American Airlines removes first class seats on long-haul international flights

American Airlines will remove first-class seats from long-haul international flights.

The Dallas-based carrier revealed plans to remove first class entirely during an investor call on November 10, according to Insider’s Stephen Jones.

“First class will not exist on the 777 or, for that matter, at American Airlines,” said American Airlines chief commercial officer Vasu Raja during the call.

The reason? People just weren’t interested in purchasing first-class tickets.

“Customers aren’t buying it,” said Raja, who said the airline would replace the premium tier fares with more business-class offerings.

“The quality of the business-class seat has improved so much, and frankly by removing it, we could provide more business-class seats, which is what our customers most want or are most willing to pay for,” he added.

American Airlines has already begun investing in its business-class offerings. In September, the airline revealed a new “Flagship Suite” business class, which offers lie-flat beds and sliding privacy doors.

The suites will be installed in the Boeing 787-9s, Airbus A321XLRs, and Boeing 777-300ERs from 2024. By 2026, the airline predicts a 45 per cent increase in the number of premium seats available on long-haul flights.

American Airlines Group has come out strong after pandemic-struck years and had a record quarterly revenue of US$13.5 billion in its third quarter. It also ended the quarter with more than double the total available liquidity than it had at the end of 2019. This is despite flying at 9.6 per cent less capacity than in the same period in 2019.

Raja said there had been a clear increase in demand for air travel. However, the CCO noted this wasn’t a return to the old ways of travelling.

“The demand for travel and for air travel, in particular, has never been higher and remains strong in the kind of all-future periods,” he said.

“But the shape of that, the composition has changed a lot.”

Most notable was the prominence of ‘blended travel’ or ‘bleisure’; where travellers combine business trips with vacation time.

During the most recent quarter, 45 per cent of revenue came from blended trips, 30 per cent was leisure, and 25 per cent was non-discretionary or business travel.

Earlier in November, American Airlines launched a new direct service from Auckland to Dallas Fort Worth.