Fly American’s New 787-9 BEFORE the Public Launch Date!

It’s been fairly widely known for a few weeks that American Airlines new 787-9 aircraft will first debut for public flights on October 6, flying from Dallas to Los Angeles:

AA2401 will operate Dallas to Los Angeles departing 7:25a and arriving at 8:41a
AA2561 will operate Los Angeles to Dallas departing 10:15a and arriving at 3:20p

On November 4, American will move the 787-9 aircraft to the Dallas-Madrid route, and also the Dallas-Sao Paolo route.

It turns out, you can now fly American’s new 787-9 aircraft BEFORE the official October 6 launch.

Via the super reliable JonNYC, as reported from an American Airlines memo:

AA will be subbing the 787-9 on a DFW-LHR-DFW run as part of the ETOPS
certification process.

AA50 (DFW-LHR) on 04OCT and AA51 (LHR-DFW) on 05OCT will be operating
with the 787-9, ahead of the official DFW-LAX inaugural on 06OCT.

These one-off flights will continue to be sold as business and economy;
seats in the premium economy cabin (rows 9-11) will be blocked for for
advance selection by elites only and will receive economy service. The
equipment change will be loaded with this weekend’s schedule change.

You can book these flights now, but they’ll show as 777 aircraft, up until which time they switch to 787 during tomorrow’s schedule update and load. There’s no harm in booking these now – they’ll simply switch to 787’s tomorrow and you’ll be good to go.

This is a great chance to fly American’s new Premium Economy seat, though it’s worth noting that only economy service (meals, etc.) will be offered.

You can depart on the 4th, arrive on the 5th, and then catch the return flight back to DFW the same day, if you so desire (and are crazy enough to do so). So…October 6th actually won’t be the inaugural flight of American’s 787-9….instead, AA50 on October 4th from Dallas to London will be!

Hat Tip: Thanks JonNYC for breaking this news!