teemuflyer

The food they offer at the FFDs is considerably better than what they offered at the old Flagship First lounges, and much more on par with the CCR or QR F lounges. Although I love my CX F Pier Lounge and QF SYD and LAX F lounges, once again their food and beverage offerings are not at the similar level as the FFD. Minute steak at QF F (yummy, btw) vs. filet at FFD. Good champagne at CX and QF, Krug at FFD.

Clearly AA made a calculation that when lowering the requirements to access the FLs to include J and OWS, they wanted to still have a differentiated offering for those flying F. I doubt the FFD was ever designed to be a direct money maker, but be part of the F experience. Since 3 class Transcons from JFK and LAX have plenty of F flyers, they will be the busiest. DFW is the HQ, so part of branding. Weakest case is MIA, but for brand consistency, it makes sense.

As a business + lounge, I think the FLs are some of the best in the OW system I have ran across, and happy they made the change.

As mentioned above, there is plenty of qualifying F flights and pax on AA routes, when one considers the 3 class Transcons in the mix.

scubadu

That may be true, but largely irrelevant in a thread discussing DFW FFD

Regards

teemuflyer

I didn't want to be redundant, but I meant to tie the number of qualifying F flights across the AA system for part of the reason for the existence of the FFD at AA overall, and the reason for having it at DFW is for branding primarily, although they do have other F flights from DFW, such as HKG and GRU, for example.

Carfield

Flagship Dining DFW















Breakfast Menu


Texas Sunrise

chil

That's exactly the point! It's a J lounge, not F lounge. AA is cheap -- so they don't want to manage F (OW emerald) and J (OW sapphire) lounges separately as many others do. But they want to emphasize the exclusiveness of their rare F customers that will go extinct pretty soon because the F cabins tend to disappear from newer aircraft. I would emphasize here that there is indeed a not so bad F section (with OW emerald admission) in the AA lounge in LHR T3 -- they have to compete with CX and BA and they do it quite successfully. I've tried only breakfast options there and their avocado toasts were really great. So, the fact that emerald customers are not treated in any different way from J/sapphire customers in DFW-D is the consequence of the lack of competition.

bse118

I'm sorry but this makes no sense. The Flagship Lounges in the US are all better than the AA F lounge at LHR. And AA has plans/intent to do the same thing with creating a FL at LHR as they've done at DFW, LAX, MIA, ORD and JFK.

And you leave out the QF lounge at LHR, which is a combined J/F lounge and is better than AA's LHR F lounge.

chil

For me the only important things about the lounge are: food/tea/coffee quality, availability of shower without a 1h waiting time, and comfort of seating + internet connection. I usually stay in the lounge to have more comfortable working conditions on a layover. I don't care about the sort of Champagne or the varieties of Whiskey they serve. I care even less about the view from the window. In all these respects the tiny F section of the AA LHR lounge beats Flagship lounges I visited (ORD, MIA, DFW). It's like comparing a small Lexus IS to a super-large American pick-up truck.

Frankly speaking, I have no idea why QF has a lounge at all given that they operate 1.5 flights per day from LHR -- they would be better off buying the service from CX.

serfty

Not in my opionion - I much prefer the AA FL at LHR than the Qantas Business lounge. I rarely visit it, generally using CX and AA First lounges only.
It's $$$/£££'s driven.

With "Qantas Club" members included, Qantas can have 300+ lounge eligible PAX for their two flights per day.

After the BA relationship soured, Qantas used nothing (big complaints) then AA and finally CX before opening the current venue.

anaggie

I will have access to FFD in a month (F to GRU) and will have approx 6 hours to kill. Am I allowed to enter the FFD at will and eat or it is a one time entry?

Thank

SEA737

At will as long as it's same day

whlinder

Can't find a clear answer- is access allowed after arriving from intl in business with no onward AA boarding pass?

thunderlounge

How would you get back airside after going through immigration/customs without an onward ticket?

teemuflyer

Well, you need a connecting OW flight to access the FL when arriving from an Int'l business flight, so technically you could be arriving to MIA from LHR, connecting to a LATAM flight to South America, and you would have access. But one does not get access if the arrival airport is the final destination or connecting to a non-OW flight.

Nicoolio

I've been to all of the above plus MIA. The buffet is an upgrade from the former FLs in terms of selections available but not quality. I agree a lot of it is not very tasty, but it does look good when you see it on the various blogs. Still, it is a step up from where things were five or 10 years ago, so I guess the right direction.

dave_261

I've been through DFW FL a couple times, but finally got to use the FFD.

The pros:
- Very nice space
- Extremely private and nearly empty when I was there (although the server did say it can get quite crowded at times)
- Full bar w/ bartender and some specialty drinks (and a real cappuccino maker)

The cons:
- Server, while nice, took things really casually for 'fine dining'
- Probably more important... the food. Honestly, just not that good. Menu selections for those interested:

• Pork Belly Tacos- really, really good
• Fried Oysters- 90% fried batter/10% oyster
• BBQ brisket- Just a bad idea. It tasted like it had been cooked days ago and was being constantly reheated. Toughest piece of meat I've had in a while
• Filet Mignon- Not bad, but the cut of filet was strange- it was kind of stringy and falling apart a bit
• Pecan Pie- Clearly not made there; tasted like it may have been picked up at the grocery store that morning (or maybe Mrs. Smiths)
• Sundae- ok, hard to mess that up

The server told me that the same (very small) kitchen crew does the buffet and FFD, so at peak times, food can be delayed for a long time.

In any case, my expectations were not met. Would I go back? Sure, but more for the seclusion and nice atmosphere, and I'd definitely order other stuff.