Just like the start of many a work week, my morning began with a short hop from Houston to Dallas. Though I moved from Dallas to Houston well over a year ago, I still stuck with American Airlines despite inconvenience of having to connect to go pretty much anywhere because of status and the mileage I’ve accumulated over the years. It certainly didn’t hurt that AAdvantage remained a distance based program. Now that AAdvantage will become revenue based, I’ll have to reevaluate this. But that’s a story for another day.

Typically, American utilizes their venerable MD-80s, with an odd 737-800 or large regional jet supplementing the schedule at peak hours, between Dallas and Houston. My flight that morning drew one of legacy American’s newest Airbus A319s. While the A319 does have its good points, including audio/video on demand at every seat, I’ll take an “ancient” MD-80 any day over an A319. Why? The MD-80’s seats are much better padded, and it has double the number of First Class seats. The old Mad Dogs aren’t anything fancy, but they sure are comfortable.


We arrived at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in plenty of time for me to make my connection in Hong Kong. In June of 2014, American launched non-stop service between Dallas/Fort Worth and Hong Kong, marking the first time regularly scheduled service has been operated between the two cities. At 8,123 miles, it is the 8th longest scheduled commercial service in world. This is would also be the longest flight I’ve ever flown, beating out New York to Hong Kong by a mere 51 miles. Westbound flights from Dallas have a block time of a whopping 16 hours, and the return flight from Hong Kong is scheduled for just under 15 hours. That’s a long time to be on a plane no matter where you’re sitting.

Too bad this route wasn’t started a year or two earlier when I actually lived in Dallas. It would have been pretty cool to be able to drive 20 minutes to my home airport and hop on a nonstop flight to Hong Kong. Sure, I know that a number of other fine cities in the US have had non-stop service to Hong Kong for years, but that’s something I’ve never gotten to experience living in the southern part of the lower 48 all of my life.

This flight is operated by one of American’s fairly new Boeing 777-300ER. I was lucky enough to fly one from Dallas to London in Business Class in January 2014. Needless to say, it was a great experience. However, at the time of this flight I was just a lowly Platinum, neither possessing the necessary SWUs or willingness to part with a hefty sum of miles and cash to upgrade to Business Class. So coach, or Main Cabin in American’s parlance, it was! Fortunately, my AAdvantage Platinum status allowed me to select a seat in the Main Cabin Extra (sub)section in advance free of charge. Seats in Main Cabin Extra feature about 4 inches of extra legroom and an inch of width as it is in a humane 3-3-3 configuration. As a point of comparison, the rest of the Main Cabin arranged in a tight 3-4-3 configuration. While the extra inch of width doesn’t sound like much, but it makes a world of difference on a flight of this length.


American Airlines 137
Dallas/Fort Worth to Hong Kong
Depart: 12:45 PM
Arrive: 6:35 PM +1
Aircraft: Boeing 777-300ER
Seat: 19D (Economy Class)

After a quick stop at the Terminal D Admirals Club for a couple of bottles of water to take on the flight, I headed down to the gate. American usually does a pretty good job of ensuring its long haul flights depart from the gates closest to the lounge, which is located mid-terminal. Today was no exception, as our flight was departing from gate D23, which is just downstairs from the lounge.

Boarding began right on time, beginning with premium cabin passengers and followed by elites. A flight attendant standing at the doorway greeted me and directed me to turn right. My seat was in the very last row of Main Cabin Extra, which is just behind the fairly large Business Class cabin.


With just 4 rows of seats, Main Cabin Extra does feel a bit cozy, though not at all cramped. A quick glance around the bulkhead behind me told a different story. Man, did it look tight back there. That said, 10 abreast in economy class on 777s is becoming the norm rather than the exception, worldwide.

My seat, 19D, is an aisle seat in the center section of the cabin on the port aisle. I typically prefer window seats, but I’ll gladly take an aisle on flight like this to ensure that I can come and go as I please. The seat itself was a bit firm, though comfortable enough. The width of the seat in Main Cabin Extra was fine as was the leg room.


