tt7

Sounds inconclusive to me. We're flying LHR-DFW in F on a 77W next month so I'll be interested to see how it's served.

tt7

AA is making a lot of noise about getting new planes, upgrading service etc.etc - plus it returns to flying to Oz for the first time in 20+ years. It's flying one of its new 777s which have been configured to have only 8 seats in F, compared with 16 on the existing 777 fleet. Clearly, one would expect the 77W F product to be designed to be a premium product that people are prepared to pay for - if it's not approached in that fashion, you might as well rip out out the F cabin and not bother.

You may be "surprised" that some would expect AA to make an effort to raise its game and deliver a truly first class experience but some of us continue to live in hope. If I was in any way associated or involved with designing/delivering the F service on a brand new long-haul route to Oz, I'd make damn sure that what was being delivered was top notch, and not simply the same old lacklustre product - and in addition to 'what' was being delivered, that would include the 'who' selection of the crew that were delivering it.

On this trip, we have flown/will be flying (long haul international) QF PE, AY J, AA F and QF J. When we get home, it will be interesting to reflect on how they compare. Clearly, you would expect AA F on one of its new planes with a small 8 seat cabin to be a clear winner. We shall see .....

oysterhead43

I'm holding my breath for SWU availability in mid-May! SWU dance!

Dave Noble

AA doesn't afaik have a different method of crew selection for Sydney than for any other route and , ime, the cabin crew on AA are there primarily to read magazines.

I don't see how AA can improve its onboard service on a specific route but would require a systemic change

corncob

I'm sitting in the T4 AC at LAX after experiencing AA's J for the first time on AA72. My gifted SWU cleared (Y->J) at T-22 (as a PLT) and I think there might have been a seat or two empty in J when we left. I've got a few notes from my experience that I think might be worth sharing.

Check-in: At SYD, the check-in counter is B, which is the very left side of the terminal (I think the counters are A-H). So get dropped off on that side, or you're in for a walk from the other end. Many of the check-in agents were wearing QF colors, so I'm guessing for now they are borrowing QF staff. Either that, or the new uniforms weren't there yet. Check-in was going pretty slow, I'm assuming because they were training personnel on the system. My individual check-in was quick, but it looked like that wasn't the norm. F & J get "express" passes, which is basically the priority security lane.

Gate: I got caught up in work at the lounge, so I didn't get to the gate until about 40 min pre-departure. Anyone with a QF boarding pass was given a new AA one at the entrance to the gate area. Passengers were given the choice of bubbly (the same orange label stuff they stock in the AC), water, or OJ, and a cupcake. They also had a young lady dressed up as Santa's helper that was giving out gifts. There was a nice notebook and a strange scarf with mittens. The scarf was the same fleece as cheap Y blankets.

Flight: The service in J on this flight was excellent, at least IMO. But I'm not a DYKWIA type of traveler or anything close. I appreciate quick, attentive service, checking in when I'm awake and leaving me alone when it's dark and I'm trying to sleep. PDB was champagne (actual champagne, from France's Champagne region), as JDIVER mentioned. I can't comment on the quality of it though, and it was served in generic plastic wine stemware. Some sort of shaped white seat cover/pad accompanied the blanket, but I wouldn't call it a mattress pad by any stretch of the imagination. Pajamas were distributed as well. The beef filet wasn't the best I've ever had but it was sufficient. A second round was made for wine offerings, and dessert followed dinner pretty quickly. No offering of the sherry/port, as mentioned above, despite it being on the menu. The seat belt sign came on with some rough turbulence shortly after dinner and stayed on most of the flight after that.

Personnel: I've been taking QF back and forth between US and OZ for the past two years. I've done QF in Y and W, but not J, so it's a bit hard to compare. The QF crews can be overly friendly or self-absorbed sometimes, almost to the point of nose-up-in-the-air snobby. The AA crew I had on this flight was friendly, professional, and attentive. They weren't over-the-top polite like some of the Asian airline crews, but they weren't standoffish or reading magazines the whole flight (except perhaps in the middle when everyone was sleeping). During dinner, they would have fit in with an excellent wait staff in any semi high-end restaurant. I honestly wasn't expecting much, after flying AA to other destinations in Y and domestically in F. It was a very pleasant surprise. Perhaps I have a different expectation or perspective though, so I'll be interested to hear other's thoughts as well.

That's all I've got for now, maybe a bit more later.

corncob

If you were thinking about using the SWU Y->J, you definitely made the right call. They aren't releasing any C availability until T-24 right now, from my experience. There are a few dates with A showing up though.

cova

Sounds like a nice flight - but service appears same as the DFW-HKG flight.

thadocta

But given that AA actually publicly stated that they were going to upgrade their service standards, to match QF, which does not seem to have happened, this seems to be a service failure on the part of AA, given what they stated they would be doing.

