American is introducing new business class suites with doors. These will come with new delivery Boeing 787-9s.
They’re planning to retrofit Boeing 777-300ERs with these seats (while eliminating first class, and adding seats in total to the aircraft).
The retrofit plan of these Boeing 777-300ERs is called Project Olympus.
These Boeing 777-300ERs are getting a lot more seats – and a lot more premium seats – 84 to 114 total premium seats, without losing any coach seats.
Current configuration:
- 8 first class
- 52 business class
24 premium economy - 216 coach
New configuration:
- 70 business class
- 44 premium economy
- 216 coach
That’s an increase of 30 seats, all in business and premium economy which means seats that take up more room.
And all they’re giving up is 8 first class seats to get that. In order to do this, it means that current seats have to be squeezed.
That happens by reducing the space dedicated to lavatories, to each business class seats, and to extra legroom coach seats. Here’s a bit on how Project Olympus, the retrofit of American Airlines Boeing 777-300ERs
The good news, of course, is that there’s only so much they can do to shrink the size of at least one of the lavatories on board since they’re required to have an ‘accessible’ lav on these planes.
Here’s the one from American’s Boeing 787-9. Still, the number and spaciousness of lavatories on the aircraft actually has a lot to do with queues and even cleanliness over the course of a long flight.
American Airlines updated these Boeing 777-300ERs in 2017, adding premium economy and taking away their generous Main Cabin Extra which was 9-abreast rather than 10-abreast.
That change added premium seats while taking away from coach.
This change adds even more premium seats, while taking away from the space allotted to each premium seat, as well as to amenities on board the aircraft.
