American Airlines Changes Its Fleet Plan — More Airbus Jets, One 787 Slips, And Deliveries Move Later

On Wednesday JonNYC posted American Airlines internal communications on their fleet plans. This is information that’s contained in public SEC filings, but it’s in a prettier form here. AA: from late July sometime pic.twitter.com/JBbmT1qL32 — JonNYC (@xJonNYC) August 6, 2026 It prompted me to go look at changes to the plan since their March quarter-end filing because insight almost always comes from asking what’s different? It’s a clarifying question in any update meeting, by the way. Aircraft Previous plan Current plan What changed Airbus A320 family 15 / 23 / 48 / 75 (161) 15 / 25 / 36 / 91 (167) Six options exercised; 2028 down 12 and 2029+ up 16 Boeing 737 family 5 / 0 / 0 / 115 (120) 0 / 0 / 0 / 115 (115) Five MAX aircraft delivered in Q2 Boeing 787 family 1 / 3 / 5 / 10 (19) 0 / 6 / 3 / 10 (19) No order change; one removed from 2026, three added to 2027 and two removed from 2028 Embraer E175 17 / 14 / 17 / 30 (78) 11 / 14 / 17 / 30 (72) Six delivered in Q2 Total 38 / 40 / 70 / 230 (378) 26 / 45 / 56 / 246 (373) Eleven deliveries minus six new Airbus commitments The number of planes American planned to take delivery of this year fell by one. In the first half of the year they received 22 new aircraft and now have 26 remaining that they expect to arrive. The one-aircraft reduction is a Boeing 787 that appears to have slipped to 2027. The total number of Boeing 787 commitments remain the same at 19. One 2026 delivery moves to 2027, and two 2028 aircraft were pulled forward to 2027. That doesn’t look like a desire to reduce widebodies (which has been a real knock of American in the past, and they confirmed in June they’re shopping for more widebodies but this didn’t come up in last month’s earnings call). Airbus commitments increased, but the schedule moved later. American exercised six Airbus A320-family options in July, but deliveries shifted away from 2028 toward 2029 and beyond. Aircraft-and-engine commitments declined by $873 million in 2028 but increased by $953 million in 2029. Total remaining commitments actually rose $269 million, to $24.324 billion, despite the Q2 deliveries. The shifting out of Airbus narrowbody deliveries seems like it’s an attempt to moderate capital expenditures, which makes sense given the airline’s lack of profits and high fuel costs. It may tier better to their current thinking on timing needed for replacement aircraft as well (that some older planes are staying in the fleet longer, potentially not great in an environment of high fuel). While the Boeing 737 MAX 7 has just been certified but the MAX 10 is still in process. Boeing still says they’ll start delivering these planes next year. I believe that 85 of American’s 115 Boeing narrowbodies on order are for MAX 10 aircraft (although these could presumably be swapped to other variants), and the other 30 are conversions of earlier MAX 8 orders. They’re all in the 2029 and beyond bucket, and Airbus options may be insurance against the MAX 10. Topics on this page