austgap

Greetings FT’ers and a very Happy New Year! Being a university student and trying to maintain my QF SG status results in me usually conducting one major trip alongside a bit of a MR. Last year I visited friends in England and completed a Malev trip when they had some incredible specials in J to LCA.

This year some good friends of mine talked me into once again making a trek across the pacific to join them skiing in Big Sky, MT. This year I embarked on what can only deem to be a crazy MR for anyone who doesn’t read FT. When I explained my travel itinerary to my family, they all looked totally confused on why I would want to fly all the way to the Caribbean to just turn around 90minutes later after flying 12hours to LA spending 6hours in Vegas sightseeing and seeing some friends! However on the plus side, my dad has been introduced to FT and was blown away and impressed by some of the Trip Reports already out!

So being a student and wanting to spend the least amount of money and maximise time on the slopes I needed to compact my MR to its finest element so this is my 15.554mile adventure to a hotel in Denver....oh and onwards to Bozeman, Montana and back to Brisbane. From a fair bit of research I found out the Las Vegas was the place to start an AA MR so with an easy connection down there and then onwards to Denver everything was booked and I was very excited about the trip. A couple of firsts for me, first time on Southwest, Frontier and American also hopefully as I write my first time experience Y+ seat on the way home!

However the week before I was set to travel devastation hit my city of Toowoomba in Queensland, Australia with a flash flood surprising a city of a 100,000+ that is perched up on a mountain range 2000m above sea level. While the fatilities are truly tragic thankfully the highways reopened allowing me to board my flight to LA.




When the particular route has been added to this TR

Stage 1: QF Y Brisbane – Los Angeles
Stage 2: WN Y Los Angeles – Las Vegas
Stage 3: AA F Las Vegas – Los Angeles
Stage 4: AA F Los Angeles – New York
Stage 5: AA J New York – San Juan
Stage 6: AA J San Juan – Miami
Stage 7: AA F Miami – Las Vegas
Stage 8: WN Y Las Vegas – Denver
Stage 9: Hyatt Denver Airport
Stage 10: F9 Y Denver- Bozeman
Stage 11: F9 Y Bozeman – Denver
Stage 12: F9 Y Denver – Los Angeles
Stage 13: QF Y Los Angeles – Brisbane

Let's get on with it...

austgap

Flight Number: QF15
B747-400 VH-OJB “Mt. Isa”
Brisbane –Los Angeles
Class: Economy Seat: 38C
Departure: Scheduled 1205 (Actual 1205)
Landing: Scheduled 0700 (actual 0646)
Check-in:
With the Business class and Qantas Club/Premium Economy counters all being used I was called over by one of the economy agents. Now I’ve flown with Qantas for many years both domestically and internationally and never have I experienced an agent who went above and beyond. He was very helpful after I had somehow forgotten about the US visa process and was happy to hold my checked bag behind his counter and then when I re-queued called me over and had the whole process done efficiently and very friendly calling me by name on numerous times. Afterwards he gave me the outwards express card saying that I no doubt needed to head to the lounge quickly for a much needed cup of tea!


QF Check-in



Brisbane FIDS

Lounge:
Went up to the Qantas Business lounge, which in Brisbane is still called the Qantas Club unlike in Sydney. Basic, quite small, dirty with plenty of uncleared plates and cups (however this was attended within 20minutes) and was starting to get a bit busy. Offerings exactly the same as the Domestic QP, since I bumped into some family friends and had a long chat with them I didn’t really engage into the food or drink much other than a simple Solo and pretzels. However there was initially a breakfast offering of muesli and fruit which was changed around 10.30 to cold meats and salad. Lounge “dragons’ were anything and were able to confirm the spare seat in 38B.


Pretzels and Solo overlooking the departures


Heading towards the gate

VH-OJB
Boarding:
Used the gold status to enter via the J line so one of the first onboard. A friendly, quite mature purser greeted me by name and directed me onto the economy cabin. Had been told before at check-in that the load was around 80% however that must of been the entire cabin, as from my short walk to the toilets economy looked chocker blocked! Thankfully the woman at the Qantas Club was true to her word and the middle seat stayed free, with a very tall Dutch/Swede? on the window. After having initial chat about how much legroom we had he kept to himself with his notes and fell asleep shortly after lunch. The only thing was he kept his window shade open, although easily fixed. Crew seemed the typical mixed bag which you read on the QFF section of FT, to be honest I wasn’t thrilled initially and during the flight I got quite a cold feeling especially by the male steward who was serving my side of the cabin.

