palmanfr

Thanks aviatorzz !
I was surprised about the short check refusal on DL to be honest. Especially that I proposed the agent in SJC to check a second piece of luggage (my carry on luggage) all the way until GJT so they would be sure I would actually fly there. But I am glad the DL ground staff in SLC understood the situation and managed to help me. That tells me that the notion of service still exists with US airlines

About your question concerning the Mixed fleet cabin crews on BA, I will try to answer it to the best of my knowledge...
BA has different type of cabin crews, all with different employment contracts :
- The Worldwide crews are operating long haul flights ex LHR or LGW (two different BA bases - each crew member is bound to one of the two per my understanding, with a few exceptions for Asian and SYD flights). They have been hired by BA a while ago, and new hires cannot get their contracts any longer. They are trained on the 747, 767, 777, 787 and 380 aircrafts (and for some on the 318 babybus)
- The "Euro crews" operates flights exclusively within Europe, on board Airbus 319/320/321. Just like the Worldwide crews (LHR and LGW), they have "good, old fashioned" employment contracts, with good benefits and sometimes are unionized. Again, this is my understanding !
- The LCY cabin crews are with a different contract with a BA affiliated company. I have no experience with them so cannot comment.
- Finally, the mixed fleet crews are cabin crews who have been hired in the recent years, with a much more flexible employment contract, and a lesser pay. They can work on both short and long haul flights in the same month. If one would join BA now, that would most likely be the type of contract you would get. They are usually younger staff. For the female FA's you can usually recognize them as they have the BA hat on their heads when you board. MF crews also usually greet passengers individually when boarding the aircraft (the old fashioned way of taking a look at your boarding pass when entering the aircraft to indicate your seat etc...). I also noticed that CSM (Cabin Service Manager = the purser on board, which by the way are called CSD as Cabin Service Directors for the conventional crews...) always greet individually every gold member on board during long flights. This is not always the case for the world crews.
Every 6 months or so, the destinations where the cabin crews operate change, and LHR-HEL has been operated by mixed fleet for quite some time. Right now, I think that LYS, SYD, SCL, YVR, MIA, SAN, HEL, LUX and DUS are MF routes, but there are many more... Each crew is indeed trained for one or more types of aircrafts and depending on the aircraft you have been trained on, you might be quite often on the same routes. Example is a MF crew trained on the 380 who flies only to Vancouver and Miami, between a few Euro flights in between...
While the hard product and services offered on board remains the same, your experience when flying BA could be different depending which cabin crew is operating the flight in my experience/opinion.
In my experience, I always found the mixed fleet crews much easier to approach during the flight and more friendly overall, especially when flying in business or first cabins.
The BA forum on flyertalk is a gold mine on those topics.

palmanfr

After TSA was cleared (they were double checking all the snacks and food people were carrying as part of a new security procedure), I went straight to the gate as boarding for Chicago was suppose to start in 10 minutes or so…

American AA1002 – October 19th 2017
Salt Lake City, Utah SLC – 07:00
Chicago O’Hare ORD – 11:13
McDonnell Douglas MD-80 – N962TW – Main cabin extra, seat 07B, aisle.

I haven’t been on the « Mad Dog » (the way those MD-80 are sometimes called) for quite some time. I certainly did not miss that, but it feels like travelling back 30 years ago. I was greeted by a friendly and young FA and went straight to my seat 7B, being located at the first row of the main cabin extra. It was a bulkhead seat and all my belongings had to go into the overhead compartment. The plane was quite full and departed about 15 min late as a lot of passengers got to the gate late due to the delays at the TSA checkpoint.
Shortly after take off, the usual beverage service started and the friendly FA who I saw at boarding came to me and asked me if I wanted a complimentary snack from the menu as it was listed on her PDA that I was Executive Platinum (well, I am not exactly that, but BA gold, which is the equivalent). It happens to me roughly 50% of the time when travelling on AA, I think it’s a (positive) bug in their internal system which makes flying with them a bit more enjoyable. I was also eligible to a free alcoholic beverage, but obviously, I was not really feeling like having one at 8 am… So a turkey sandwich and orange juice it was !
Otherwise, the flight was quite uneventful, with a couple beverage services which occured during the 3 hour flight, but I found refreshing that the (young) cabin crew today seemed to enjoy their work, and were always smiling when interacting with passengers.

