The debut of American Airlines’ (AA) new Boeing 777-300ER has received quite a bit of attention from most of the airline’s loyalists. Many hail the arrival of the highly desired updated business class seat while others lamented AA’s decision to squeeze an additional seat into the economy cabin. Despite its attempts to modernize its fleet at a fast pace, AA has only been able to add this new aircraft to a few destinations, focusing on high profile routes out of their hubs in Dallas/Fort Worth, New York, and Los Angeles. Being a Chicago (ORD) based elite, I sadly won’t be able to sample the new product out of my home airport in the near future. ORD-based travelers won’t be left completely in the dark when it comes to new aircraft though, as the carrier will be using a new Embraer 175 on regional jet routes operated by Republic Airlines on behalf of American Eagle out of ORD.
The new Embraer 175 parked at gate K1 at ORD.
I was fortunate enough to receive an invitation from AA to view the new plane on July 31 (which also happened to be my birthday), the day before its inaugural flights on August 1. Since it was the middle of the work week I almost didn’t go, but I figured a day at the airport was a better way to spend my birthday than slaving away at the office, so I accepted the invitation and hauled myself out of bed that morning to take a look at the new AA product.
Getting access to the new plane was rather pleasant. AA’s invitation directed me to use the newly opened Flagship Check-In facility at ORD that I wrote a post about just a few days ago. They printed out a fake boarding pass for me to get airside and I was free to use the direct path to the front of the TSA Pre-Check line. Sadly the ticket did not contain my frequent flier number so there was no opportunity to actually get pre-check. The line was still extremely short on the priority side and I was through in less than 2 minutes. The new bird was parked at gate K1, so it pretty much directly across from the TSA checkpoint I had just cleared.
Not long after my arrival AA staff directed a group of folks (a mix of AA customers, reporters, photographers, and AA staff) down the jetbridge so we could begin our tour.
View from the front of the first class cabin.
The E175 features four rows of first class seating, totaling 12 seats in a 1-2 layout. This is a significant improvement over AA’s existing regional jet offering which has only 9 first class seats (CRJ-700) or no first class cabin at all (CRJ-200, ERJ-135, ERJ-140, ERJ-145).
First class seat.
The seats themselves are upholstered in leather. I sat in one for a few minutes and made the following observations:
- Leg room is nice though it seemed a bit tight compared to mainline first cabins.
- The tray tables laid flat when pulled out but putting them back into the chair’s arm was impossible unless you held the tray in a very specific position. This will take some trial and error for those unfamiliar with the seat.
- The chairs are definitely new and might need to be broken in as it was a bit of a fight to recline the seat.
- The cushioning felt quite comfortable.
- Each seat, including the solo seats in the A row, feature a small tray that extends from the armrest to place bowls of hot nuts. They’re in the center console on the C/D side.
Front lavatory.
One of the nice upgrades on the E175 is the addition of a second lavatory at the front of the plane. The regional jet experience on AA previously required passengers to trek to the back of the bus every time they wanted to answer the call of nature. This was particularly problematic when flight attendants would enter the aisle to provide a beverage service. The single lavatory meant that every passenger on the wrong side of the trolley was unable to access the bathroom until the FAs had passed their row. It’s entirely possible that AA will ask economy passengers to leave the front lavatory to first class passengers, but historically AA’s FAs have been extremely lax on enforcing those requests.
The updated cabin also features the new AA carpet that was installed on the 77W.
AA VP seated in the first class cabin speaking with reports about the new plane.