Premium Economy

Economy

My Seat

View from 38C

Legroom shot
During the flight:
Once lights were turned off the crew made numerous water and apple runs which was great.
IFE:
Wow what a step back in time after getting spoilt with the A380! Saying that there was plenty to keep you entertained and I was kept occupied by watching a few tv shows during lunch, How I Met Your Mother and TopGear and afterwards watched the Social Network.

IFE
About an hour into the flight lunch was served, I took up the Fish option, which was actually very hot (temp) and quite tasty so well done QF!


The potato salad was a bit bland but otherwise a decent meal finished off with a Weis Mango icecream.

About 30minutes later hot chocolate/peppermint tea was offered alongside the ‘Snack on Q’ pack. I’ve flown economy long haul a few times now and hasn’t it just got smaller and smaller. It now is simply a water bottle, two cookies, a muesli bar and a small packet of mints, while still appreciated its a bit disappointed that you can notice cost-cutting that clearly!

Had the hot breakfast which was decent, maybe a tad dry but hit the spot for that time in the morning.

Arrival:Since of our own time departure and with a good trip we actually arrived early into LAX, while that usually means losing all the made up time in getting the gate ready it wasn’t too bad and I was off the plane just a little after 7am. Immigration and security weren’t too bad, after hearing all the horror stories of LAX immigration it seemed no real different in terms of time and was through the whole process with a bag within 45minutes, which was quite solid. After having a long walk to the United terminal and back I was looking forward to another new airline – this time Southwest.

Verdict:
Sure the QF 744 hard product is old and feeling the age, however the bulkhead seat had heaps of room, more so than 50C on the A380 im pretty sure. Other then the new tiny Snack on Q pack and the grumpy crew member it was another decent long haul flight on QF. Certainly the friendly and helpful check-in agent and the surprisingly decent lunch and selection on the IFE made the trip enjoyable and offset the small issues of the older seat and average crew.

austgap

Flight Number: WN 1223
B737-700W N268WN
Los Angeles - Las Vegas
Class: Economy Seat: 12F
Departure: Scheduled 1130 (Actual 1130)
Landing: Scheduled 1235 (actual 1225)
Check-in:
In hindside, paying the extra $40AUD and flying AA would of been better since at least I could of had a shower and all that since of course knowing my luck my QF flight was ontime. Nevertheless after a loooong walk from TBIT to T8 then to T1 to try and wake up my legs. Once I made my way over to terminal one, I was checked in by a friendly SWA agent with the process taking less than 3minutes since there was next to no queue. Dropped the bag off at the TSA agent and made my way through security which was very slow with people shouting and screaming everywhere! Since I had such a long layover on the case that QF15 doesn't seem to have the best ontime reliablity, I cruised the limited shops available in T1 bought myself a paper and luckily found these rather large leather chairs that had powerpoints so was able to finish a bit of work and burn time until boarding.


The leather chairs

AS B734 UX EMB120s

HA B763

My Southwest plane arriving

N268WN

Lounge:
N/A

Boarding:
I had paid the $10 online for Earlybird Check-in which allowed me to gain A21.The southwest system of boarding once you get your head around it was actually really clever and everyone followed the GA directions and lined up numerically. I made my way onto the plane and noticed that a few passengers had grabbed the 2 abreast emergency exit seats in row 11 however nobody had touched 12F. Now while im anything but a window seat person, the opportunity to experience nobody in front of me was too good to say no. Plane took a while to load since we had a near full flight, so 12D and E were taken by a married couple off to Vegas for the first time. However that was a long as our conversation extended. After the safety demonstration the crew went around asking for drink choices.


Legroom Shot 1

Legroom Shot 2

During the flight:
Once the seatbelt sign was turned off, the crew proceed to come around and deliver drinks and peanuts. Ordered a coke and can say it was fantastic for such a short flight and even better then the return which was in first class! Crew were all middle aged females and completed their tasks effectively and efficiently, certainly none of the singing/raping announcements you see on youtube.

IFE:
N/A

Arrival:
Once the seatbelt sign was turned off the passengers who were connecting on to Burbank were asked to stay seated and while I was getting off the plane the crew were already beginning the clean up to keep ontime. Bag was on the belt by the time I made it to baggage claim.