Legroom on AA MD-80, seat 7B


Complimentary breakfast above the midwest

Despite the aircraft being old, the seat was comfy enough and managed to nap a good 20 minutes. I eventually did a bathroom visit at the rear of the aircraft, which reminded me that those mad dogs have an emergency exit straight at the end of the aisle. Always found that funny to be honest !


Approaching Chicago

We landed roughly ontime in O’Hare but taxied for quite some time to the gate, so at the end we arrived something like 15 minutes behind schedule. Considering my fairly short connection time for my next flight and the fact the gate to Hartford was right next to my arrival gate I did not visit the lounge but went straight for my next flight. The airport was very crowded at that time of the day.


The MD-88 at the gate in ORD

Overall, it was an ok flight, with a good cabin crew.
Cabin Crew : A-
Seat : B+, considering this was a coach seat of course
On time performance : C+
Meal and beverages : B
Overall experience : B

palmanfr

American AA1361 – October 19th 2017
Salt Lake City, Utah SLC – 12:05
Chicago O’Hare ORD – 15:11
Boeing 737-800 – N965AN – Main cabin extra, seat 07C, aisle.

As it is usually the case on AA, the boarding in groups was respected and I boarded with the group 2.


Gate H12 in ORD


N365AN ORD-BDL

My seat was located at the first row of the main cabin extra, just behind the business class and the plane was full that day. The seats looked like pretty new, I think that the aircraft was actually very recent.


Row 7 on the American 737-800.

Row 7 on the American 737-800.

Push back happened on time as far as I recall and after some time taxiing, we took off very smoothly.
In my opinion, there are 3 types of cabin crew on American. The first type does care somehow about their job, as it was the case on the previous flight and on the short LAX-LAS I reported at the beginning. The second type will do the minimal service and spend the rest of the flight in the galley playing crosswords. To some extent, that was the case on the JFK-LAX flight reported earlier. The third type is quite interesting, and I think their population increased after the merger with US Airways. They are basically the same as the second category explained before, but they care about ONE and only ONE thing : Trying to sell you a credit card. From the post-takeoff announcement until the unboarding of the aircraft, I counted no less than 5 attempts to have passengers register to their American airlines credit card, including distributing leaflets at the aircraft exit. Eventually, the classic beverage service with the Biscoff cookie was given during the flight. The cabin crew of that flight would have been a perfect fit for Ryanair I guess…

Otherwise, the flight was pretty uneventful and we landed ontime in Hartford, Connecticut.

Overall, it was an ok flight, with a good cabin crew.
Cabin Crew : C
Seat : B
On time performance : A
Meal and beverages : B-
Overall experience : B-

In total, I paid somthing like 110 dollars for this flight after using a paper voucher I received in the past following an issue experienced on AA. Those vouchers had to be mailed via post to Florida, after a few phone calls to the service center, which was also unable to process my French-issued credit card ! (Welcome in the 21st century AA !).
But anyway, this was quite a decent deal at the end, considering my BA status allowed me to select economy plus seats and check luggage in free of charge.

I spent a few days at my friends house in New Haven and did a one-way car rental at Avis. I am a preferred member but for whatever reason, my name was not showing up on the screen at the rental car facility in BDL. After 10 min discussing with the agent, she offered me the choice between a Nissan Rogue and a Ford Mustang. Since I was carrying with me a big piece of luggage, I choose the former, which was in quite poor condition, but now I am thinking about it, I should have took the Mustang ! Next time maybe…

Here below are a few pictures of the nice Yale campus in New Haven, where I stayed for a couple days… (I felt I was in a Harry Potter movie sometimes)














Yale campus in New Haven, CT

757

Great report so far! Looks like you've had a great trip so far. I used to fly from SLC-GJT for work about twice a year ... nice little airport, but I did get tired of those CRJ-200 flights.

