Fonsini

Sorry for asking such a simple question but I’m about to book the return leg of an 8 month COVID delayed return from the UK to Chicago and I wondered what the seating and food arrangements are like in practice on AA. Will I see spaced seating in Y, what about the center seats in J, are masks compulsory for the entire 8 hour flight? Food service ??

Any advice appreciated, just trying to plan ahead.

AAExecPlatFlier

Lots of info in various threads here. Short answer: masks required the entire time. No defined social distancing rules as AA stopped limiting capacity back in July. Loads are fairly light in all classes so u should be able to distance yourself.

Fonsini

Perfect - many thanks !

UAPremierGuy

Food service is decent. Better than many other airlines over the pond, including BA and even TK. AA is a good choice transatlantic at the moment. Note that depending on when you are leaving, all of the flights to hubs other than DFW on AA out of LHR have been suspended for the upcoming months due to the lockdown, so you may have to connect. There is no domestic service in Y, there is (though not pre-COVID) service in F.

cmd320

You aren't guaranteed spaced seating in any cabin, though I would expect the flight to be pretty quiet so this shouldn't be an issue. Yes, masks will be required throughout the flight with the exception of eating and drinking. AA is still serving food on intercontinental flights so you would have a meal service.

fly747first

But if the OP is in J, he can get a single seat since AA has 1x2x1 configuration on all long-haul flights now in J and loads have been pretty weak for the most part, not sure why the OP would have to settle for middle seat (not a true middle seat in J though).

cmd320

Agreed, it should be easy to snag a solo J seat today on an intercontinental.

fly747first

And to AA's credit, its entire long-haul fleet now offers 1x2x1 in J; UA certainly can't guarantee that

ExpatExp

Service was fine on my recent ORD-LHR. Helpful, cheerful FAs, decent meal served all at once on one tray (food quality and choice not as good as normal, but hey, it's a decent meal), drinks whenever you wanted. Masks at all times when not eating or drinking. Only three people in J so it was perfectly comfortable.

Score8

I might be doing a lot of drinking on that flight.

fly747first

3 people in J?!?!??! Yikes... that flight must have set a new record in terms of unprofitability.

ExpatExp

Not directly related to your original question, but here is my experience with the PLF (Passenger Locator Form) that the UK government will require you to complete in anticipation of your arrival in the UK.

My flight was ORD-LHR on AA, last week. I should have known something was up when neither the app nor aa.com would let me check in online. Called AA and they said everything was fine and there was no reason that I should not be able to check in. I got to the airport and discovered why I couldn’t check in online: AA has an AA-specific policy that AA must check the PLF twice, first before passengers are permitted to check-in (according to the check-in agent for my first flight, which was a domestic US flight) and also before passengers are permitted to board the LHR-bound segment (according to the gate agents handling the ex-US flight). But when I called AA, they did not know that this is AA’s policy. It's certainly possible that both AA employees understood the requirements incorrectly.

Notably, this does not appear to be a UK government requirement; it is my understanding that the PLF must merely be submitted between 0 and 48 hours prior to one's arrival in the UK and presenting your passport at the UK border. AA seems to have either misunderstood the rules, or seems to have decided to make the PLF into an AA-specific requirement, for reasons that don’t appear to provide any benefit to AA. Perhaps someone at AA has mistakenly concluded that passengers will be AA’s responsibility if they turn up at LHR without a completed PLF.

In any case, it creates some chaos when people are not expecting AA to have any interest in the PLF, and passengers have to dig into their bags to get out their phones / laptops / printed pieces of paper. The boarding area for the ex-US flight was a mess.

At the first AA PLF check when I checked in for my domestic connecting segment, the check-in agent compared all the data on the PLF to my passport to ensure it matched. At the second AA PLF check when boarding the ex-US segment, they simply glanced at the big QR code from too far away to read anything, and waved me through.

When we arrived in the UK, literally nobody asked about the PLF or asked to see it. Also, I did not see anyone else being asked about it, and I didn’t see anyone else being asked to show it. I used the e-gates, which may have made a difference.

tl;dr: AA cares about the PLF, even though they say they don’t. The UK doesn’t care about the PLF, even though they say they do.
Yes, it was a shame, though I admit I was happy to have the peace and quiet

cmd320

In fairness, you never know what they might have been carrying down below.

VFR

In non-COVID times, if an airline transports someone to a foreign country and they get turned away at the border for due to an improper visa or passport issue, the airline that transported them there is legally responsible for transporting them back where they came from. Naturally this could be very expensive, so the airlines have invested a lot of money in trying to avoid this scenario.

The system that most airlines use to check visa requirements is called Timatic. AA agents generally will scan your passport before the first flight on an INTL itinerary and before the INTL segment. Ticketing and gate agents are trained about the above policy: transporting someone to have them rejected at the border is expensive for the airline and generally bad.

Airlines have been using Timatic to keep track of the COVID-related health admission requirements as well, which I would bet for the UK a PLF is a listed requirement. So during the normal passport checks, AA agents will make sure you have your PLF.

I would agree that it's frustrating to do that and then have the UK Border Force not really care about it, but that's my best guess as to why it happens that way. It's also possible the UK government is doing some digital matching of PLFs to names, so they don't need you to produce it at the border.

ExpatExp

What's interesting is that the check-in agent at the beginning of my itinerary agreed with me that Timatic did not require AA to check for a PLF, and agreed with me that Timatic did not indicate that completing the PLF was required in order to check in. We both pulled up Timatic at check in and read the text out loud together. It was great

Of course, I had checked Timatic before going to the airport (thank you ExpertFlyer Voice ), and the check-in agent was kind enough to confirm that the requirement to display a completed PLF was an AA requirement, and not a UK government requirement.

In other words, Timatic does not indicate that a PLF is required in order to check in. But AA has a printed sheet of COVID travel requirements (the check-in agent showed it to me) and that sheet requires them to confirm that the PLF has been completed.