Verdict:
For a short 48minute flight, Southwest were fantastic. Cheap seat, free drink, bag and snack. Comfortable seating which made me feel the $10 were worth paying for (ended up buying it for my later leg as well). Can’t fault.

dat4life

Nice job so far! As far as U.S. flagged carriers go in Y (and in some cases even F), WN certainly puts them to shame.

olybeast

Loving the story so far

sobore

Nice report. Sounds like you had a pretty good experience on WN. I have always been a bit leery of the 'grab-a-seat' policy.

carolinaaaflyer

Nice reporting. Good pics.

austgap

** Apologies for the delay, back from the snow so should have the rest up in a short time. Also the pictures haven't come out as well since their only from the Iphone**

Flight Number: AA 776
MD-80
Las Vegas – Los Angeles
Class: First Class Seat: 3E
Departure: Scheduled 1850 (Actual 1910)
Landing: Scheduled 2000 (Actual 1951)

Check-in:
After spending the day sightseeing Las Vegas and catching up with some friends from England who were also over here holidaying I made my way to Las Vegas McCarran airport with the cab driver dropping me off curbside, now to minimise dragging a carryon and my other bag around the strip with me there was two options that I had. Firstly from my searching on FT some members had suggested to drop it off at a hotel, paying the concierge a tip to look after it for trip and returning into the city for it or taking through security to one of the lockers airside. Since September 11, there is no lockers landslide at airports in the US, or so I was told. Since the thoughts of mucking around for a second trip to the strip was unappealing, the lockers worked reasonably well, regardless of the two trips I had to make to concourse D it worked reasonably efficiently. (The two trips most likely won’t necessary but I hadn’t quite grasped the process and the lack of sleep was beginning to catch up..) So I went to the AA self-service machine to reprint my boarding passes, for the thought that the TSA might frown on that they had been already marked twice and made my way through security to concourse D to collect my carry-on.


View from my desk looking to the CO gates and slot machines

Lounge:
Since there is no AAdrimals Club in LAS, just a CO Presidents Club, I found a quiet area of the concourse D around where the Continental gates are located although there seemed to be limited activity other than a flight to Houston and a delayed Jetblue flight to JFK, and then nothing until the CO redeyes to its hubs in EWR and IAH so with the space of the desk near the locker I had put my bags in earlier that morning, I was able to start writing up this TR and charge both my laptop and Iphone. Eventually I packed everything up and slowly made my way over to where the AA gates are located on the other side of the concourse.


General view again from my desk, highlighting how quiet it was

Boarding:
By the time I made it to the gate, the inbounding passengers had departed and by all looks we were set for an ontime board. The two GAs seem to be too-ing and fro-ing creating quite a spectacle between the desk and the gateway, nearly expected them to start breaking into a full-on ballet rendition, however that was not to happen. Once the two wheelchair passengers were delivered and more movement, a final ok came from the flightcrew and the Asian GA proceeded to start giving the boarding order, however maybe it was just me, but I had no idea what she was saying in her broken English and by the confused looks of other passengers, maybe I wasn’t alone. However the word I had been waiting for the entire trip was mumbled out “Furrssst Claaaas” and joined the line with a few other passengers who had simply starting assembling up to board as the GA were completing their final scene in their performance. Unlike in Australia and even on Southwest earlier that day, there was next to no interaction between the robotic GA stretching out her hand gaining the glorious ‘beep’ and passing the boarding pass back to you, not saying I was expecting a intellectual conversation of the evolution of Man, just a simple simile or something to acknowledge my “Hello” and “Thankyou.” Oh well, not a great bother, onwards I went down the jetway looking forward to only my second time flying First Class and my first experience on AA.

Now let me quickly pause for a second folks and explain one thing. When people on FT consistently say something is poor/average/shocking whatever you do drop your expectations. Alas, I was maybe a tad delirious and kept some semi-decent expectations of what to expect with AA, after all I had a incredibly good flight on WN and I’ve had my fair share of flying the Australian media’s favourite bashup and I hadn’t dropped from the sky or noticed the engine of my plane accidently fall off as a bunch of Sudanese pirates ran off with it. Well literally within the first minute, I was thinking to myself – you silly twat if only you had read everyone’s moans and demands of the wonderful C-word (compensation for those not from the AA forum) because my first impression when walking on the MD-80 was getting greeted by this incredible smell. Now I admit I may have used the word incredible here in maybe the wrong context. This smell could only be described as when mould hits a decaying animal carcass – I kid you not I thought something had died. Anyway back to the TR.

