American’s inaugural flight on its new 787-9, internally called the 787-9P, was from Chicago to Los Angeles this week. While the airplane was on the ground at LAX on its turn, I was invited to come and take a look.
I put together two threads on Bluesky with the photos I took. First, here’s a look at all the cabins onboard. Click in to see the rest of the photos in the replies.
What did I think? I think my first pic says it all. The new premium economy is really good. It’s a big improvement with great recline and both legrests and armrests at every seat. We’re finally getting back toward that cradle seat design that I used to love so much. I could sit in that for a long time. Everything looked good overall, but there was nothing that looks to have improved nearly as much as premium economy.
I also took a few photos of what’s going on at LAX Terrminal 4.
It is extremely disorienting. The new ticket counters are more toward Terminal 5 than before in the new “core” that will connect to the people mover. The new security checkpoint is in between T4 and T5 and then you walk down into Terminal 4. The old security checkpoint at the head of the concourse is now gone and boarded off. Meanwhile, the middle of T4 is under construction, but the newly-built gates at the far end are open. So you have to walk back toward security, go downstairs to the arrival level tunnel, and swim upstream before you pop back up down there. I look forward to this phase of the work being completed.
