There’s an exciting update for American Airlines’ long haul fleet, as shared by JonNYC (who is on quite the roll at the moment…).
American 777-200ERs getting new business class & more
We recently saw American introduce all-new cabins for its long haul aircraft, including a new business class, premium economy, and economy. These cabins have so far been installed on newly delivered Boeing 787-9s (designated as 787-9Ps), and we know American will start retrofitting Boeing 777-300ERs in the near future.
However, up until now, there has been a big question mark regarding what would happen with the rest of American’s long haul fleet, including retrofitting all aircraft except the 777-300ERs. That’s where the latest update comes into play. According to JonNYC, major changes are coming to the 777-200ER fleet:
- As of the fall of 2026, American will introduce Viasat Wi-Fi on these planes, replacing the existing Panasonic system
- After that, American will introduce all-new cabins on these planes, including the new business class seats, premium economy, and economy
Details beyond that remain limited, including how the layout of these aircraft will change, and whether all 777s will get these cabins, or just some. American has 47 777-200ERs, which are an average of nearly 25 years old. They were all delivered between 1999 and 2007.
Let me of course emphasize that this hasn’t officially been announced, but JonNYC tends to have a pretty good track record. 😉
Why I’m kind of surprised by this development
As I mentioned earlier, up until this point, American had only announced plans to reconfigure its Boeing 777-300ERs with new cabins, in addition to taking delivery of new 787-9s with these cabins.
So there was no confirmation that 787-8s, 787-9s, and/or 777-200ERs would get the new cabins. It would be logical for 787-8s and 787-9s to eventually get updated interiors, since we assume these planes will stick around in the fleet for well over a decade.
However, the 777-200ER fleet retrofit isn’t necessarily something I was banking on. There has been a lot of talk lately about what American’s long term plan would be for this fleet, given that the planes are anywhere from 18 to 26 years old.
There had been rumors that American might consider ordering 787-10s to eventually replace many of these older planes. So to now hear that these planes are getting new cabins suggests that the 777-200ERs are staying in the fleet for many years to come.
If the retrofit project starts after 2026, one assumes it’ll take at least a couple of years to complete, and then you’d want the planes to stick around for at least five years (and ideally a lot more) for the cabin investments to make sense.
So if this all ends up being accurate, it sounds like American has plans to fly these 777-200ERs well into the mid-2030s, at an absolute minimum, if not substantially beyond that. Of course we’ll see if only some of these planes get the new cabins while others are retired, or what.
We’ll mark this as “developing” for now, but I’d consider it to be a somewhat unexpected update, especially since these planes don’t have bad cabins as is.
Bottom line
American Airlines plans to invest in its huge Boeing 777-200ER fleet. The planes are expected to first get Viasat Wi-Fi in late 2026, and then get cabin upgrades after that. It’s nice to see that American has plans to introduce new cabins on more of its wide body planes, though it’s interesting that 777-200ERs could get upgraded before existing 787-8s and 787-9s.
The fact that 777-200ERs are seemingly sticking around for many years to come is a new development as well.
What do you make of American’s Boeing 777-200ER retrofit plans?