Airline: AA
Route: JFK-NRT
Length: 13 hours

Seat: Row 31 - Exit/Slide Row
General Comfort: Seat cushion was not very good. You'll need an extra blanket behind you. Seat pitch is as good as expected. Seatguru was right on regarding the people congregating for the bathroom. Unlinke the 75 and 76 on domestic routes, the 77 doesn't suffer from any leaking/coldness in the exit seats.
IFE: AA was actually the best, having the biggest selection of movies, although games were absent from the menu.

Attendant Average Age: mid 40s- mid 50s
General Appearance: No makeup, all were in various AA giddups

Food/Drink Service:Took them 5 minutes to serve the entire back cabin, leading to missing some, ignoring some requests. Throughout the flight some of the smiley ones actually made it up and down the isle quite often with a bottle of varous drinks at different times. If they were walking with OJ and you wanted water, you were in trouble (see my OP about asking for water)

General Attitude: Tired; obviously experienced, which unfortunately took a possible strength (doing everything well) and turned to a weakness (doing everything quickly, and not as well). Like I said above, struck a nerve when it started to remind me of my tenured professors.

Congeniality: NO SMILES… If anyone's ever seen supertroopers, there's a scene where the cops try to mess with someone they pulled over by seeing how many times they can say "MEOW" just cause they're bored. It really seemed like they were having their own competition for which could smile the least. Seemed like a couple weren't in on the joke, cause they actually smiled.

Overall Impression: I was glad that I was so familiar and so loyal to AA. Also glad I wasn't paying. Lets put it this way, I wouldn't put someone on that flight with that service to get them to switch their business to AA.


Airline: JL
Route: NRT-BKK
Length: 6 hours

Seat: Row 65 - Top section of 747
General Comfort: Seats better cushioned than AA, but were much more cramped. Seatguru doesn't have much for the JAL 747 configurations, but they seem to be different. In my case the first flight was very cramped (seatbacks had magic IFE), in the case of this particular flight the seats had more leg room (upstairs) but no IFE.
IFE: Big screen upstairs on one flight with no personal screens. On the flight with magic IFE, they offered 4 movies.

Average Age: Young - mid 20s
General Appearance: Extremely well put together, identical uniforms that are bright and pleasant

Food/Drink Service: Tray service. They took our order then brought what we wanted. Took their time to serve the pax to exactly what they wanted. Food was better, but this had nothing to do with the fa service, so I'll reserve my comments there.

General Attitude: Fresh; As if they were all in competition with one another to be nice without being overbearing. As an example, while serving drinks one them heard my wife asking me how much xx Yen cost in $$s and when she saw I wasn't sure myself, she came back 5 minutes later and gave us the conversion rate. We hadn't even noticed that she heard us. Kinda reminds me of a good concierge at a top hotel, always one step ahead of you.

Congeniality: Their attitude actually lifts your spirit. They're cheery and look happy to be there.

Overall Impression: Swap JLs FA service into AA's metal and you have yourself a winning combination


Airline: TG
Route: BKK-HKT(domestic)
Length: 1 hour
Average Age: mid-late 30s
General Appearance: Not as well dressed as JL, but nevertheless clearly attempted to look their best

Food/Drink Service: Too quick to make a fair comparison to both

General Attitude: Seemed polite, but again, too quick to make a fair comparison on how their int'l service goes.

Congeniality: Extremely nice, but this wasn't surprising given the general attitude of the Thai people.

Overall Impression: At only one hour, I don't think its fair to make the comparison.