rft - 2 things should make a huge difference as your choice of airline on this route:

1) Will the paid ticket usually be business class or economy class?

2) Will you fly enough per year to make AA Executive Platinum (EXP)?
(That would be 100K miles flown on cheap economy fares, or 66.6K miles flown on full fare economy or business class, or 100 segments per calendar year)

Food - IMO, a tie in both business and coach


AA 777 vs CO 777 seating - IMO, AA wins
(all comment comparing other aircraft above don't mean anything for your route)

Economy Class: - CO is 31 inches and AA is 32 inches seat pitch
- I find the AA seat slightly more comfortable (very subjective)
- Both AA and CO, unlike many airlines, have power ports in at least part of economy class, allowing one to plug in the laptop and watch what you want or work
- Both AA and CO have personal TVs in every seat
- AA is configured 2 x 5 x 2
- CO is configured 3 x 3 x 3
- Same number of seats.
When coach is 7/9 full, on AA the only people in middle seats could be in the middle of the 5 row with a free seat on both sides of them. Everyone else can have a aisle or window.
When coach is 7/9 full, on CO this means that 1/9 of the people would need to be in a middle seat with someone on both sides of them.

Business Class
CO has a 55.0" pitch and 22.0" width
AA has a 57-60.0" pitch and 20.0" width
Both seats are comfortable almost flat - I prefer the newer AA seat. These seats are in the same class.


Service
Both airlines have excellent crews and others that should choose to retire from the industry. IMO - a tie.


Upgrades
This is the AA trump card, if you can make the EXP level on AA. On a scale of 1-10, CO gets a 2 and AA a 10 when it comes to international upgrade benefits for international flyers.

If/When you get to EXP status on AA, you get (every year you qualify) 8 systemwide upgrade certificates that can be used to upgrade coach to business or business to first on most fares (including most discount fares) anywhere AA flies, up to 3 segments in the same general direction per certificate.

AA First Class is a much superior product to CO Business First (CO should call it business class).

AA clears upgrades up to the last minute, so if seats are available upfront, you usually clear as an EXP. Overall, I would say you can expect an 80% international clearance rate on AA if you are EXP.

AA EXP also get unlimited domestic upgrades (like CO elites do), however on AA, the upgrade clearance rate is much higher than on CO. Lower levels on AA do not get unlimited upgrades; lower levels on CO do get unlimited domestic upgrades, however the CO success rate is low.

IMO, if you can reach EXP, AA is the hands down winner. If you cannot reach EXP, you are comparing two similar options where AA IMO has a slight edge.

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Choosing an international carrier:

- YES, the NH/JL/SQ/CX products are nicer than the AA/CO/UA/NW transpacific products. The biggest advantage of these Asian carriers are superior service levels, in all classes of service. The hard product is often about the same.

- IF you like to upgrade, these Asian carrier will never compare. The upgrade options offered by the Asian carriers generally require more miles or/and require full fare $$$$ to be purchased to be upgrade eligible. Only miles from their own programs can be used to upgrade and earning these miles is generally far more difficult; they offer less bonus miles from flying and have far fewer partner earning options for the US based traveler. These Asian carriers do not offer complimentary upgrade certificates like AA and UA do.