Originally Posted by
PUCCI GALORE
Mostly there are two. Since the wonderful AA meal tray consists of a salad with some gloopy sickly sweet dressing, a main which is (in my case) hit or miss, and a bit of sweet. This all comes on one tray most of the time. The service is far less complex.
That's an over simplification. You have the full beverage run with warm nuts in advance and on many flights a separate run with warm cookies afterwards. The fact you don't like the salad dressing and some mains is irrelevant to the fact that they get more done.
On AA's refurbed 738s (which may now be all), 320s, 321s, and 757s, yes there are two FAs. But on the S80, old version 738s (these may now be gone), and 319s (admittedly a smaller F cabin) there is one. Planes with two FAs in F may now be the majority but for years in the early part of this decade when I lived on AA mid-con flights (mainly on S80s and the older 738s that only had 3 FAs for both F and Y), it was one FA for the F meal service and it was still as I described. BA may be better with formality and polish but the regimented British mentality of service generally leads to less flexibility to get a complex service done quickly - and that's why I think we are seeing reports of incredibly slow service on the CE long flights and why many FAs struggle with CW service.