I just flew from Los Angeles to New York in American Airlines A321XLR Premium Economy. While far from being the most luxurious flight of my life from LAX to JFK, it was an enjoyable and comfortable experience that I’d totally do again. No arm twisting required!
Not only are the seats are wide and spacious, they are semi private as well. The included amenities (omg that pillow) are impressively generous. And the food? Tasty, somewhat plentiful, and creative(ish).
Unlike nearly everything else happening at American Airlines these days, they put some effort into this. You can tell that this is a product that they are proud of. And they should be. It’s kinda good!
AA238
Los Angeles, CA (LAX) – New York, NY (JFK)
Wednesday, February 25, 2026
Aircraft: A321XLR
Registration: N303NY
Duration: 4 hours 55 minutes
Seat: 13A (Premium Economy)
My full review of American Airlines A321XLR Premium Economy from Los Angeles to New York
The American Airlines A321XLR features three classes of service:
- Business Class
- Premium Economy
- Regular Economy
Gone is Flagship First and Flagship Business Class on the A321T (which the XLR is replacing). That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I personally like having a proper premium economy option now in place of the old Flagship Business Class. Not everyone will agree with me on this, I know. Sorry y’all.
Arrival / checking in at LAX
Because of ongoing renovation of the American Airlines terminals at LAX (T4 and T5), my flight to JFK was scheduled to depart out of Terminal B at 10:10 AM. Having just arrived on a flight up from San Diego on United, it took about 15 minutes to make the walk from Terminal 8.
The boarding process for flight number 238 to JFK
Boarding at gate 151 commenced at exactly 9:40 AM. It’s worth noting that Premium Economy passengers board with Group 4, which isn’t exactly being first. Or second. Or even third. Standing there watching everyone board before you was easily the most economy class part of this entire experience.
American Airlines A321XLR Premium Economy seat overview
There are 18 Premium Economy seats arranged in a 2-2 layout on the American A321XLR. This cabin consists of three rows (rows 11, 12, and 13) and is separated from business class and economy class by bulkhead walls. It’s never not cozy and nice to fly in a smaller walled off cabin on any size airplane IMHO.
Amenities
Upon arrival at your seat, you’ll find a large bag containing a full-size blanket, a pillow, and a pair of noise canceling headphones. Smooshed under that bag will be a bottle of water.
Amenity kit
Getting an amenity kit in premium economy is one thing. Getting it in premium economy on a domestic US flight is another thing altogether. The ones they provided on this flight were both beautiful and highly useful (containing the usual useful goodies).
Our departure from LAX
We pushed off the gate 22 minutes late at 10:32 AM. And you know what? I didn’t even notice the delay because of how enamored I was with the seat that I was sitting in. They’re pretty neat.
Things were going smashingly well until (after sitting for 10 minutes on the taxiway not moving) the captain announced that we had to return to the gate because of a “seating issue”.
Long story short: we docked at the nearest gate (not the one we departed from), an American Airlines gate agent boarded the plane, and walked to the back. One minute later, he came back up the aisle escorting one passenger off the plane. No yelling, no arguments, no nothing. They shut the door, and we were on our way. OK then.
The taxi over to runway 25R took 56 minutes (which included the time to return to the gate), and we were in the air and on our way at 11:26 AM. Oof.
In flight entertainment
Say what you will about American Airlines (and I know that some of you can say a lot), but the in-flight entertainment product here in Premium Economy on the A321XLR is darn near world class.
The amount of movies and TV shows on tap is impressive. I didn’t even realize how many options were available until I found the well-hidden arrow button which allowed for pretty much limitless scrolling. Yeah, the UX is a little confusing at first, but the catalogue of content is impressive.
Bluetooth connectivity is available (as it should be in a product as premium as this). That said, I didn’t have the need to connect my AirPods since the wired noise canceling headphones that they provided were good enough.
And yes, Wi-Fi is available for free. The only caveat is that you need to be in American Airlines AAdvantage member to access it (which requires logging in and all that jazz).
Food and drinks
Maybe it was because of the lackluster meal I was recently served in United 787-9 Premium Plus, but I wasn’t expecting much on this flight. I’m happy to report that this meal exceeded my expectations.
There were no printed menus provided. The flight attendant simply walked down the aisle presenting two options (beef or vegetable curry). She only had the beef left by the time she got to our row.
As I noted in my American Airlines 737-800 review, this is an airline that does an excellent job with the presentation of food during the meal service. You can always expect interesting looking food on American IMHO. This experience was no different.
Seat recline and comfort
Seat recline is pretty good. Nothing that I’d call amazing, but at least it’s better than what you would get in American A321neo first class. Slightly better. And yes, my seat (in the very last row of Premium Economy against the rear bulkhead wall) reclined just as much as any other Premium Economy seat. There was no limitation.
