PDB on first leg GCM-MIA, no PDB on second leg MIA-CUN.

3/3 AA5525 PVD-PHL: No PDB.

Now that the PDB lottery has returned is the PDB when/what/why not thread going to be re-opened?

AA2268 2/27. Jfk-Mia. PDB offered. Water and OJ only…. In the most flimsy plastic cup… worse than the rinse cup at the dentist.

27Feb PHL-PHX no PDB.
03Mar PHX-PHL no PDB and no food due to catering problem.

Those cups are the worst! I wasn't expecting it to be so soft and when I took it from the FA, I almost crushed it in my hands.

Not seeing much in the way of PDBs even when there's been a delay at the gate. Other than a few dedicated FAs this benefit is basically dead.

Wed 3/2 - AA 117 - JFK-LAX in Flagship First. No PDB.

That makes 0 for 2 LAX-JFK-LAX in Flagship service.

horrible. I hope you’re writing into AA when this happens…especially on a flagship route.

AA communicated to the flight attendants this week “if your flight starts boarding late, or if you have a full cabin provide water, juice or champagne.” So expect more limited options for PDBs if offered anything.

Well, that covers about 99.9% of all AA flights

I was somewhat surprised by a conversation I had with an FA last week. First, I was 2/2 with upgrades as a lowly, low-spending GLD DFW<>LAX, so that was a nice delight. (And presumably, will vanish into thin air henceforth.) But, I was 0/2 with PDBs. And otherwise, those were some of the best FAs I had in quite some time. Attentive, good-spirited, etc. Everything you hope to get when you're boarding and sizing up the crew. Except, of course, for the whole PDB piece.

On one of those trips, I had occasion to stop by the galley mid-flight and make a request. As above, it was cheerfully fulfilled, but we engaged in a bit of conversation around the current environment, and I was shocked to hear that they weren't always certain what level of service they were intended to provide. (I didn't make any direct reference to the lack of PDB.) They mentioned there were emails, internal postings (jetnet or something similar, I presume?), and even notes around the crew rooms, but there were so many that they couldn't keep up with what goes where. (And I would guess that the type of flight plays a role here. Short-haul, mid-con, transcon, etc.) On one hand I wondered if this FA just couldn't be bothered to care, but on the other, they certainly put a good face on while they were in the plane, so that doesn't directly correlate.

Maybe it means something, maybe it doesn't, but I thought it an interesting data point I hadn't seen before.

Full PDB options SFO-PHX yesterday. Great FA serving the F cabin. Have a had a run of good AA crews lately.

3/5 DFW-MTY A319 OJ/water/champagne

This is totally nuts. With the new upgrade scheme, this effectively means the end of made-to-order PDB service on every single AA domestic flight in F.

Why can't they just offer the same PDB service they did throughout the 1980s and 1990s? Didn't matter if the F cabin was full or not, everyone got to order what they wanted. And the FAs did not seem to have any problem getting the job done.

Same for LGA-IAH. Word for word. :) Great flight.