American Airlines received two early Christmas presents this week: two new aircraft were added to its fleet. An Airbus A321NX touched down in Charlotte, while a Boeing 737 MAX 8 arrived in Dallas.
On Friday, American officially welcomed a shiny new Boeing 737 MAX 8 and Airbus A321neo into its fleet.
Boeing 737 MAX 8: Registration N357TY
According to delivery data from Flightradar24, the 737, which holds registration N357TY and serial number 44505, completed several test flights above Seattle earlier this month; however, it departed Boeing Field (BFI) on Friday, destined for American's home in Texas.
AA9825 departed at 15:10 for the three-hour, 17-minute journey to the airline's largest hub, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), touching down at 20:27. This marks American's 65th 737 MAX 8 delivery.
Airbus A321NX: Registration N472AN
Before being delivered, the aircraft utilized French Airbus registration F-WZMY. This marks the airline's 73rd Airbus A321neo, but only the third airframe to be delivered this year.
While Simple Flying has already covered the various aircraft orders made by American Airlines, data from ch-aviation identifies that the airline currently operates 918 aircraft across 11 different aircraft types (excluding the airline's regional subsidiaries).
Currently, American Airlines operates the Airbus A319-100, A320-200, A321-200, A321neo, in the Airbus family, and the Boeing 737 MAX 8, 737-800, 777-200ER, 777-300ER, 787-8, and 787-9 Dreamliner.
Nearly 330 new aircraft are on order, which consist of:
- 98 Airbus A321neos
- 50 Airbus A321XLRs
- 115 Boeing 737 MAX 10s
- 36 Boeing 737 MAX 8s
- 30 Boeing 787-9s
According to data from Flightradar24, the two new aircraft were not yet scheduled to operate scheduled commercial services on Saturday.
However, once introduced into commercial service, these aircraft are expected to support the airline's domestic and short-haul international networks, such as domestic services across the US and services within the Caribbean and Latin America.
Both aircraft remain on the apron at Dallas/Fort Worth and Charlotte Douglas in preparation for introduction to scheduled service.