These are comfortable seats, very similar to Delta A321neo first class. I especially liked the retractable leg rest. For reasons I cannot explain, it was probably the most comfortable leg rest I have ever experienced in any airplane seat. I don’t normally use those things, but my legs were happily supported all the way across the country.
Premium Economy lavatories
What Premium Economy lavatories? When you gotta go, it will require going all the way to the back of the airplane to one of the economy class lavatories. Or (depending on how brave you’re feeling), you can sneak into the business class cabin and use theirs.
The descent and landing into JFK
The flight attendant came by with Biscoff cookies approximately an hour and 10 minutes prior to landing. She was also taking drink orders, but I declined the offer. Thanks anyway!
The sun had completely set by the time we began the descent. As always when flying into New York, I was excited for the opportunity to get a good look at the city during our approach. Our downwind approach for 22R was just north of the city unfortunately, so there were no views to be had this time.
We touched down at exactly 7:21 PM, which was 53 minutes behind schedule. From there it was an 11 minute taxi over to gate 5 in Terminal 8. There wasn’t a whole lot to see here on the ground either.
Pros and cons of American Airlines A321XLR Premium Economy
I’ve been doing a lot of premium economy flying lately (both domestic and international) and I’m here to tell ya: the American Airlines A321XLR product was one of my favorite experiences yet.
Pros
- I don’t care what everyone says. I love the way that these seats look. Baby shit brown FTMFW!
- The privacy features (headrest wings and anti-peekaboo coatings on the video screens) are a nice touch for solo flyers.
- Very generous amenities. The pillow and blanket would’ve been nice enough, but they had to go and include a full amenity kit as well.
- Pretty good food! No complaints from me.
Cons
- No printed menus. I know this sounds petty AF, but they went really hard on all of the other amenities, so…
- Seat pitch and legroom isn’t generous enough for window seat passengers to be able to exit to the aisle without asking the person in the aisle seat to stand up.
- Boarding with group 4 doesn’t seem all that premium IMHO. Just sayin’.
Since you’ve already reviewed the first brand new transcon product from the Big Three, you should review Delta’s and United’s A321neo/xlr this summer!
That’s the plan!
Looks like a great ride. I look forward to it. One quick edit. Looked more like 2-2:
American Airlines A321XLR Premium Economy seat overview
There are 18 Premium Economy seats arranged in a 3-3 layout on the American A321XLR.
Keep ’em coming Scott!!!
CHRIS
Thanks Chris! It’s fairly shocking that I can’t catch such obvious mistakes during the final edit of these reviews lol. I appreciate you pointing out to me!
I never fail to belly laugh at least a few times while reading your reviews. I appreciate that Scott, along with the useful and informative content
Thanks Christy! I’ll admit that there are times when I feel like I’m going too far with the silliness, but it just pours out of me. I can’t help it lol.
Pretty cool that you could get one of the first reviews on this plane!
I was actually hoping to do it sooner, but I couldn’t find the time.
I was looking foward to this one, Scott. Great review. Is the food and seats better than what you get in domestic first class? Btw, was there an equipment swap on your return flight, because I thought you’ll also be in first class on the A321XLR.
Thanks Connor! Yeah, this the seats are a lot better than domestic first class (although I think this is the exact same seat as Delta A321neo first class – at least they look very similar). Food is about the same which is fine because it’s always been pretty good.
And yeah, it was supposed to be XLR business class on the way back. At first I thought it was an equipment swap, but I was just looking at the history for that flight, and at no point in the past two weeks has it ever been an XLR. So I’m not really sure what happened.
The seats AA uses on the XLR are Recaro R5 seats — Delta uses the Recaro CL4710. Their business class seats (if you couldn’t tell) are super similar to JetBlue’s Mint products, but the Mint seats are based on a platform from a different company. Its a bummer that you weren’t able to get to review the XLR business class, but will you get a review up on the Transcon?
I don’t follow the specific brands/models of seats all that closely, so this is interesting. Thanks for the clarification! And yes, I will be posting a full review of the return in first class on the A321T. It was a great flight despite not being exactly what I went to New York to get.
Hey Scott, I would highly recommend AeroLOPA for seat maps. It’s super detailed, and the maps are drawn almost to scale, and depictions of seats with blocked windows. It also shows the exact seat model, and its much better than most airline seat maps.
Yep, I’m a big fan of AeroLOPA (although though I much preferred seatguru). I didn’t realize they had information about seats without windows however. I was recently booking a flight where I needed to know if the row that I wanted had a window or not, and there was no info about it. Maybe it’s something they don’t have for every seat map yet.