More Champagne Sir?

Hello folks from seat 3J onboard AA100 JFK-LHR. We are currently at 32,996ft travelling 644mph and have so far flown 478 miles of the journey.

The flagship lounge at JFK was as standard as ever. OK, but frankly not good enough for international F at an airline's premier hub. Certainly no FCT, CCR, SYD QFlounge but then we all know that already. Good to see the dinner buffet being brought out at 1700 in time for the early transatlantics. Although I skipped this as still full from a very large lunch.

Priority boarding from gate 6 worked a treat.

Onboard and the seat really is excellent. A step ahead of BA's CW and almost at a par with NF. It has the massive advantage over NF of a foot rest that can be raised whilst keeping the seat back up. Also, you can see out the windows. The IFE choice is very good with impressive selection of movies and TV. Big clear HD screen. Although my system did have to be reset which made me chuckle, good to see AA learning sme things from BA ahem .

Onboard wifi is fantastic. They've had it for a cople of years on domestics overland, but this is their first foray into wifi on international over-water services. Also a bonus is that it's free until the end of April for an introductory period. Yet, despite this it's very fast. I'd feared it'd be slow as everybody could and would connect.

The crew are average. There's no other way to put it. Feels to me like they're just going through the motions. Give me this aircraft with a decent BA crew and we'd have a winner.

Final thought for now, no kids near me but behind in 4J is a German chap. In theory to is side in 4G is his mother. The problem is the middle pair and side window seats are not in line and thus one can't hold a conversation easily. However not to worry this German couple have realised they can just SHOUT and then they'll be ale to talk. This is very annoying. Extremely annoying. In fact I have just spoken with the crew and invited her to tactfully ask him to shut up. If that doesn't work, I will ask him non-tactfully. That will work. Trust me.

grahampros

Fairly standard AA experience it sounds like. Crews are rarely that great on the route and my biggest complaint far more then the previous mediocre seats etc. Indifferent attitudes bother you when you actually pay for J when you do have many other options.

More Champagne Sir?

Indeed, I'm on a paid J ticket. Would normally fly BA for the Spa and Concorde room bit thought I'd give this flight a try as it has the new seats.

Crew are growing on me... Just replaced my gin without me asking. This is very good. :-).

grahampros

Odd. You wouldn't have access to Concord room in J anyway.

More Champagne Sir?

As per my profile, I have a Concorde Room card.

And to be equally anal, it's spelt Concorde.

sts603

Yes even the mediocre to moderate AA crews generally do a better job on drink refills than BA crews.

yyzAAguy

I'm travelling on that flight in J next month. Me and elderly mother who may need assistance with seat controls, etc. and may want some chat. Where's the sensible place to sit? Centre pair? across the aisle from one another? If the latter, are some seats lined up better than others? If you've a mind to, would you mind having a look, making notes, taking pictures and drawing an architectural-quality diagram? You can post the photos here, anytime in the next ten minutes that suits you ;-)

Ciao

JDiver

With a centre pair you will have to travel around the center to access the other seat, iirc. This means it's troublesome if one has to attend to the other party or handle their carry-on baggage.

In our case, as Lady JDiver needs some assistance with overhead stowage and medication at the moment, we choose seats in tandem (e.g. 3J and 4J). Centre pair is fine for chatting, but not for any kind of personal assistance or tending to; this is true for F as well. (Not as good for conversing, of course, but like CX's similar seats, it's hard to converse at a lower volume than a dull roar across the aisle.)

More Champagne Sir?

Haha! My recommendation would be a centre pair. Certainly in this front mini cabin, the rows are not aligned so 3J cannot talk with 3G.

I'd happily draw ou a detailed plan, but unfortunately I'm now onto my fourth gin and any drawing's accuracy could not be guaranteed!

Apieinthesky

Read this thread. I recall the specifics of the spacing mentioned here somewhere.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...solidated.html

This is what Lady Pie and I do as well, one behind the other. We're young, so we're pretty much self sufficient during the flight. In fact, during long haul flights, I just eat, drink, and sleep; and she is engaged by the personal entertainment the whole flight. I occasionally get up to chat with her, but I can tell she'd rather get back to her movie

AA-Flyer-SAN

I recently flew in J on Flight 50. The J seats were a little more cramped than I thought. The armrest is kind of pointless since it doesn't angle with the seat. I am kind of annoyed they changed the plug for the headsets to a three-prong plug.

Also, does anyone know if a lightning adapter will work with the ipod adapter provided by American? I have an iphone 5 and the new ipad so I couldn't connect.

Also, I don't think the seat-to-seat messaging is working yet? I couldnt get it to work.

Crew was rather pleasant and were very good with service. They were non-stop. People complain about the service but they are working overtime now with the double amount of business seats. Dinner service alone takes almost 4 hours. The seats are great for the passengers but a nightmare for the crew (the FAs weren't shy about voicing that) but all-in-all I had a great experience.

I am hoping to try F from JFK to São Paulo in May. I already have a business class seat but now my interest is perked for First.

pineapplejet

I was on AA50 earlier this month and I couldn't get inflight wifi to work somehow. Was it because I was merely on the iPhone? Didn't bother for help as I was very sleepy and didn't need internet anyways.

However, the crew was fantastic on my flight. If they were 10-20 years younger we'd have a crew that can rival CX's

djibouti

Huh... And here I thought your name was "Apie" =P

Mark_T

Oddly enough I very rarely search for people with 10-20 years less experience when trying to improve something

My main problem with the J seat remains the fact that it has a leg rest, not a foot rest.

I did manage to get close to a good position on the last J flight by making use of that odd little step in the floor along with the leg rest, still not perfect, but better.

Re the use of iPhone 5; the socket is actually a Panasonic eXport and they don't currently offer a version suitable for iPhone 5 so you'd have to cobble together a couple of devices to make it work.

More details here: http://boardingarea.com/blogs/aadvan...inment-system/

sts603

Four hours for dinner? That sounds like an untrained crew. AA did add an extra FA or two to the J cabin right?

Ad why do the FAs dislike the seats - I would have thought the all aisle access would have been a positive for them.