Mrs. SFO and I are off today to New Zealand for Christmas with our SoCal travel buddies. And we're back on Qantas for our first time in three years, tonight flying DFW-SYD and the longest commercial flight in the world 8,577 miles.

• American First Class DEN-DFW
• The Centurion Lounge at DFW
• The Qantas Business and First Class Lounge at DFW
• The American Flagship Dining Room
• Qantas A380 First Class Suites DFW-SYD and the world's longest commercial flight
• Qantas First Class Lounge at SYD
• Qantas Business Class SYD-ZQN
• Azur Lodge - Queenstown
• Queenstown
• Private Helicopter Tour of Milford Sound
• Lord of the Rings Tour
• Air New Zealand Queenstown-Christchurch-Napier
• The Farm at Cape Kidnappers - Hawke's Bay
• Napier and Hawke's Bay
• Wine Country Touring
• Air New Zealand Napier-Auckland
• The Sofitel Auckland
• Auckland
• Air New Zealand Business Class Lounge
• Singapore A380 First Class Suites Auckland-Singapore
• The Fullerton Singapore
• New Years in Singapore
• Singapore Airlines The Private Room at Changi
• Singapore A380 First Class Suites SIN-NRT-LAX
• American First Class LAX-DEN.

And we're off..

For the first time in a long time, Mrs. SFO decided that she wanted to check a bag. Ugh. So we stop at the AA counter and confused the friendly AAgent with our three separate and unlinked tickets. Fifteen minutes later, we think we have her bag checked all the way to ZQN.



First stop is the DEN Admirals Club aka "The Crap Lounge" as Mrs. SFO affectionately calls it. A half an hour later at T-30 before the delayed departure time, we headed down to they gate, where naturally our plane hadn't even arrived. As usual, AA departure times on delayed flights are meaningless.





American 372
Denver DEN-Dallas DFW
MD-80
12:39p-3:40p (sked)
1:35p-4:20p (actual)
December 23, 2015
First Class
Departed 16/16
Seats 6EF

Weather issues in DFW had caused the late inbound so we wound up running about 40 minutes late. Not to worry since we had a 4+ hour connection.
I love the old AA Mad Dogs which feature the last of the comfortable domestic airplane seats, before those brilliant airline suits decided to de-emphasize comfort in the generation seats. Even Mrs. SFO spontaneously raved about the seat comfort… "Why can't they have seats this comfortable in new planes?" An excellent question indeed.









On board, the usual AA service. Even though we had boarded and sat for another 20 minutes for bags to be loaded, no pre departure beverage offerings of any kind. In the air, drinks and nuts (including almonds at last).



And then a choice of spinach artichoke dip or a cheese and fruit plate.



Yeah, I guess it's old when the reading lights start rolling around in the sockets.



We arrived at C31 and took the SkyTrain...









... to the D Terminal and The Amex Centurion Lounge for a late lunch. Pretty crowded but the food was good although Mrs. SFO didn't agree.

















Then over to the Qantas Lounge which was one of five pleasant, generic DFW lounges, which are rented to airlines for the part day for their flights.





The QF Lounge dragon was waiting for us as there was some confusion in our records as a result of the DEN check-in agent trying to be override the system to get all three PNR to talk to each other. Guess he made a dummy booking which then had to be reconcilied. As we were chatting about the electronic visa, he mentioned that almost every day he get pax that have forgotten to do them. He asked one couple if they have a visa to which the wife apparently responded, "No but I have Master Card." It was much calmer and with surprisingly interesting Business Class food options.



























The First Class room was nothing more than an extension of the lounge with no addition features. We didn't do in as there was a family of Business pax taking up most for the outer room



While Mrs. SFO relaxed, I headed over to the Admirals Club to check out the much vaunted temporary First Class Dining room.





OK, I realize that it's just temporary but what's the point? AA took the old smokers lounge and added a bunch of cheap tables and chairs. The dinner spread is not even dinner. Just a bunch of salads and other snacks. OK, it's better that the regular Admirals Club, but it's not even close to non-NA airline business class lounge food offerings. Why even try?

























Back over to the Other Airline Lounges floor...







At around T-55, we headed down to the concourse and the short walk to D15, where boarding just started.

Up next: Qantas 8, the longest commercial flight in the world.