AMERICAN AIRLINES First Class and Business Class Seat reviews

AMERICAN AIRLINES FIRST CLASS SEAT REVIEW   :   BOEING 777

The service was terrible, amenity kit as bad as (identical) to the business class, seats were not clean (food left- overs). I could not believe they sell it as a first class ticket. I regret every dollar I spent on it.

These have to be some of the poorest comfort Business Class seats I have had in sometime. Very uncomfortable and very difficult to get a position that you can sleep. The entertainment system, a laptop in a slot in front of you, kept re-booting. The selection of movies and entertainment channels was minimal compared to the competition.

Raleigh to London Flight business class cabin was nice. I have read only complaints in the reviews. Have any of these people been in coach lately? The seat was comfortable and inflight entertainment was enjoyable. I am of average height and size so I can undertstand a problem for those taller.

Business Class was very disappointing. The condition of the seat was very poor and was uncomfortable when sat in the upright position. The bed very difficult to get into a comfortable sleeping position and very tight. I am 6'2" and found it very small space. I sleep very easily on BA but found it impossible in this seat/bed. Also if you are sat by the window it is very difficult to get out of the seat as you have to clamber over the other person. On the positive side I found the service between MIA-LHR excellent, the in-flight entertainment was very good, although the handset is in a very inconvenient location. I also recommend bringing your own headphones as they are taken off you very early when preparing for landing.

JFK-CDG, Boeing 767 - mediocre hardware sums it up. I was in a window bulkhead seat in business class and had read that the new "next generation" seats in the window position leave you nearly trapped if your aisle seatmate puts his seat in the reclining position. All too true and if I had been an inch shorter I would not have been able to climb out at all. The entire seat seems to have been over-engineered by a group of people who never actually used it. It's also a bit on the narrow side. JFK lounge is rather seedy looking and virtually everything has to be paid for out of pocket. Overall cramped, uncomfortable, and not what a next generation business class experience should be. Somewhat offset by pleasant and helpful staff both onboard and in departure lounge.

The concept of the seats is a good one, giving a level of privacy to a window seat that is desirable. All the mechanical devices functioned, but the seat was not very comfortable. There were lumps and irregular shapes which prevented what could be called a flat bed. I was disappointed with the experience considering its first class status.

Terrible to sleep. Always one step later than main competitors. Really disappointing.

American Airlines has blown it once again. Their new long-haul business class "flat" seats are angled, which is not conducive to sleep. You will invariably slide down. American Airlines always seems to struggle with being an imitation of what it wants to be. Truly disappointing. If you're going on a long haul trip, check this great site to see what kind of seat you're really getting.

The seats are narrow and the slant makes it very difficult for sleeping. For a person in the window seat, it is a major acrobatic effort to climb across the person in the aisle seat, especially given the height adjustments that occur for different seat positions. And the audio video system is horrendous, again especially compared to the competition: the hand-held control unit is anything but intuitive, there is no instruction guide in the seat pocket, and when you figure out how to use the touch screen as an alternative, you find that it isn't much better. Several of us spent over ten minutes trying to figure out how just to put a movie on pause (the cabin attendant couldn't figure it out either, notwithstanding she's on these airplanes every day!).

Although the new seats have a smooth recline adjust, they do not recline very far and there is no foot rest. It was impossible to get comfortable. Sadly, American has fallen to the bottom of the list for flying choices.

Admirals lounge at ORD was poor, the plane was no better. The service was verging on rude and resentful, the seats not comfortable for lying or sitting, food was unappetising and stodgy. Why anyone would fly business class with AA I cannot imagine. The one good thing was the Bose headsets, but overall experience was very poor.

SCL-DFW. This is an improvement for this route, but not great - although flat, the seat is angled down so I continuously slid towards my feet when trying to sleep. Compared to the other business seats on offer for this route (LAN, Delta) and the fact that LAN is Oneworld, I will not choose to fly the AA Business product again.

