American to spiff up its regional jets with fresh cabin design, new-look seats

American Airlines has grabbed plenty of headlines for its spiffy new lie-flat seats on its long-haul planes. Now, the airline is planning a major cabin upgrade for its smallest aircraft.

The Fort Worth-based carrier on Tuesday announced it is beginning retrofits for its fleet of regional jets — the American Eagle-branded planes that ferry customers between smaller and midsized airports into the airline's biggest hubs.

As part of the interior overhaul, American's regional jets will get more modern cabins with a fresh look for the seats. The most eye-catching change will be the seat design, which will feature a new, lighter-blue seat covering. The headrests are either tan (for first class and Main Cabin Extra) or navy with tan striping (for standard coach). Each headrest sports the airline's emblem in the corner.

It's a color palette reminiscent of the one that American just debuted this summer on its all-new, premium-heavy Boeing 787-9P, which sports its latest-generation Flagship Suites (the airline has also planned this color scheme for its new Airbus A321XLR aircraft).

All of American's regional jets — aside from its tiniest 50-seat planes — are slated for cabin upgrades, including the Bombardier CRJ700 and CRJ900 and Embraer 170 and 175 aircraft.

American expects to complete those retrofits "over the coming years."

Better Wi-Fi and more widespread power outlets

It's not just aesthetics, either. As part of the overhaul, American will install in-seat power outlets on a much wider swath of its regional fleet, which should be a welcome change for passengers needing to charge devices while in flight.

And then there's a matter of Wi-Fi.

While American has offered inflight browsing on its regional planes for years, it's hardly been the most reliable Wi-Fi service. But as TPG reported earlier this year, American is in the process of upgrading inflight internet on its regional jets with faster connectivity available from gate to gate.

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The carrier announced Tuesday that it has finished installing the higher-speed satellite Wi-Fi on close to 300 of its American Eagle planes. American expects that all regional jets featuring two cabins (first class and economy) will have this more reliable connectivity by early 2026.

Not coincidentally, early 2026 is when the carrier also plans to make inflight Wi-Fi complimentary across all of its planes for AAdvantage loyalty members.

"Our customers value staying connected in the air, even on a relatively short flight," Heather Garboden, American's chief customer officer, said in a statement Tuesday. "We've been working diligently to ensure our regional fleet offers the best and most reliable high-speed connectivity, especially as we look ahead to free Wi-Fi in 2026."

Overhead bins

Finally, as part of this regional jet overhaul, American also said it's working to solve a problem that's a mainstay on these shorter flights: those pesky, small overhead bins. The carrier is currently in talks with Brazilian planemaker Embraer to design new, larger overhead bins with capacity for larger rollaboard bags.

American said it expects to roll out aircraft with larger overhead bins in the coming years. It's not alone, either; United Airlines has also been installing more spacious overhead bins on many of its regional jets in recent years.

Regardless of the airline, the idea is to reduce the number of passengers that have to valet tag their luggage and wait for it on the jet bridge after landing — a common pain point on flights operated by the big airlines' regional subsidiaries.

Bottom line

Generally speaking, the regional jet experience tends to be a bit more limited in terms of onboard tech and amenities, and American's regional flights are no exception.

But with faster Wi-Fi, an updated cabin and — eventually — larger overhead bins, the carrier is hoping to close the gap between its smaller American Eagle planes and the larger Boeing 737s and Airbus A320-family jets customers fly on other domestic routes.

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