This is a long overdue continuation of my earlier trip report. I hope that you enjoy it.

After a long time at Narita waiting for my JFK flight, and realising how much it had improved since I was last there in 1991, especially in terms of lack of smoke and increase in size, the flight to JFK was being called.

AA168
NRT-JFK
Seat 22C
Boarding was done in the usual AA fashion with First and Business being followed by the various Group #'s. Entering the plane after the call of Group 1, I was surprised to find a very empty first class and a completely full Business class. I was hoping that I would be able to get away with an empty seat beside me in economy. The plane soon started to fill up, so my hopes were fading fast. Fortunately there was an empty seat beside me, I was on the aisle of the middle row and another guy was in the middle of the middle (a seat which fills me with dread). After pushing back on time we had a fairly short taxi over to the runway (much shorter than the taxi in on Cathay Pacific earlier that same day). During the climb out I really noticed how much louder the 777 is compared to the A340. As is usual when seated in the first part of coach on the 777 all you can see out the window is the wing, so I had no idea what everyone was looking at. Drink service began fairly soon after that and the service was marginal. Dinner (which included a menu - a first for me on AA) was pretty woeful choice between a Beef Sukiyaki and Grilled Chicken. I chose the beef and found it only luke warm. The FA didn't seem to be concerned by this and offered no help, so like a good consumer I shut up and tried to feel content with a marginal mediocrity.
I decided to stay awake for most of this flight since we were due in to JFK in the evening. So I watched some fairly bad movies (oh for CX Studio!), but I did really enjoy the extra room. The midnight snack came around, and it was some sort of roll with some sort of meat - I'm really not sure what it was. As we got closer the sun had risen again and some window passengers were opening up their blinds onto some very picturesque views of Alaska and Canada. This sent one FA off the planet as she ran around frantically being a window shade tyrant. Soon after they turned on the lights to serve 'breakfast'. Why serve breakfast when it is evening outside really defies any sort of rational thought to me. Perhaps some guru thought that everyone should have breakfast. In any case it was a choice between cereal or hot danish. I chose the danish, which was like a piece of rubber.
After that was all cleared away we were descending into JFK and the end of the 6739 mile flight. I liked the room in coach, but AA should learn from CX or QF how to manage the other aspect of trans-continental flying of this magnitude.
After lining up for a very long time for immmigration I was soon thrust out into the bowels of Terminal 8 to collect my bags along with what seemed half of Latin America which had arrived on a number of other planes. This caused the most amazing blockage at customs and my hopes to get onto the earlier flight to DCA were completely dashed.
So after clearing customs and having lots of time I slowly made my way over through the construction mess to Terminal 9. (These are really horrible terminals). I had dinner at TGI Fridays (strange to think I was only eating 'breakfast' a couple of hours before!) which was delicious and I passed the time yarning to some fellow Australians. I then headed through security down into the depths of the Eagle terminal, which has all the charm of the worst Bus station you can think of. There I was in a half stupor waiting for my flight to be called, which happened soon enough.
All passengers for this flight were being inspected (except for the pilots and fa's who were commuting to Washington after coming from Europe). And this was really the worst inspection I've had. There was the usual taking off of shoes and belts, on top of the exposing of all the contents of your bag for the whole world to see. It was at this stage that the man using the wand on me found that my trouser clip was sending the wand crazy (it has never happened before or since) and he decided to shove his hand down the front of my trousers. Well I'm not sure if it was because I was tired or not, but it took me about 5 seconds to realise what was happening. And being tired and a little cranky I exploded with a fairly bad expletive! THis gained the attention of everyone around, including a couple of well armed airport policemen. Naturally I was the one who was under suspicion, but the supervisor believed me, thank goodness, and a fellow passenger backed me up as well.
I was happy just to get onto the plane.

AA4858
JFK-DCA
After the trauma in the terminal, it was onto the bus and then onto the plane where I fell asleep before arriving into Washington.

Thanks for reading this far. This trip was pretty much all downhill from the moment I stopped flying CX. As for the security, I'll be a little more wary of those guys.

Edited to continue trip report - I'm sorry about that, the boss rang and I had to drop everything.
[This message has been edited by goback (edited 02-25-2003).]

[This message has been edited by goback (edited 02-25-2003).]

You can't leave us hanging like this!

Let me guess. You exploded at the TSA guy, were arrested and were writing this report from Rikers Island where you were forced from the computer mid-sentece by an outlaw biker gang.

I had an interesting chat with a CX corporate sales exec at the recent Business Traveller exhibition in London. Granted that AA and CX don't compete on the same transpacific routes, however he told me that CX absolutely does not see AA (or UA) as its primary competition. Presumably AA feels the same way, and is content to play in Division One rather than the Premier League.

And you thought that only women wearing an underwire bra had all the fun?

I too have taken the JFK-NRT flight. I took the westbound flight in Dec and the window shade patrol wardens were out in force.