One big advantage Main Cabin has over Business Class is ability to use the aircraft’s IFE system from gate to gate, as the monitors in Business Class fold out of the side of the seat and therefore must be stowed for takeoff and landing. While I normally don’t bother with IFE on the ground, I appreciated it on this flight due to the lack of a window view from my seat. The screen was of pretty good size for economy class, and the picture quality is good. The system can controlled via touchscreen, which is pretty intuitive and responsive so need to play “whack a mole” with your screen. There’s also a controller in the seatback, which I didn’t find much of a need for.

As far as content goes, I find American’s selection of movies and TV shows to be pretty good, and I especially appreciate their selection of classic movies in addition to the new releases. My flights wasn’t too far from Halloween, so there were a number of Halloween themed movies on tap, including the classic The Shining, which I started watching during boarding.


Though the flight was packed, boarding wrapped up quickly and we pushed back about 10 minutes early, a rarity on American in my experience. With a short taxi and no take off queue, we were rotating off of Runway 17R a minute or two before scheduled departure time.

One of the things American did well in the process of revamping the fleet was recognizing the modern traveler’s need for power and connectivity. As such the vast majority of aircraft delivered and refurbished after January 2013 are equipped with wifi and power. On the 777-300ER, this called for a USB charging port and a universal 115V outlet at each seat. In the Main Cabin, the USB port located just underneath the IFE screen and the outlet is located to just underneath the seat to left or right of each passenger. The satellite wifi vendor is T-Mobile, which I found to be fairly reliable and more than fast enough for email/social media/basic internet browsing.

There are two types of passes available, one for 4 hours, which costs $12, and the other is for 24 hours costing $21. The cost of the 24 hour pass is fairly reasonable in my opinion. Word of warning though, on my westbound flight the wifi connection kicked off when nearing Chinese airspace and remained off for the rest of the flight.

Naturally, I began plugging in my various gadgets and connecting to wifi as soon as the 10,000 feet chimed sounded.

Service began a little over an hour after takeoff, with a beverage service. Beer and wine are free on American’s long haul flights. While the beer selection isn’t very impressive in my opinion, they did have Dos Esquis on offer so I went with that. It was served with a small pack of pretzels. As I enjoyed my drink, snack, and movie, the smell of food being prepared wafted through the cabin, signaling chow time was near. About 30 minutes after the beverage service, the meal carts made an appearance in the cabin.

I consider myself to be a very realistic person. I don’t expect gourmet food in economy. All I ask for it to be edible. Naturally, there were only two main course choices of chicken or noodles (this is an Asia bound flight after all). The chicken option was barbeque chicken with macaroni and cheese not un-similar to a lunch entree served in domestic First Class a few years back. It was served with a marinated bamboo shoot appetizer, side salad, cheese and crackers, and small cake for dessert. While not particular memorable, it was perfectly edible and filling.


Lunch trays were cleared fairly quickly, and followed by another drink run and trash run.

I finished the The Shining shortly after lunch, and decided on watching Draft Day. Some obvious creative license and Hollywood-ization aside, it’s fantastic watch for any football fan. I was quite happy to see it available on the entertainment system as I didn’t have a chance to watch it before then. Unless it’s something I really want to watch, i.e. theThe Force Awakens , I’m pretty bad with keeping current with movies on terra firma even with the advent of Netflix streaming. I simply just don’t have the time. So I really look forward to these long haul flights so I can watch recent movies I’ve missed.

Midway through the flight, a snack was served. The snack consisted of a ham and cheese sandwich, and a small carton of gelato. It was fairly good.


Also, of note a self-serve bar is set up in the mid cabin galley and is available throughout the flight. There’s plenty of water and juice available as well as light snacks, such as chips and crackers. The crew also made regular water runs as well.

While the flight was very long, it did pass pretty quickly between movies and my frequent walks around the cabin. About 90 minutes out, the cabin lights were turned back on in anticipation of the pre-arrival meal. It did seem like I just ate, but when I’m flying I can always eat again. Much like lunch just after we left Dallas, the second service began with a drink run prior to food being served. We were offered a choice of either noodles or an omelet. I went with the noodles, and it was actually quite good. It was served with some fresh fruit, which was ripe and fresh.