The temperature in the cabin was very cold, the motors on the seat in front of us had failed so had to be manually lowered into sleeping position, unfortunately needing some pulling and pushing if the seat back intruding on our space. Although the seats are described as lie flat, I found it impossible to get comfortable to sleep as I felt I was sliding down the seat.

Business class seats in the 767 are different to their 777 offering and not as good. The seats are narrow, have no built in IFE (provided separate plug in screen and bose headets after take off that were taken back 1hr 20 mins before landing!) and do not lie flat - at an angle so you slide down the seat when trying to land. Avoid the window seats as you are trapped into your seat.

MAN-ORD. New business class seats lack anything comfortable than relaxed semi outstretched settings. Sitting upright or sleeping were terrible. It doesn't go flat and is difficult to control. Not a comfortable, private sleep at all.

I have encountered these seats on HNL flights before and found that you need to readjust the settings many time to get best settings. Not parallel flight so sliding sensation but this can be overcome by tilting legs and back up a tad to from cradle. Could be difficult to get out if person in aisle seat. Seats long enough to lie out. In flight unit has good widescreen picture but I do not like the absence of flight map which is showed briefly in cabin before coach movies start. The seat does not rival the AA 1st class suite product but it was not bad.

No sleeper suit provided, so you sleep in your street clothes and arrive a crumpled mess. The cabin was darkened before departure and stayed that way throughout the flight, while the reading lights were positioned so that I could not read while sitting normally. The beat-up looking seat reclined to horizontal position for sleeping, but there was no padded mattress or comfy, hotel-style white duvet as on BA. I really can't imagine why anyone would choose this airline when there's an Asian or European alternative.

JFK-SFO. Cramped cabin, no built in video. Impossible to access the aisle if your seat mate is reclined. I cannot understand why AA would not come up with a better biz seat.

AA's business class product is still light years behind most European and Asian carriers. The seats were the angled lie-flat seats - recline to a flat position but are not parallel to the ground, which makes sleeping difficult because you're always sliding downhill. They are also on the narrow side. The pitch was a bit tight, and there's a cutout in the seat in front of you for your feet.

LAX-ORD. They market this as Domestic First which is an 'interesting' choice of words. This is a sub business class product in my opinion. The cabin looks like it's been the same for the last twenty years. The seat was poor with no individual IFE screen and nowhere to store water. Very big table though. When reclined it didn't go truly flat or horizontal but, surprisingly, I managed to get a decent nap.

I don't understand why AMR is so proud of this product in their marketing campaigns. I am 6'5" and find the extremely narrow seats uncomfortable, especially on the feet. As other posters have pointed out, if you're in the window seat and the person in the isle seat next to you goes flat, you're essentially trapped. Entertainment system is clumsy and awkward. The AA service is "hit or miss," usually erring on the latter. The food is cheap, heavy, and not great. Admiral's Club is overcrowded and lacks food choices common in pre-departure lounges of other carriers in Europe and Asia. There is no "serve yourself" option in the US lounges. Overall, AA business class is simply not competitive.

The seats were Recaro. We were in Row 1 (4 of us, 2 were children) and there was loads of legroom. Seats 1A and 1C have even more legroom due to the bulkhead being furthter out. TVs are now non removable and in the wall, much better than all that unplugging rubbish and they are bigger.

A huge improvement over the traditional business class seat on AA which made sleeping next to impossible. New seats are comfortable, but too narrow. Access to screen controls for video awkward and cumbersome. Sleeping position is difficult for anyone 6 feet tall or more.

LAX-LHR return in business on American. First time flying business on this airline and was very underwhelmed. The Admirals lounge at Heathrow is the worst business lounge I have ever visited. No separate boarding lane for first / business. I was lucky enough to have an aisle seat as I would hate to have been trapped in the middle or a window seat and have to climb over my neighbour to get out. The seat does not recline far enough to have any sense of lying flat and will have you sliding down towards the foot rest before long. The food was decent, as was duvet and Bose headsets. What really blew me away was the absence of a proper power source for laptops/electronics. A cigarette lighter-type adapter is required - who travels with one of those these days. And of course they did not have any loaners. I looked around and no-one was using their laptop. So much for "business" class. Will avoid in the future.

