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American Airlines will pioneer a new type of travel experience.
“First class will not exist on the 777 or, for that matter, at American Airlines,” said American Airlines chief commercial officer Vasu Raja during an investor call on Thursday. Raja explained that the reason for the change is that “customers aren’t buying it.”
He added, “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.”
The announcement comes after American Airlines unveiled its new “Flagship Suite” business class in a September press statement. The new suite is offering fliers a sliding privacy door and a lie-flat bed.
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American plans to install the new suites in the Boeing 787-9s, Airbus A321XLRs, and Boeing 777-300ERs starting in 2024. With the change, it plans to increase the number of premium seats available on its long-haul flights by 45 percent, by 2026.
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The American Airlines Group also saw a record quarterly revenue of $13.5 billion in its third quarter. Despite flying at 9.6 percent less capacity than the same period in 2019, it ended the third quarter with $14.3 billion of total available liquidity, which was more than double the total available liquidity at the end of 2019.
Air travel has seen a steady increase throughout the industry.
This April, American announced that it would no longer enforce the federal face-mask mandate, and face masks will no longer be required for customers in U.S. airports and on domestic flights.
Raja addressed how the changes have impacted American’s structure.
He said during the call: “The demand for travel and for air travel, in particular, has never been higher and remains strong in the kind of all-future periods. But the shape of that, the composition has changed a lot. Now we’re in a place for the quarter where 45 percent of our revenue came from blended trips, about 30 percent from discretionary, or what we historically called leisure trip. And the remaining 25 percent from non-discretionary that we’ve historically called business trips.”
Robert A. Norton, a professor of Public Health at Auburn University, spoke with PEOPLE in December 2021 about the changes air travel faced amid the pandemic. He said at the time that “airplane travel and cruise ship travel will likely continue to expand closer to normal.”
He added, “Once therapeutics are available, I would expect a significant increase in pleasure travel of all varieties. People are suffering from COVID fatigue and have lots of pent-up energy that could drive a desire to get up and get away. Outdoor activities are very safe and don’t require masks, so I anticipate that 2022 could bring a very safe and successful year. People will still get sick from COVID, but the therapeutics and the anticipated universal Coronavirus vaccines (maybe a couple of years away) will be game-changers.”
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Norton also expressed that “travel decisions are very individual and dependent on a variety of elements.”
“People with underlying comorbidity must continue to take COVID seriously,” he said. “COVID continues to kill, but it is here to stay. If people measure the risk as manageable and want to travel, then they should do so. Everyone should continue to practice good sense.”
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