Flying to Anchorage to Study
I awoke to a beautiful cool and crisp fall morning the next day. Although my beverage intake the previous evening was fairly moderate, I was really feeling under the weather. Before I turned 25, I could easily party all night and still make it to a 8 o’clock class. But now just a few short years after turned 25, it’s taking me awhile to recover even after a moderate night out. I had intended to take run that morning, but laying around and watching College Game Day was much more tempting. It was a huge day in the world of college football, with then number 6 ranked Texas A&M hosting top ranked Alabama in the latest “game of the century. Coverage of the game was starting bright and very early.
Finally, I dragged myself out of bed, got ready, and headed to the Metro station. It should have been a quick 40 minute trip, but parts of the Blue Line were closed because of maintenance. So I was forced to hop off the train at the Crystal City station to catch a shuttle to take me to Reagan National Airport. The detour added an extra 20 minutes, but I made it with plenty of time to spare. I was unable to get mobile boarding passes for some reason, so I made a quick trip to American counters to pick up my boarding passes. The friendly agent who helped did a double take when she saw my itinerary, and murmured, “It’s that time of year again.” But she immediately regained her composure, gave me my boarding passes with a smile, and thanked me for my business.
There wasn’t much of a line at security, so I was through very quickly and heading to the Admirals Club on the upper level of the terminal. While it isn’t the biggest lounge, the DCA Admirals Clubs is quite nice and a great staff. In fact, on the whole the AA staff at DCA is one of the best in the system IMHO.
Anyways, one of bartenders is a New Orleanian like myself, so we always have a lot to talk about. In addition to good conversation, he also makes a great Bloody Mary, which was the perfect cure for my hangover.
Bloody Mary
Main area of the AC
Cell free zone
Admirals Clubs recently upgraded their food offerings to include Danishes and croissants with the morning offerings. I grabbed a croissant to munch on with my Bloody Mary. It was ok, but certainly better than the muffins that were on offer. I passed time by reading the Wall Street Journal and enjoying the view of the tarmac.
With ten minutes till boarding, I decided to head to the gate. Reagan is my favorite small airport in the country because of the ease of access and logical layout. But its best feature is great views of some famous landmarks, due to its location across the Potomac River from Washington DC.
Nice view of the Pentagon and Capitol Hill, aka the House of Stupidity
I am not fan of US Airways as an airline,
and I really hope the Department of Justice puts an end to the senseless AA/US merger and tells Dougie to bugger off. Post written before the DOJ screwed it all up.
That said, one thing US does well is special liveries, which include the nice looking PSA liveried A319 and the A319s wearing the logo of the NFL teams of each of US hub cities. Today, the A319 wearing the logo of the Charlotte based Carolina Panthers was visiting DCA.
When I booked this trip two months out, I took a look at the load in First Class on Expert Flyer. The DCA-DFW flight was wide open, but my DFW-ANC flight was already showing F6, with the majority of the 22 seats already taken. I have maintained a very good complimentary upgrade percentage since I’ve became an EXP in December 2012, clearing 31 out of 35 upgradable flights even though I’m based out of AA’s DFW fortress hub. But I didn’t want to press my luck and have ride in the back for 12 hours in a domestic narrow body (doing a same day turn on Alaska which is not upgrade eligible), so I used a SWU to immediately confirm my upgrade for both legs of my outbound.
Anyways, not sweating an upgrade at the gate makes time spent at the gate kind of boring, so I made sure I got to the gate just as First Class was invited to board. My boarding pass was scanned by a friendly agent, and I was off.
American Airlines 1285
Washington Reagan (DCA) – Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW)
Depart: 12:10 PM
Arrive: 2:20 PM
Aircraft: Boeing 737-800
Seat: 5A (First Class)
The faint smell of Jet A, the whirl of the ground power unit, and the thumps of various equipment welcomed me back into one of my favorite places on earth: on an airplane. I was greeted by the smiling purser and FA trainee as I entered the aircraft. Our flight that day was operated by one of AA’s newer 737-800 which featured the modern looking Boeing Sky Interior. Even at the beginning of this year, it was rare to find anything but MD-83s operating AA mainline flights between Dallas/Chicago and DCA. The number of 737-800s operating these city pairs has increased steadily throughout 2013, and now it’s fairly common sight to see nothing but 737s at the AA gates at DCA. This trend should continue as AA carries out its fleet renewal plan.
Our neighbor to the left.
