American Airlines Grounding Several Oasis Retrofit Aircraft

This morning, rumor began circulating by the ever knowledgeable JonNYC about the grounding of American Airlines’ Oasis retrofit aircraft.

Let’s do a quick reminder here: “Oasis” Retrofit planes are the new densified version of the Boeing 737 aircraft, adding new larger overhead bins, more seats with less padding, and less legroom throughout the plane, including in First Class. In addition, seats are thinner and less comfortable (from personal experience), reducing pitch and recline.

The new aircraft interiors have come under fire lately by bloggers, major media and customers alike.

Now, many of these Oasis retrofit aircraft are being taken out of service — labeled an “OASIS MOD EVAL.”

Here’s what we know: Current tail numbers grounded are 3EA, 3EC, 3EH, 3ER, 3ET, 3FH, 3FK. 3FN, 3FR and 3FW. All of the aircraft taken or being taken out of service were serviced at PAE in Washington state.

From American:

At American, safety is our number one priority and is always at the forefront of all that we do.

American operates 304 Boeing 737-800 aircraft and we have identified an issue with the quality of work conducted on overhead bins on two of these Boeing 737-800 aircraft. The interiors on these aircraft were recently updated by a long-time FAA-licensed vendor.

After further inspection by American, the work that was conducted on these two aircraft was not up to our standards. Out of an abundance of caution, we have proactively removed from service the additional 12 aircraft that were updated by this vendor and have notified the FAA. We will perform additional inspection work on these 14 aircraft. Though the issue did not impact the safety of flight of these aircraft, we are working with our vendor and the FAA to immediately address this issue.

We never want to disrupt our customers’ travel plans, and we are sorry for the trouble this has caused. Our team has rebooked all customers that were impacted by nearly 40 flight cancellations thus far and will continue to work proactively to get our customers to their final destination.

If your aircraft is taken out of service and canceled, you are entitled to rebook on any other flight at no cost. Airport agents, phone agents and the airline’s Twitter team can make adjustments.