Journey started badly in Admirals lounge - got 1 free drink voucher and had to pay for food. The business class seat is a joke - trapped in when sat next to window. Not a patch on BA club world and will never fly AA again.

Manchester-Chicago on 767-300ER. Possibly the worst Business Class flight I have been on. Seat was incredibly narrow and highly uncomfortable. It didn't recline well and when it was fully reclined, my feet were crushed under the seat in front. When the gentleman in the aisle seat to my left reclined, I was trapped and at one point, I had to sit there for 3 hours until I could go to the toilet. IFE had few options and mine didn't work properly. An airline to avoid at all costs.

LAX-LHR. Decent for a U.S. Carrier, nowhere near as good as a CX, Singapore, Emirates, etc. Good amount of storage and stretch room. Decent seat - found bed was not very comfortable. No sleep suit. Duvet comforter but no padded sheet like CX. Still very narrow when sleeping. Okay selection of movies/tv but very small screen. Bose headsets. Insufficient reading lights. No massage function in chair.

Having flown regularly in BA Club World I was very disappointed with he AA business cabin in which I found myself on a recent involuntary reroute. The seat was very poor. It is not just that angled lie-flat is an oxymoron but that you are completely trapped in the window seat when the passenger next to you is asleep. Also if you place your mp3 or phone where indicated at the side of the seat you stand a good chance of losing it recline as a hole appears and there is no easy way of getting to the item. This is appalling design (and needs to be put right with the fitting of some elastic material) and the steward told me, as he managed to retrieve said item with a pair of serving tongs, that this happens all the time. Be warned. There would have to be a serious price advantage over BA before I would consider again.

Domestic first class BOS-LAX. The seats are the same as international business class. The best word to describe them is horrible. A week after my flight, my knees still hurt. The person who decided on this design must either be very small or must have never flown on a flight of more than two hours length.

I am 5'10" and weigh 150lbs, so the new lie-flat seats are just fine, but it is unfortunate all the same that US airlines have chosen to seat business passengers 2-2-2 in the not so large 767-300 and 767-400 used in transatlantic flights. AA B777 does not help, as they configure it 2-3-2 with exactly the same seats - and having a middle seat in business class is pretty bad! The lie-flat seat is quite comfortable (pitch is only 60" and the seat is quite narrow due to the 2-2-2 setup). The functioning of the seat is a bit annoying - to go from seated/reclined position to lie-flat, it has to do weird contortions that include bringing the seat bottom quite high up - more than high enough to force your knees to tilt the table, so do not go through with it if you have food on your tray! The clamshell setup is good for privacy, but has one unfortunate side-effect - when in sleeping position, you are down in a hole, which is good for privacy, but really bad for air circulation - it can get hot quickly and the air feels stale after a while. I expect that anyone taller than about 190cm (the lie- flat bed measures 195cm overall) would have problems - there is no room beyond the footrest.

The cabin appearance is modern and smart. The seat shells are low so you have good sight lines of the cabin. I found the seat pitch to be ample but not generous. The seats themselves maneuvered well and were comfortable. On the down side, the 767 is too narrow for the six across seating which makes for a rather tight configuration. It is fine if you are traveling with a companion but not much fun if the person next to you is a stranger. There is almost no personal storage in the seating area; most of your personal items have to go in the overhead. The inflight entertainment system is bizarre to say the least. It is an inserted on-demand player that needs to be collected at the end of the flight. It worked fine but there is no remote control so to change channels or adjust volume you have to lean forward and manually make changes. Not very convenient when you are reclined. The head set plugs into the seat shell in front of you (next to the player) so if the person next to you needs to get out, you have to unplug to let them by. Finally, the seat in the sleep position was fine. It is an angled flat bed similar to LH. I was able to sleep on my side. Service was good but AA doesn't offer a self-serve so you have to approach the flight attendants behind the curtain if you want anything throughout the night.