I was greeted by the Purser(?) or maybe just FA working FC back, since I’ve been well trained by QF I stood there for a few seconds with my boarding card stretched, to which she finally turns around and looks at me weirdly before I saved her from having to say anything and just carried on the 3 steps onto my seat. Obviously this is the chosen connection by a lot of fellow QF faithful heading across the Pacific as from where I was standing in 3E, I wasn’t alone in having the awkward pause and wait motion. The load to LAX was pretty reasonable about 50% in F and 70% in Y. My theory on it being a high connecting flight to the QF flights were supported while we waited for a last passenger the three FAs for this flight all congregated up at L1 and proceeded to quite loudly bag out ‘those stupid Australians’ whom had slowed the boarding process and had ignored her rather blunt to a point aggressive shrieks on the PA system “we want to go home early so get seated quickly.” Talk about matching stereotypes, the purser honestly looked like she had been up as long as me, her shirt was not tucked in totally, hair a mess and all that (sorry that’s the best fashion vocab I have).


Legroom from 3E


Looking across at 3A and 3C

Once we closed the door, we waited and waited. Then finally pushed back, at this point the FA looks at me and says “Water.” I assumed since I’d been up for over 20hours that I was just overtired and smiled and accepted her statement. My assumption was this was a PDB, actually instead of adding to the typical FT debate between plastic cups and glasses I got a 1L bottle. Yes thats right SQ,CX,EK... when does one of your first class customer get a 1L bottle of water as a PDB!

My inflight service.

During the flight:
That was literally the beginning and the end of the service. Other than gaining more of the FAs all sitting around talking loudly while we sat on hold waiting for LAX traffic to clear allowing us to gain a landing slot, the only thing that we heard from the flightdeck. I’ll make the assumption that the seatbelt sign stayed on the entire 33minutes as when I woke up from my dose as were making our decent into LAX it was still on and nothing had changed.

IFE:
Nil.

Arrival:
We landed and after quite a considerable taxi deplaned with no connection information just simply a half-hearted thankyou from our LAX/STL based crew.

Verdict:
Pretty underwhelming. I understand it’s a short hop and wasn’t expecting a five-course meal, just some staff who take some pride in their appearance and seem like they at least a tiny bit want to be there. The MD80 was not much fun and think I’ll try and avoid it for future AA MR.

austgap

Flight Number: AA 10
B767-200
Los Angeles- New York JFK
Class: First Class Seat: 2D
Departure: Scheduled 2130 (Actual 2142)
Landing: Scheduled 0535 (Actual 0513)

Check-in:
N/A

Lounge:
After leaving the MD80 I made a quick zip line to the AAdmirals Club with two achievements in mind. Shower and Dinner. Dinner you ask? While since this is a redeye from all reports AA offers next to nothing and since I hadn’t really had anything overly decent to eat since the QF breakfast I was keen to try out one of their burgers that you can buy at the AAdrimals Club Mum and one of my sisters had on their return before jumping on QF16 twelve months previous. I don’t know if it was just me being over tired but somehow my whole opinion of AA went sky rocketing up when I met one of the AAngles who spotted quickly that I was one of “those crazy mileage runners.” We had a good chat about it and she was kind of enough to put me on the standby for my MIA-LAS leg since it was going to be the tightest turnaround she even told me one of her colleagues is a guilty MR lover regardless she can get free company travel. She was rather blown away that I had flown in from Brisbane that morning and had already spent a day in Vegas. Nevertheless the combination of shower + beer + burger = a much happier camper who promised for the sake of this TR he’d be more optimistic for the remaining flights on AA. The AAdrimials club I found was reasonably enjoyable maybe too few seats around the bar/food, however once I got seated the staff made a great effort and the burger was tasty as and the beers did keep on flowing, regardless I did have to rush it at the end as I had lost track of the time. The Shower was clean and great after way too long without it! It did seem to have only one hook and limited space to put anything like my bag, clothes...etc.


View of the shower room at the lounge


Shower #2

Boarding:
After enjoying my first true American cuisine of a fine juicy burger, I worked out that my flight was already boarding so in true FT fashion actually ended up being one of the last to make my way to the gate and onboard AA10 where the purser actually took a look at my boarding pass and greeted me by name and directed me to my seat. This did start my experience of learning the AA FAs seem not to have a common uniform, the purser simply wore a plain blue jumper and a skirt, so if it wasn’t for her AA ID then I’d hardly would of thought she was a FA. Bottled water (normal sized this time) were offered as we were waiting for the final paperwork to be completed and taken up by most of the cabin. First went out totally full and so did business by all looks of it, no idea what the load was in coach but the AAngel did give me the indication that it was a full flight.

