AS 20
SEA – ORD
Boeing 737 N486AS

There isn’t too much to say about this flight. I attempted to sleep but for the most part, failed miserably. On a redeye flight service is fairly limited, although the crew did a good job at being responsive to requests and patrolling the aisle. On AS flights this is listed as a snack flight. “Snack” can be fairly hard to define because it can mean many different things to AS caterers. For a redeye, it has lately been a vegetable plate with hummus. For some reason, I’ve noted that when AS decides something is good, they serve it constantly. The joke was that it used to be polenta with every meal – now it’s hummus!




An on-time arrival into ORD and we are ready to start across the pond. However, let’s start that journey with my first trip to American’s Flagship Lounge.

American Flagship Lounge O’Hare

I have been to the American Admirals club in ORD many times, the most recent just a few weeks ago, taking the elevator to the third floor. It’s certainly a nice lounge that can get crowded at times. Because of my business class ticket on an international flight, it afforded me access to the flagship lounge on the second floor.

Before getting upstairs, one has to get past the lounge dragon. That’s where it started going wrong. Because this woman hated her life more than I have ever seen in someone for quite a while. I scanned my American boarding pass, and she looked at me and said “Are you Alaska? I need your card!”

This is referring to my Alaska Lounge membership, which allows access to American clubs. However, I was having a hard time figuring out what the problem was. Being tired, I was a little slow to respond. The tone in her voice was just nasty. My wife finally asked if a boarding pass wasn’t good enough, which apparently made her look at the screen again. She said “Oh, you’re flying to London? It didn’t come up that way.” This sounded like a very weak excuse for not looking a little closer. My AS mileage number was in the reservation, and I assumed she just looked that far and no farther. Incidentally, I have accessed many AA clubs and have never had to show my card – a boarding pass has always worked, it’s the same number after all.

Cue the weak attempt at service recovery. “Now you get to visit our nicest lounge!” She began talking only to my wife and not to me, which I thought was kind of interesting. She handed over the invitation to the lounge and let us know to hand it to the attendant on the second floor. Also was a crack that everything in this lounge is self-serve, so be sure not to overserve ourselves. I probably should have complained right then, but I just wasn’t in the mood. That was one of the most blatantly nasty experiences I have had in a long time, I felt that since I wasn’t an AA customer in her eyes, it was a valid excuse to not be treated respectfully.

Unpleasantness aside, the lounge was very nice and not too busy at that time of the morning, although quickly getting busier. There were several different seating areas that had both lounge type seating and taller tables. There was also a good-sized dining area near the buffet and serving area. There was a beverage station mid lounge that featured a coffee machine and service. Another had cold beverages and water dispensers. The main buffet area had two buffet tables, coffee service, a Coca Cola Freestyle machine, coolers with canned and bottled drinks, and many more options.

The buffet had mostly breakfast items out. One buffet had salads, some meats, and several varieties of sushi. The other had pastries and several traditional hot breakfast items. There was plenty of room for more items, I can imagine the buffet area is busy when more flights are departing or closer to a lunch or dinner time.








I made use of the shower suites. They were not overly large but plenty of room to change and had a toilet, sink, and shower. There were electrical and USB chargers near the sink and was stocked with Bigelow amenities. There was only one towel provided, so you may have to request another if you need more than one. Showers can be requested at the customer service desk in the lounge.








Of note is very impressive Wi-Fi in the lounge, a speedtest came up with a 72.0 Mbps download and a 218 Mbps upload.

A shower makes all the difference in the world, along with a change of clothes and a bit of breakfast and we are off to our flight across the pond.