American’s New Pre-Inaugural International Boeing 787-9 Flight

American’s New Pre-Inaugural International Boeing 787-9 Flight

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As I wrote about in early July, American will be adding the Boeing 787-9 to their fleet in the coming months, which has two major implications:

American-BE-Aerospace-Seat
American’s newest business class seat, debuting on the 787-9

American has already published the schedule for their first couple of Boeing 787-9 aircraft:

  • American will operate the 787-9 from Dallas to Madrid and Sao Paulo as of November 4, 2016
  • Prior to that, American will operate the 787-9 domestically in order to train crews and work out any kinks, so the plane will begin flying between Los Angeles and Dallas as of October 6, 2016

So while American will operate the 787-9 domestically before the international inaugural flight, there’s actually a single international flight being operated before all of that.

Per JonNYC, American will fly the 787-9 between Dallas and London for one day only on October 4, 2016, as part of the plane’s ETOPS certification process. The 787-9 will operate the following flights:

10/04 AA50 Dallas to London departing 3:55PM arriving 6:55AM (+1 day)
10/05 AA51 London to Dallas departing 9:30AM arriving 1:40PM

The flight now shows in the schedule, and as you’ll see, the seatmap treats premium economy seats (rows 9-11) as regular Main Cabin Extra, meaning many elite members can assign these seats for free.

American-787-Seatmap

American will offer normal economy service in these rows on this particular flight. While American hasn’t yet published premium economy pricing, they plan on offering the full premium economy service on the 787-9 flights to Sao Paulo and Madrid. Those seats will be similar to domestic first class, so it’s a great way to snag a seat that’s much better than what you’d find in economy, without actually having to pay extra.

American-Premium-Economy-1

Bottom line

Admittedly this is a pretty specific situation, but if you happen to be flying to/from London on the above dates, it might be worth routing through Dallas, as you can snag a premium economy seat at an economy price.

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  1. Benjamin A Guest

    Hi, Ben. Thanks for the article. I have a couple of questions, if you know.

    You state that "American will offer normal economy service in these rows." I assume you mean the meal/beverage service, etc.?

    I know when a new plane/route debuts, airlines make a big deal of the inaugural flight...food, swag bags, and such. Does that usually happen on ETOPS certification flights?

    I'm thinking of taking this flight just for fun...

    Hi, Ben. Thanks for the article. I have a couple of questions, if you know.

    You state that "American will offer normal economy service in these rows." I assume you mean the meal/beverage service, etc.?

    I know when a new plane/route debuts, airlines make a big deal of the inaugural flight...food, swag bags, and such. Does that usually happen on ETOPS certification flights?

    I'm thinking of taking this flight just for fun but if it's not going to be too big of a deal, I may wait for the DFW-MAD inaugural. Thoughts based on your experience?

    Thank you!

  2. Santastico Diamond

    I am scheduled to fly with my family of 4 MSP-DFW-GRU on November and just last week I received an email from AA with changes on our seat assignments. When I looked at the changes I saw the aircraft has changed from 777 to 787. We are booked on coach thanks to a $550 round trip fare that was hard to beat. I will see if I can use miles to upgrade to premium economy.

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The comments on this page have not been provided, reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser, and it is not an advertiser's responsibility to ensure posts and/or questions are answered.

Benjamin A Guest

Hi, Ben. Thanks for the article. I have a couple of questions, if you know. You state that "American will offer normal economy service in these rows." I assume you mean the meal/beverage service, etc.? I know when a new plane/route debuts, airlines make a big deal of the inaugural flight...food, swag bags, and such. Does that usually happen on ETOPS certification flights? I'm thinking of taking this flight just for fun but if it's not going to be too big of a deal, I may wait for the DFW-MAD inaugural. Thoughts based on your experience? Thank you!

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Richard Guest

dallas FORT WORTH

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Santastico Diamond

I am scheduled to fly with my family of 4 MSP-DFW-GRU on November and just last week I received an email from AA with changes on our seat assignments. When I looked at the changes I saw the aircraft has changed from 777 to 787. We are booked on coach thanks to a $550 round trip fare that was hard to beat. I will see if I can use miles to upgrade to premium economy.

0
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