was operating the transatlantic flight to Europe.
Broken window shade
by u/Safe-Ad9163 in americanairlines
The state of the window shade wasn’t an issue at first. The flight didn’t depart from New York until nearly 8:30 pm on Thursday, so for the first few hours of the flight, the outside was dark, allowing everyone to get some much-needed rest on this seven-and-a-half-hour red-eye.
But with it being the middle of summer, and the sun rising early along the plane’s northerly flight path, it wasn’t long before the passengers in Premium Economy became very aware that one of the electronic window shades in the cabin had broken.
The Boeing 787’s electronically dimmable windows were revolutionary when the aircraft took its maiden flight in 2009 after six years of development, although they have proven to be a controversial design choice, with frequent flyers often complaining about their effectiveness.
Instead of a traditional pull-down shade, passengers on the Boeing 787 press a button to activate an electrical current that runs through a special gel sandwiched between the panes of glass. The electrical current makes the gel grow increasingly dark… or, at least, that’s what is meant to happen.
On this particular flight, however, the button didn’t have any effect, and the gel remained transparent. Light from the rising sun flooded into the cabin, disturbing anyone trying to sleep.
Flight attendants attempted to help, but the best they could do was stick some thin sheets of paper over the window, not even covering the whole window.
“I’m going to make a formal complaint once I’m off the flight, but like… come on! What is wrong with a little analog every once in a while?” wrote one of the impacted passengers on Reddit.
The debate over electronically dimmable windows is so fierce that rival aircraft manufacturer Airbus decided to stick with manual window shades when it was developing the A350 widebody jet. That being said, Airbus does now offer electronically dimmable windows on this model as an optional extra for airlines to choose.
Boeing knows that the electronically dimmable windows on its Dreamliners can fail from time to time, and that’s why it supplies airlines with rubber stick-on shades that can be quickly applied to a broken window and then peeled off within seconds.
Why this wasn’t available to the flight attendants on this flight remains unclear.
At least it was only one broken window. In April 2025, passengers on a British Airways ultra-long-haul flight from Tokyo to London boarded their 787 Dreamliner to discover that a malfunction had broken all of the shades on one side of the plane.
The problem had been reported to engineers in Tokyo, but unable to fix the problem before the flight was scheduled to depart, ground workers resorted to sticking sheets of paper across every single window. The real kicker was that the 14-hour flight was in daylight for the entire time.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, even airlines that stock the rubber peel-off shades don’t stock enough on board each plane for so many broken window shades.
Ridiculous. I fail to understand why anyone who has traveled more than once on an overnight or medium to long haul flight doesn’t bring a high-quality $10 eye mask in their basic travel kit. A simple solution (and also allows window seat passengers to control their windows, though not on a 78)