first let me say this report will cover flights and terminals only.. and i have
absolutely no status with any airline and thus no perks at all... a lowly Y steerage passenger.

in any case i'll give it a go... briefly
my goal was to travel to germany and not take a red eye across because being a short trip and with my 'advanced' age, jet leg is a killer traveling eastbound.

BOS have 2 day flights to LHR where i could connect easily to HAM.
so BA or AA BA or AA? ok BA uses a B777 and has free booze.. AA is now using a B757 but is about 200 bucks cheaper (that's a lot of booze for a day flight !)
so i end up with

AA156 tail #N199AN B757
dep BOS 1030am arrive LHR 8:40PM
this flight leaves terminal B a domestic AA terminal in BOS. it has been refurbished recently but there still isn't much on offer. anyway you can get some food and duty free is available. i had checked in online seat 14A but
was able to beg an exit row 18B from a friendly AA counter agent. i would be glad i did!
boarding was fairly uneventful but there seemed to be a lot of people milling around.. this flight was packed! not a seat to be had on the entire airplane.
the B757 is small!
takeoff was powerful and reached cruising altitude in short order.
the exit row is a definite plus when flying this plane in Y you get the benefit of much more legroom against the drawback of no recline. the 3 of us were more or less comfortable the whole way. there is no personal TV anywhere in economy so you either get the map or a movie they run on overhead screens. seems quite retro in a way..
the service was started and a drink cart came by first and received a couple of surly / snarky comments from the overage AA crew all for asking (nicely) for a tomato juice and a glass of water. are all AA crew like this?
anyway a 'lunch' service followed and i can't say it was good or bad really,
just nondescript.
flight was smooth taking a southern route and landed into LHR on time.
all in all not a bad flight and the benefits of arriving in the evening in europe are definitely worth it. you can get to your hotel catch some zzz's and be ok the next morning.


AA109 tail # N381AN B767
leave LHR 1030 am arrive BOS 1:00 pm
this is the first flight of the day to BOS from LHR and leaves from terminal 3.
i arrived about 2hours prior flight time and the check in area was absolute chaos. i had not checked in online but had seat 13C already assigned.
since i only had hand baggage i was very lucky not to have to stand in the seemingly endless lines and could use a self service machine to snag a boarding pass. i was also able to move up a row to 12C which in the end proved to be a good move. the machine worked quite well luckily.
security was a breeze and you end up in the departure lounge for terminal 3 which has a good variety of shops/food for all budgets. got a couple of goodies for the family and by then a gate was announced. then proceed to make the what seems to be neverending walk to the gate.give yourself a lot of time to do this! boarding orderly and easy as the plane was only 1/2 full.
normal long taxi and powerful takeoff to the west into strong winds. heavy chop for the first hour of the flight had the 17.5 year old B767 all over the sky! it smoothed out after that for the rest of the flight. if ever you get the chance to sit in the small cabin behind business in the 767 do so. it has a cozy feel to it. the rear most row in that cabin is not recommended though as it looked very tight. again no personal TV in the seatback.. so retro AA! service again was more or less nondescript, efficient but nothing out of the ordinary. breakfast/snack were edible but nothing fancy. at least no snarky comments this time from the boston based crew.. maybe because the plane was only 1/2 full?
touchdown was 15 minutes ahead of schedule so naturally waited 10 minutes at the gate for the jet bridge to be placed by ground crew.. don't AA know when their planes land?

overall i would say AA's transatlantic product needs a lot of improvement, especially in Y, and on the ground at the LHR check in area. a B757 seems claustrophobic to go over the pond in..at least to me anyway. can we please get a B777 on the run pretty please??

next time for a change i may try their new partner..BA .. at least if they lay some comments on me it will be with a nice accent!

happy flying!