As line of boarding passengers died down, the FA in training came around the cabin with a tray of water and orange juice. I grabbed an orange juice, just as the cabin door was closed. We pushed back a couple of minutes later, and made the quick taxi to Runway 1. As air traffic was light that day, we crossed the runway threshold without needing to hold, lined up, and took off into the crystal clear sky. The pilots made several quick course corrections during climb out, presumably to avoid the multitude of restricted air space around the DC area. Soon we made a turn toward the southwest, setting course for the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
DC Suburbs during climbout
The FAs got to work as soon as we leveled out. Soon the familiar smell of nuts being warmed wafted through the cabin. The trainee came around with hotels, followed by purser who took drink orders. I ordered a Coke with lime, which was delivered with a *gasp*
shotwine glass of warm mixed nuts. Oh no, not again. This brought back painful memories of the
Great Ramekin Shortage of 2012. I asked the purser about a later on, and he said that catering had forgotten load it. He appears to be spot on as all of my flights since have featured the famed ramekin. Thew, crisis adverted. Seriously, only on FlyerTalk can you find such insightful discussion and analysis on these important matters…
Back in January, American implemented a system that allows premium cabin passengers to order their meal ahead of time, up to 24 hours before departure. This feature was originally limited to international flights, but has since rolled out system wide. Quite a few FTers on the AA board reported issues with the system, I have not had any problems to date. This flight was no exception. Per aa.com, my choices for lunch are:
Lemon Thyme Chicken
Served with quinoa arugula salad
Beef Teriyaki
Served with sticky rice and sugar snap peas
The lemon thyme chicken salad is one of my favorites, and IMHO it is the best lunch/snack option AA offers. But to shake things up a bit and since it was the first time I’ve seen it on offer, I preordered the beef teriyaki. Again, preorder worked like a charm as our trainee confirmed by order as he was offering a round of refills prior to lunch service. Instead of lugging the unwieldy cart down the aisle, the trainee delivered each lunch tray individually as the “nut glasses” were cleared.
I was not disappointed in my entrée choice. The beef was very tender and flavorful, the rice was not over cooked, and the sugar snap peas were still a little crisp. As I was finishing up lunch, the captain came on the horn to give us an update on our progress and pointed out we were passing just north of Memphis, which was visible of the port side of the aircraft.
Memphis
Shortly after trays were cleared, a choice of freshly baked chocolate chip or cranberry oatmeal cookies was offered for dessert. I went with the cranberry oatmeal, which was delicious as usual. We had a little over an hour remaining until arriving at DFW.
On a trip to lavatory, I had a chance to chat with the trainee FA. He’s from Cincinnati but will be based at LAX, something he was very excited about because AA hadn’t accepted anyone for the LAX base until recently. What struck me the most during our short conversation was his enthusiasm for the job, which in my opinion is the primary trait of a great cabin crew on any airline. I categorize American’s FAs into three categories: great, average, and bad. He definitely fell in the great category, and hope he stays that way.
Soon we began our initial descent per our captain over Bonham, Texas, a quiet little town I had the opportunity to spend a week in early this year. Weather was as nice as it was in DC, and the clear skies allowed for nice views of the landscape below. Soon the FAs were tidying up the cabin for landing, and mints and coats were distributed in the front. We passed over Lewisville Lake and I-35E, and then turned south to line up with Runway 17L. Touchdown was smooth and the taxi in was rather quick. I thanked our great FAs on the way out, and gave the purser and the trainee each an AAplause certificate.
DFW has technically been my home airport for the last couple of years. But I also had the opportunity to connect through there on a number of occasions, and have found it to be great connecting airport as well. It’s logically laid out, and the Sky Link train makes it easy to change terminals. While my flight from DCA arrived in Terminal C and my flight to ANC also departed from the same terminal, I wanted to go to the Terminal A Admiral’s Club since it’s one of the nicest in the system. So I hopped on the Sky Link. One of the nice side effects of using the Sky Link are the tarmacs views. Views that day were more interesting than anything, as a Bud Light truck cruised around the tarmac of Terminal A.
The day Bud Light becomes the official beer of AA, I'm out of here...
Within a few minutes, I made it to the Admiral’s Club where a friendly agent welcomed me in. The first order of business was getting in a light workout. One of the best features is the small exercise room located in the former Flagship Lounge. While equipment is on the basic side, it is more than enough at least for a quick cardio workout. Other than Singapore Changi, I can’t recall off the top of my head any other airport with any sort of exercise room. I also requested a key to a shower room to change and clean up after, which was granted since the lounge was not very busy.
I ran 3 miles on the treadmill to make up for the bout of laziness that morning. Afterwards I headed to the showers, in consideration to my fellow passengers. The showers in this Admiral’s Club have got to be the best in the system. Since the DFW Terminal A Admiral’s Club formerly housed the Flagship Lounge, the showers there are upgraded with rainfall shower heads and multiple sprayers. In fact, they’re far better than the showers in Singapore Airline’s Private Room.
After my shower, I headed to the snack bar. The weakest point of Admiral’s Clubs are the complimentary food offerings, even compared to United Clubs and Delta Sky Clubs. As I mentioned earlier, they have made a very recent attempt to improve offerings including the introduction of Nescafe coffee machines and better snack options. The improved afternoon snack options include very tasty yoghurt covered pretzels, which I grabbed a modest helping of along with a half way decent latte from the new coffee machine. That would tide me over until dinner on board.
I took up residence in the seating area of the former Flagship Lounge, which is my favorite place in the club. It’s almost always empty no matter what time of day, and is the perfect place to work in peace. And that’s exactly what I did until about 15 minutes prior to boarding. At that point, I packed up my laptop and headed back to the C terminal to catch my flight.
