PresRDC

Saturday, August 11, 2001

The sole purpose of this trip was to get the 4000 miles I need to qualify for AAdvantage Gold status this year and is the first time I’ve ever embarked on a status or mileage run. After I take a trip to Italy via London in October, I’ll have the miles I need. This was my first trip in economy in a while, and I was not really looking forward to it. Actually, it turned-out to be a nice flight.

American Airlines Flight 16
JFK-SFO
Boeing 767-200

I was up at 6:00 AM and out of the house by 7:30 AM for my hour-long drive to my grandmother’s house in Bayside, Queens. My plan was to park my car at her house and then take a car service to JFK, which is no more than a 20-minute drive. The drive down was smooth and my ride to JFK was waiting for me. The driver was a pleasant-enough chap and the ride passed quickly. Actually, it passed too quickly as I was at JFK by 8:45 AM for my 11:00 AM flight. I always leave myself a lot of extra time, which is nicve when problems arise. However, when they don’t, I am left with too much time on my hands.

The flight was scheduled to depart from Terminal 9 and that was where I was dropped off. It seemed pretty busy, but not as busy as I was expecting for a Saturday morning in August. Nevertheless, I opted to purchase a one-day pass to the Admiral’s Club and checked-in there, which was effortless.

The Terminal 9 AC is pretty nice and I enjoyed a pleasant two hours waiting for my flight. They had a selection of fresh bagles and blueberry muffins for the taking. I grabbed a copy of the Economist and just generally relaxed after my trip to JFK.

The flight boarded from gate 43 on time and the process was ostensibly done by the group method. After group 1 boarded, however, the agents gave-up on the groups and everyone pretty much pushed aboard. Needing to store a fairly large bag, I went into “New York Mode” and got on the plane to find plenty of available bin space. The plane was a domestically configured 767, with four rows of business class and the old brown first class seats. The business class seat pitch did not look too generous and I was happy that I didn’t blow 15,000 miles to upgrade on this segment as I had thought about.

I took my seat in 29J and was impressed with the legroom. It was nothing too generous, but far, far better than other airlines. My less than pleasant seatmate arrived and I was relieved to see that she would fit into the seat with room to spare. The 767-200 pushed about 5 minutes early at 10:55 AM, but due to some ATC problem, we did not begin our take-off roll from 4L until 12:30 PM! The good thing was that this delay resulted in free headsets, so all was not lost. I passed this time by reading some of the old National Geographic magazines that I missed while in England, particularly a three article series on the travels of Marco Polo, which I thought was appropriate reading for this trip.

The cabin service started soon after take-off with drinks. This being my first domestic U.S. flight in over a year, I was reminded that not all flights involve free alcohol. This was really not a big deal, as I did not plan on drinking. I just had a Diet Coke with lime, but had to specifically ask for the whole can. This was not the case on a flight from LGW-RDU-LGW that I took with American in April. Maybe full cans are a perk for international flights, but I got my can, albeit with a rude look from the F/A, so I was happy. It was served with a small bag of honey roasted peanuts. Lunch followed and was a choice of penne in tomato sauce or chicken and rice. I had the chicken and was actually pleasantly surprised. The chicken was a big piece for an airline meal and the rice was done in a tomato sauce and hence was moist. The meal came with a bread roll, a side salad (lettuce from a bag) and a piece of coconut cake. Unlike my LGW-RDU-LGW flight, there was no cheese and cracker packet; but otherwise, the meal was the same.

I was not planning on watching the movie, which was entitled The Basket, but since the headphones were free, I gave it a try. It was nothing special, but somewhat entertaining. The Eye on American piece featured an episode of the King of Queens and a 60 Minutes piece on a tough female NY Supreme Court (NY’s trial level court) judge. After this, I returned to my National Geographics and soon we were landing in SFO, which provided a nice view of the city and the bay as we descended. The gate was close to the runway and I was off the plane and in a taxi 10 minutes after landing.

Next, the Grand Hyatt at Union Square and a night on the town . . .