American Airlines shared details of cabin refurbishments on its regional fleet earlier this week, marked by tech upgrades, fast Wi-Fi, and a new look for its seats.
These new interiors will begin getting phased in starting this fall. The upgrades are coupled with the introduction of free Wi-Fi coming in January 2026.
“Our customers value staying connected in the air, even on a relatively short flight,” said Heather Garboden, American’s Chief Customer Officer. “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.”
The new look for the Embraer 175 interiors will look something like this:
The seats are getting a new look, featuring blue and light blue, with a splash of brown up top. Main Cabin Extra features a full brown headrest, while Main Cabin does not. This theme currently exists on the airline’s new Boeing 787-9 (789P) fleet with Flagship Suites. It looks like this color scheme will stick around and make it to a lot of the airline’s other aircraft.
Passengers will also find in-seat power at every seat.
First class seats feature darker blue for much of the seat, with a splash of brown on the headrest, just like the rest of the aircraft.
The current seats are a full grey color, with not much going on. I welcome this color change.
The Bombardier CRJ900 interiors share the same theme, but the light blue part of the seats is more of a sky blue:
As a fairly frequent Embraer 175 flyer, I love these changes. The new refresh for the seats is nice, but in-seat power and fast and free Wi-Fi is the game changer.
I already tried out the new Intelsat Wi-Fi several months ago on the Embraer 175, and the full gate-to-gate experience is amazing. It felt like I was at home with the speeds, and I never had any issues with disconnecting once during the flight.
Once that becomes free, having the free connectivity with upgraded interiors will no doubt improve my E175 experience.
Additionally, American stated that it is in the works with Embraer to come up with larger overhead bins on the E175s. Bin space on regional jets gets tight, which forces many to gate check bags. This should be a welcome change as well when they eventually get to it.
Featured image by American Airlines.