We began descending into Hong Kong just as trays were cleared. With no window or outside camera available, I resigned myself to watching an episode of The Big Bang Theory for the umpteenth time during descent. Touchdown was smooth, and we reached the gate around 30 minutes early.

Since I was planning to meet my cousin and her fiancé for drinks In Quarry Bay at 7:30, I bolted off the plane like a bat out of hell. We arrived at gate 63, so it was a bit of trek to the immigration. Halfway there, I began to get a nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right. It took me a minute or two, but I eventually figured out what was wrong. I had forgotten my rollaboard on the plane.

Bloody hell. I made an about face on a dime and sprinted back toward the gate. Fortunately, the agents meeting the flight were still there. I quickly explained my situation to one of them, and after some discussion they agreed to escort me back on the plane to retrieve my bag. Fortunately, it was still there and I was on my way a couple of minutes later. That did negate most of time savings from our early arrival, but no harm done.

Immigration was efficient as usual for Hong Kong. I hopped on the Airport Express a few minutes later, and then caught a cab to Taikoo City Plaza after arriving at Central station.

After an enjoyable evening of catching up with my cousin, I decided to cab it to my digs for the next two nights, the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong. I wouldn’t normally splurge for that nice of a place for a short stay, especially since I wouldn’t be spending much time in the room. That said, the location was perfect for where I needed to be, and the price was right thanks to Hyatt’s cash and points rates. So I splurged and shelled out 12,500 Gold Passport points and $150 per night, which isn’t a bad deal given the daily rate was over $400 per night.

I arrived at the hotel just before 11PM. After the usual pleasantries, I headed up to my room on the 10th floor. I was fast a sleep after a quick shower. This was by far the nicest Hyatt I’ve ever stayed in, even better the vaunted Park Hyatt Vendome Paris I stayed at in early 2015. I’m embarrassed to say, I forgot to take any meaningful pictures of the room in my haste.

But I didn’t forget to wake up early the next morning for my fantasy football league’s draft. It was pretty cool to be able build my team, and trash talk the other members of my league despite being over 8,000 miles away. This wasn’t the first time I’ve conducted my fantasy draft in an unusual locale. In 2012, I did the draft onboard an American Airlines’ 737-800 bound for Washington Reagan. Despite GoGo’s best attempts at screwing me over with sporadic outages, I managed to finish the draft. Incidentally, that was the only year I won our league. Well that’s an idea for next season… Since the draft took place during breakfast time in Hong Kong, I hoofed it up to the Grand Hyatt’s fantastic lounge. Between the excellent breakfast, a bottomless champagne glass, and views of Kowloon, I can’t imagine a better setting for a fantasy football draft. All of my future drafts will have a really high bar to meet to beat this one out.


The vast majority of sane people on this planet wouldn’t even think of flying for 16 hours and staying at the destination for less than 48 hours. I am not one of those sane people. I’ve been asked by quite a few people on how I deal with jetlag on trips like this. I have rather simple but effective method. In this case, since my flight arrived in the evening, I made sure to stay awake for the entire flight so I could fall asleep easily once I got to Hong Kong. In the case of an early morning to early afternoon arrival, I try to sleep as much as possible on the flight. That way I’ll be fresh enough to stay awake the remainder of the day and I’ll be completely adjusted to the time difference after a good nights sleep.

After wrapping up my fantasy football draft, I headed out to take care of a few things for my parents. I finished pretty early, so I met up with one of my uncles to sightsee for a bit of sightseeing. We headed out to Stanley and ended up doing a little hiking as well. Later that evening, I met up with another one of my aunts and her husband, whom were also heading back to Dallas the next day. However, they were going by way of Seoul on Korean Air. Dinner, as usual in Hong Kong, was excellent and I had great time catching up with them. Despite living just 224 miles apart, I don’t get to see them very often after I moved away from Dallas. I did call it a fairly early night and went back to the hotel for another great night of sleep.