Dave

tt7

Upgrade would be J -> F.

Flying to SYD instead of MEL is inconvenient for us but do-able if the flight experience is worth it. However, nothing I've read here suggests we made the wrong call in sticking with QF J to MEL rather than opting for AA F to SYD.

JDiver

That was bandied about, but I can't recall the source. We all received the standard packet of duvet and large pillow. I can sleep pretty comfortably in the 77W Business seat with or without a mattress pad. And ear plugs for the off-hours chatter, etc.

JDiver

IMO, this. I'd certainly not choose AA73 over a nonstop QF flight to MEL. I've taken USA-Aus perhaps twenty times and the worst Qantas service bested AA service 95% of the time, I'd estimate.

Even the SYD-PER transcon on a 738 had very decent soft product: very attentive FAs for the J cabin served us the entire 5.5 hour flight, plying us (or attempting to) with wines, a choice of five mains, dessert wines, coffee, tea, etc. up to 45 minutes out of PER. Not at all like an AA transcon, even on the 321T in terms of service.

Next week I'll compare by taking the transcon A332.

But don't waste your time flying AA73 to Sydney and add the International to Domestic terminal romp in addition if you have the QF nonstop to MEL available.

oysterhead43

Awesome news, for those of us hoping to use an SWU in 2016 for Y ->J. Will certainly be wait listed. Just a matter of picking days with best odds.

marnold3

Here's a video of the landing of inaugural flight 73 at SYD on 12/19/15. You can see the shadow of the plane in the video.

AAExecPlatFlier

I saw the mention of mattress pads for J on View from the Wing -- the blog posting about the new food option on SYD. Wonder if you just didn't get it (a famous catering-type error lol) or if VFTW had some incorrect facts.

Col Ronson

I disagree. The Hard product is better than QF. On a 14-15 hour flight, the quality of your sleep and not being disturbed by someone trying to climb over you is important. I slept blissfully for 9 hours after the meal service ended.

Here's my quickie trip report, pictures will come when i get back to america with fast wifi or maybe the QF F lounge.

So the usual celebration at LAX. There was a photobooth, baby kangaroo, some strange lizards, an aussie DJ that started after the flight to LHR left. A local aussie bakery run by australians gave us samples of meat pies, croissants, and lamington. Overall meh but it was cool.

Shortly before boarding we had a speech from JC and the MD of Asia/Pacific about the significance of the route. Pretty sure i saw Hector Adler walking abouts too, but idk if he was on the flight or not.

Boarding, everyone got a big AA neck pillow and a keychain ornament, cool. Onboard, the standard PDB of OJ or champaigne or water. Once the flight took off, i hopped right onto the wifi which worked about 15 mins after takeoff. Meal service commenced, and overall the food did look like those pictures. That being said, the ice-cream was miscatered and was not the brownie chocolate, but a vanilla/caramel that you see on other routes. I had the beef and the lobster mac and cheese and it was good.

The bread was certainly a match to QF, as before you would just get a regular pretzel roll or dinner roll on AA but this time they were handing out loaves of bread like they do on QF. I enjoyed it. However after that, the FAs disappeared and we really didn't see much of them. Is that a negative compared to QF? certainly. But i'm not going to choose QF over AA for an inferior seat just for some friendlier flight attendants and the lack of international wifi. Then again take my opinion with a grain of salt as i have a personal stake in AA and i'm pretty biased. But everyone here will agree AA has the superior hard product, and the food service is nearly aligned. The only thing QF does better, and they do a lot better is the customer service, but meh i fly to travel somewhere comfortably, not chat up someone.

Upon landing we got the water cannon salute and a lot of the ground people outside were taking photos. Upon disembarkation (they used 2 jetbridges), there were Menzies people outside holding flagship signs, i think that people flying flagship first get 5 star treatment at SYD as well, not that it really matters. Americans can breeze thru immigration/customs with the express path card (for all J/F pax) and by using the smartgate. The 6-8am time is really crowded because that's when all the asia and america and some europe flights arrive so its basically a madhouse. Baggage took about 20 minutes to retrieve despite having priority tags (but then again i did arrive at LAX at 12pm so they probably just threw my bags in the back). Aussie customs is a breeze despite their strict quarantine.

However if people here decide they dont wanna fly AA, have fun with that. More SWU space for the rest of us. I think about ~10 people got upgraded to J because the J cabin was full, but there were still plenty of seats for sale as i checked it in the FL throughout the day. There were plenty of AA nonrevs as wel.