AA LAX-SYD-LAX AA73 / AA72 (17 Dec 2015)
 

From what i'm told any festivities will take place after the LHR flight leaves Gate 41 at 7PM. so anyone who cares head to the gate after that.

I'm seeing 31 people on the upgrade list, and ~10 J seats available. Have fun everyone lol.

Thanks for the updates, friends.

The Flagship Lounge isn't very busy, and offers some stale bao, dry chicken sandwiches, pressed ham of the type called "jamón York" (pronounced "joke") and other things. The best looking is the wok stir fry of veg and mushrooms, and tiny desserts of pastries with custard and strawberries.

No surprise my SWU hasn't cleared for F, though it did so last weekend for the return on the 23rd.

Off to 41 to check out the inaugural stuff soon.

Enjoy.. cant wait to hear the report. What are you doing with your time down under

Back in June, Doug stated how well F was doing on DFW-HKG. (His own words, usually a sell out.) It seems he is committed to having F class on the 77W. I expect the 77W fleet to be shuffled a bit once the 772 CIP programme is complete. While Doug confirms he is committed to having F on the 77W, he definitely wants to have F sell as much as possible. Don't be surprised if MIA-GRU is not all 77W in the future. As of today, there is only one flight on AA metal on JFK-LHR that has F. LAX-SYD will likely be a sell out as well as another future 77W route soon to be announced.

Nice live updating of the inaugural festivities on the AirlineReporter twitter account:

https://twitter.com/AirlineReporter

Thanks, and good lookin' out... I totally spaced it and forgot to post on here that I was going to take over the @AirlineReporter account and livetweet from the event. The best (and most popular) thing there was definitely the baby kangaroo.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CWex8mYWcAEeZnW.jpg

Love that kangaroo :D

Given all the fanfare I'm surprised there hasn't been more in the way of live reports/posts/Instagram action on-board. Could the wifi be having issues? Or am I not looking in the right places?

Was wondering the same thing!!

Gawd, it's only a joey. I hit a roo when driving on Wednesday night, the car was ok, can't say the same for the roo!

Anyway, looking forward to the the arrival of the first flight down here in a few hours time.

Dave

Have you checked the trip reports forum? If there is a report , that is where would expect it to be

Add
 

Believe it or not, some of us keep busy initially on westbound transpac redeyes and sleep on destination time. :)

That being said there was some hullabaloo at LAX - food, bags, AA u-shaped neck pillows, a duffle sack, a non-authentic "Aboriginal" keychain, a Joey photo op, a deejay playing Aussie music and a serving line of what was "fair dinkum Aussie tucker". I had the pleasure of meeting Ice Trojan.


Boarding was not announced. Some youths in a group boarded, then some just began boarding. I decided to join the scrum and get situated in my 10J seat, and got my cheap plastic cup of some anonymous bubbly. Scarlet-bagged all cotton navy pyjamas were distributed in F and J. Coats and jackets collected.

Departure was 40 minutes late. FAs handed dripping wet hot towels, took first order, brought same and nuts, checked dinner orders (pre-order not always noted). Dinner served on a tray with a wine order. No second wine orders were taken.

Dessert was served from a cart, nobody was asked if they wanted the menu-listed after dinner drink (port, sherry, etc.) Not long thereafter, FAs recovered dinner service, distributed bottles of water and pretty much retreated.

I stayed awake until 10 pm Sydney time using IFE, laid out my bed and went to sleep. Some did change into pyjamas, but J has two lavs forward (behind the mini-cabin) and the port lav is rather small for doffing clothes and donning p.j.s, and I didn't notice FAs offering to hang clothing. The starboard (right) lav is the disabled lav and large enough to change in. No, no mattress pads in J on this flight.

At ~4:30 SYD the deadheading / nonrevs and active FAs formed a clot around the galleys, chattering quite audibly. :mad:

At ~5:30-6:00 SYD hot towels came, followed by a decent breakfast quickly served. Forms were eventually handed out, several FAs cleared the cabin but I saw J arm rests up (should be down).

Landing was uneventful. Lots of photoggers rampside and we got a "wet welcome" from the water arc from two fire wagons.

An uneventful flight, personable FAs providing completely mediocre service. And this was the inaugural flight, which they kept mentioning - but nothing special on the soft side, I'm afraid. Chalk it up to an entrenched, non-customer centered management (corporate culture trickles down, not up.)

I've taken the QF A380 from DFW and LAX, and though the J hard product is not as good as AA 77W, the soft product beats the slats out of AA.

I've posted the menu in the appropriate thread.

Sounds like you got a senior crew that wanted a trip down under. It is a shame that they are not held accountable for the work they do(or don’t do).

J has 4 lav’s, 2 are at the rear of the cabin. The curtain angles across the aisle to separate the J lav from the Y lav.

Wow, that is a pretty dismal report, FA-enthusiam-wise for a prominent, new flight.

JDiver...

Wow. Doesn't sound memorable at all. Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't mattress pads suppose to be part of the changes to the J service lax syd?