pinniped

Awesome! I hope it operates as planned. Cool new route for AA to add...

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

I'd never, ever rely on a GA holding a flight unless:

1. There's a sizable number of paxs connecting to that flight from your inbound flight (likely not)
2. Last flight of the evening and no issues with crew timing out

Often1

GA's don't hold flights.

They are held by Operations.

For this route, it will always be the last flight of the day.

ORDflyer92

In my experience flying out of DFW, January/February is the only time you could have the possibility of de-icing as well (or other "adverse" weather by Texas standards). So I would consider that a delay is probable and missing a 1x daily flight is probably not worth it. I'd try to get a longer layover; AA elites will have Alaska lounge access by then as well.

aamilesslave

Alaska joins OneWorld on 3/31/2021, so status based lounge access will be available by the end of the month. Of course, Admirals Club members already have access to the Alaska Lounge.

marnold3

I went ahead and ticketed the inaugural flight on Oct. 30th. No worries about connection times as I fly into SEA from LAX the evening of Oct. 29th. This will give me plenty of time to observe the inaugural festivities for this flight. This single itinerary will net me 45,145 EQM's as the outbound flights were booking code J and the return fights were booking code I. Interestingly, the return flight from Bangalore departs at 0245 on Nov. 7th and arrives in Seattle at 0600 the same day. These Seattle/Bangalore flights are booked out at approximately 16.75 hours. If I'm not mistaken, this will be AA's second longest flight at 8,078 miles. The only longer flight would be DFW/HKG at 8,123 miles.

k374

Thanks for all the feedback, yes, I think I will go with the earlier flight, there is a DFW-SEA about 3 hrs earlier so that one works much better.

I will think about it, I guess I was getting really impatient about traveling again and Jan 2022 seemed to be a safe bet... but some as saying even that is optimistic. What a depressing state of affairs...sigh!

tkelvin69

AA used to park a 767 and sometimes a 777 at the end of D (anyone else remember the AC out there?) when they had the NRT-SEA-MIA flights so it can be done.

HiAperture

I am new to Seatac so that is interesting. How long ago was that? Sure wish they would fly a widebody from SEA-MIA now with long haul service resuming here, such a long flight with no great options.

*Edit* Ahh, I see that route was cancelled in 2002: https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/...5/daily45.html

66Traveler

Only my personal preference, but I almost always opt for at least a 2 hour connection on most connecting flights, domestic or international. Too much of a chance of a missed connection otherwise. If the connecting flight is international, then 3 hours connection time is optimal IMO. I've only had one experience connecting at SEATAC. I had a DFW-SEA-HKG itinerary in 2019 (this was before CX cancelled this route) - the DFW flight departed exactly on time, landed when it should have, but when we landed in SEA we sat on the runway for almost 1.5 hours (multiple reasons given by the flight crew - another plane blocking us on the tarmac, then the gate was occupied by a different plane, etc). My gut feeling at the time was that even if I made my CX connection my luggage would be delayed. Fortunately, my scheduled connection time was about 2.5 hours, so I did make my CX flight to HKG. But I was stressed and didn’t relax at all during the tarmac time or the connection time at SEATAC. On top of that, my checked luggage did not make it to HKG with me and I had to wait two days for it to arrive. But I was glad I made the connection. First world problems I know, but I would plan to allow ample connection time at virtually any airport, not just SEATAC. Stuff happens that you just can’t anticipate.

pinniped

It begs an interesting question: if you book the inaugural flight and the route gets pushed back, I wonder what reroute AA would try to give you if you still wanted to fly October 30th?

Say you booked ex-DFW where eastbound options are approximately as good as westbound options. Would the traveler have much choice? Would you be able to peruse Oneworld partners with a logical routing? If you're in paid J that could be interesting... Or would they attempt to keep you on AA until you're at an Asian hub and only put you on a partner for the segment into India?

I mean, it may end up that you cancel and rebook entirely, but I'm curious as to whether an option would exist to do something unusual....maybe QR or something.

marnold3

A number of questions about this inaugural flight had occurred to me which is why I put the trip on hold. First of all, India is not issuing tourist evisas at this time due to the pandemic. Secondly there is always the chance the whole flight might be canceled. Called the EXP desk and spoke to an agent who was quite helpful. She put me on hold for five to ten minutes while she called another office with these questions. Bottom line answer is AA will give me a full refund to the original form of payment if the flight is canceled or if India is not issuing visas due to the pandemic. I recall that I was booked on the inaugural flight to Casablanca that was canceled and AA did, in fact, refund the full payment to my credit card. Keeping my fingers crossed that this inaugural flight on Oct 30th actually occurs.

dallaspopo

Disregard

mvoight

Anxiously waiting to move to Premium seats on a June SEA-DAL flight
Currently all premium seats for that flight are unassigned

k374

so if I book this trip and AA cancels the route am I guaranteed to get a refund and NOT a voucher? I have no use for vouchers.