During the flight:
You obviously can tell if you’re not a regular on the transcon by what you do 30seconds after the wheels have lifted off the tarmac at LAX. A die-hard regular on AA10 and no doubt its later cousin AA30 by this time of the flight your seat is in its bed mode, your really thick and comfortable blanket and pillow are set up and your fast asleep (Anderson Cooper lookalike who was sitting on the window – I’m talking about you!). Me on other hand was a bit confused, the whole seatbelt sign rule....


View from 2D

Also knowing that I was doing a TR thought I’d stay up and see if anything was on offer for this snack flight. Since there one other crazy type like me who had stayed up she seemed to get offered a snack, some headphones..etc but I in row two seem to not, until it dawned on me, since my light was off and I was in a semi-recline the FA naturally thought I was getting some sleep vs the Woman in 1A who had her reading light on and was reading a book. After a quick buzz of the crew button, the purser came to me, apologised since she assumed I was sleeping and offered me a snack for this evening’s flight.
I selected the salad regardless I wasn’t really hungry just so I could get a snap of it – oh FT how I spoil you sometimes. After only a couple of minutes the purser came back with the completed tray with my drink – the novelty of having Corona in a can was too big and regardless no need to partake in any more drinking I gave in. Interesting though when I asked for what beers they had she started off rattling the international brands – Heineken, Corona... This was quite the late night snack and to be honest I could of saved myself $16 (yes Univeristy student coming out here..) and just had this as it was really tasty the combination of the salad, sauce, strawberries and chicken plus the tasty warm nuts really filled me up and shortly after I had eaten all I could and the Pursar came around again collected the tray offered me another drink with no avail and left me to sleep.


The AA "snack"

My seat was put into bed mode and I slept soundly until woken up by the undercarriage being deployed for landing as the rest of the cabin was ready for landing maybe it was the massive double-dinner maybe the tiredness, the noise-cancelling headphones or just maybe that seat was that good for sleeping – this is from someone who really struggles to sleep on planes but getting a good just under 4hours of sleep was quite a personal achievement and I felt a lot more alive than I did a few hours earlier. As the plane was coming into land into JFK I was still trying to put my blanket and pillow somewhere and put my seat into its upwards motion as the plane was only meters from the ground. Possibly I should have been woken up to achieve this task before landing but I was grateful I wasn’t.

IFE:
This is of course during the time where AA has turned off all electronic power points on its planes so the IFE wasn’t an option although the woman in 1A was offered BOSE headsets, I already had my own noise cancelling so wasn’t offered.

Arrival:
We landed in a pretty dreary New York dawn, with a bit of rain falling and were given quite comprehensive directions on where to find luggage and then connections information including where the AAdmirals Club was located – which was handy! A more positive goodbye from our LAX based crew and the plane disembarked. While I was going to wait onboard to take some photos of the F cabin, the thought of getting a nice long shower was more tempting I left with my fellow First class passengers so apologies about that.

Verdict:
Was impressed by AA’s F transcon product on this redeye it ticked all the correct boxes in terms of seat comfort, sleep, food and booze. Crew were observant while trying to prevent noise through the cabin which was appreciated by all. Huge improvement on the earlier flight and have already looked into future options hopefully which incorporate a day flight where I can partake in some more of its service offerings – particular its ice-cream sundae!

Carfield

Thanks for the trip report! I am really not impressed with your AA flight from Las Vegas to LAX. I sincerely hope that you will drop AA a note regarding the flight and comments made about Australians on your flight. That is not acceptable. Compensation is secondary but AA needs to know about the poor performance of their F/As. Qantas has provided much feed to AA's domestic network on LAX, and AA F/As especially LA based (well they are going home to LA) should be sensitive to the needs of our fellow Aussie passengers.

Second, AA never offers bottled water as pre-takeoff beverage, and I hope throwing a bottled water to F passengers is not the latest "enhancement" on the LAX to LAS routes. If Southwest is able to serve beverage to a full load of 737, AA has no excuse not to provide a full beverage service to 16 F passengers. Y always get the express beverage service, which is understandable (to some extents). Sad to see how AA is turning in 2011!

Look forward to the rest of your report!

Carfield