My flight wasn’t until 1:30 in the afternoon which made for a leisurely morning. I didn’t really have much to pack, so I took my time with breakfast and even went for a much needed workout at the hotel’s well equipped gym. I was feeling super lazy, so I decided to cab it to the Airport Express station instead of taking the MTR. Less than 40 minutes after leaving the hotel, I was walking into the check in hall at Hong Kong International Airport.

American’s check in counter is located on aisle “J”. The lines were pretty deserted that morning, and I was immediately helped. The agent asked if really I arrived just two days before, to which I replied affirmative. She then turned to her coworker and said in Cantonese, “Here’s another one of the insane guys who’s flying all the way to Hong Kong just for the miles.” What she didn’t count on was that I was fluent in Cantonese and I understood every word she said. Not that she was entirely off base; though, in this case the miles were gravy since I needed to be in Hong Kong anyways. Just to mess with her, I asked her in Cantonese if I could change my seat. The agent turned beet red, and replied that the flight was full, which I already knew. It was dead silent for the next minute or so.

Security and immigration were quick, as is the norm for Hong Kong. Then it was off to the lounge, which I was eligible to use thanks to my then AAdvantage Platinum (oneworld Sapphire) status. American issues invites to the Plaza Premium lounge for premium cabin and eligible elite passengers. The Plaza Premium lounge is actually pretty nice for a contract lounge; however, more savvy travelers know there far better options in Hong Kong, especially when traveling on a oneworld carrier. As you would expect, Cathay Pacific has several great lounges at their home airport. The Qantas lounge, located just past the north security and immigration channel, is also an excellent option. Since my flight wasn’t assigned a gate yet, I decided the safe option was to head to Cathay Pacific’s The Bridge, which is located pretty much in the center of the terminal.


My decision to go to The Bridge was a good one, as our gate turned out to be 47, which is just a short walk from the lounge. Waiting for me at the gate was this beauty.


As part of a major rebranding campaign which started in early 2013, American introduced a new a new livery. Reactions to the new livery were mixed, and understandably so. After all, the former livery was in use since the late 1960s. It’s somewhat strange to say anyone can get attached to something as arcane as an airline. But people do, myself included.

My very first flight on American was a flight from Houston to Dallas in January 2009. As run of a mill of a flight as it gets. But what made this particular flight so special was that I was heading to Dallas to start an internship. That internship turned out to be a springboard to a fantastic career with the company I’m still at today. I continued fly American for work, as they are our contract carrier out of Dallas, and I began to fly them for my leisure travels more and more after I discovered the how useful the perks of elite status were. To me the ol’ “scissor eagle” symbolized the excitement of going somewhere, regardless of whether it was for work, headed to explore somewhere I haven’t been before, or headed home after a long week of work. So my initial reaction to new livery was, quite frankly, “it’s terrible”. However, the new livery has grown on me. It’s certainly more sleek and modern than the old livery, which admittedly was obsolete and stodgy.

Out of all of the planes in American’s fleet, I think the 777-300ER wears the new livery the best. About 20 feet longer than its somewhat frumpy stablemate, the 777-200ER, the added length of the -300ER gives it just the right look in my opinion.

American Airlines 138
Hong Kong to Dallas/Fort Worth
Depart: 1:30 PM
Arrive: 3:50 PM
Aircraft: Boeing 777-300ER
Seat: 17H (Economy Class)

As it turns out, the same crew working my flight to Hong Kong two days earlier was working my return as well. As I settled into my seat, one of the flight attendants walking down the aisle recognized me and stopped for quick chat. Just like my flight over to Hong Kong, departed a few minutes early. I was also able to secure a Main Cabin Extra seat ahead of time on this flight, so I was comfortable enough as well.

Lunch was served less than hour after takeoff. I chose the Asian option, which was stir fried beef with egg noodles. It’s unusual to describe an economy class meal as delicious, but it was in this case. The noodles were really good, and I enjoyed every bite of it. It was served with a smoked salmon and potato salad appetizer (weird combination), a minuscule salad, and a chocolate cake for dessert. Everything tasted fresh and good. This was by far the best longhaul economy class meal I’ve had in years. The last time I remember having an exceptional meal in the back of the bus was back in 2003 onboard a China Airlines 747-400, flying between Los Angeles and Taipei. The chicken with black bean sauce served on that flight was truly excellent. Simple, but good.


Another drink run as well as a coffee and tea service followed the meal service. I started watching San Andreas as we were taxiing in Hong Kong. Not something I would ever pay to see, but perfectly fine to keep me entertained on a long flight. While the special effects were good, the rest of the movie… well… not at all believable. But at least there were certain elements of… the errr… cast that made the movie semi watchable, if you catch my drift.

After finishing the movie, I headed to the lavatory to brush my teeth and then promptly conked out when I returned to my seat in accordance with my anti-jetlag strategy. It’s sort of a funny thing. The point of lie flat seats in premium cabins to make sleeping easier and more comfortable, but I rarely sleep well in them. Usually, it’s a couple hours of un-fitful sleep, with a good bit of tossing and turning involved, before I’m up for good. However, I sleep quite well when I’m flying coach. Perhaps it’s a mental thing, as I want to enjoy myself when I’m lucky enough to fly upfront. And let’s be real, there isn’t as much to look forward to when seated in the back of the bus.

At any rate, I was able to get close to eight hours of solid sleep on that flight. My seatmate tapped on my shoulder as soon as she saw I was awake. The poor girl was trapped as both of us in the aisle seats had fallen asleep not long after the meal service. I took this opportunity to stretch my legs and to quench my thirst. As I mentioned before, there is a refreshment bar set up in the mid cabin galley. I grabbed a cup of water as well several little rice cracker snacks, which were actually really tasty and super addicting. I ended going for seconds a little while later. I spent the rest of the flight watching episodes of Sleepy Hollow, a show I have never seen before nor ever cared to see. But I wanted to check out something new, and it actually turned out to be pretty entertaining.

Breakfast was served a little over an hour before landing. Options were the ever ubiquitous noodles and a breakfast sandwich. I chose the sandwich, which consisted of ham, egg, and cheese on a croissant. It was fine, and the accompanying fruit was good.


I had been monitoring this flight closely on Flight Aware for the few days leading up to the trip. During that time period, AA 138 had arrived at DFW over an hour early consistently. The scheduled arrival time was 3:50PM, so naturally I was booked on the next available flight to Houston, which departed at 5:30PM. However, there was a flight to Houston at 3:55PM and it was nowhere near full. I could easily make that flight as long as we arrived around an hour early.

We ended pulling into gate D23 exactly 1 hour early. It took 10 flipping minutes for the jetbridge to be attached. I again tore out of there like a bat out of hell as soon as I could. But hey, I remembered to grab my bag this time! I was through immigration and customs in no time thanks to Global Entry. Best $100 I have ever spent! Since the line at the security checkpoint was long, I doubled back to the security checkpoint in the middle of the Terminal where there is a dedicated PreCheck line and not much of a wait. After clearing security, I hopped on the SkyTrain to Terminal C and arrived at the gate of the earlier flight just as boarding began. The gate agent had no problem putting me on the standby list, and I cleared as expected. I was assigned a middle seat toward the rear of the aircraft. But it was totally worth it as I would arrive home about two hours early. Besides, the flight was less than an hour long.

At any rate, I was quite pleased with all of my flights. We departed and arrived on time. The seat and entertainment were solid. The food was edible, and some of the food was even very good. Despite all of the horror stories floating around about rude and lazy American cabin crews, I’ve encountered maybe 4 or 5 of these crews on well over 300 flights aboard American since 2009. This crew was no exception. They were polite and helpful as can be taking into account I was, after all, in economy class. I didn’t have any qualms flying longhaul economy with American before this trip, and I didn’t have any afterwards.