Thanks for sharing!

palmanfr

Thanks ! Indeed... The CRJ-200 is quite cosy inside !

palmanfr

After New Haven, I was going to visit another friend living in Philadelphia and took the Amtrak train to go between the two cities. The train journey on the North-East regional took about 4 hours and I have to say that for the price paid (64 dollars), it was pretty comfortable. I was lucky enough to have a pair of seats for me, but note that the tickets sold for this train have no reserved seat (unlike the much more expensive Acela « High-speed » train). An onboard café-bar is available and the Amtrak staff was also regularly going through the cars. Free wifi was available, such as power plugs.
As a matter of comparison, the AA one-way flight between Hartford and Philadelphia was offered on my dates for about 300 dollars, or 20000 AA miles (no availability using BA avios).


New haven station














Philadelphia 30th street station

palmanfr

I’ve spent a couple days during a week end in Philadelphia (a first time for me) and enjoyed it ! Here below are a few pictures of the city, including the indoor market, the liberty bell, the City Hall, the famous Rocky steps, the museum of art of Philadelphia, UPenn campus, and some great street art work…


Chinatown Philadelphia












Philadelphia’s indoor market








Downtown Philadelphia


















Rodin’s garden (Philadelphia Musuem of Art)




Rocky’s statue








Philadelphia Museum of Art










World famous Philly chease steak sandwich…
















Great Korean food in Philly !

offerendum

Thank you bringing me back some memories of Philadelphia.

palmanfr

After a few – very enjoyable - days in Philadelphia, I took the train to Washington D.C to spend the last hours of my vacation. With so many amazing – and free - museums, so many famous buildings and such a distinct urban architecture, D.C is one of my favourite cities in the US.
I used Uber to reach the station and the Monday morning commute towards the 30th street station went allright, despite the fairly busy traffic. I arrived almost an hour before my train and got a quick coffee / breakfast at the station food court.
About 20 min before departure, the platform was announced and lines were made. Priority was given to business class passengers and status holders, while « regular » passengers (such as me) had to wait for a few more minutes. The train arrived a good 10 minutes late, delay which was eventually recovered on our way to DC.






Philadelphia’s 30st station

The train was clearly more packed than a couple days before when I came from Connecticut, and it took me few minutes before finding an empty seat inside the train.


Inside the Northeast regional train to DC

Washington Union station being the end station of that service, I spent a few extra minutes to take some pictures. The station, like most of the main train stations in the US, is quite nice.








Inside Washington Union station


Outside Washington Union station

palmanfr

Hotels in DC are very expensive, and like in my previous stays, I was staying within the city limits, I used this time one of my free Marriott certificates for a free night at the Residence Inn next to the Pentagon. It took about 10 min by Uber to reach it from the Union station, as the traffic was very smooth at 11am. The hotel is quite big and I was happy to be able to get my room before check-in time. The front desk receptionist was not the most friendly I ever spoke with, but provided me a free upgrade to a two bedroom, two bathroom suite – so plenty of space for this free vacation night !














Residence inn Pentagon city

The hotel is located in a residential area, but with a big shopping mall and a metro station less than 10 min walking distance away. A whole foods market is also available nearby.
Just like to every other Residence Inn, complimentary wifi (good speed) and breakfast is provided (although the breakfast hours are not very extended, and the staff very prompt to close the breakfast buffet strictly on time).

I spent most of the day visiting the Air and Space museum on the mall (been there many times and that’s a must to see, although I prefer the facility they have next to the Dulles Intl airport), the National Gallery of Art and the National Portrait Gallery.
Eventually I ended up in the different memorials on the mall at the end of the day, before figuring out that an old colleague and friend of mine was now living in Alexandria. There is so much to see in this city !












The Air and Space Museum














The National Art Gallery


The US Capitol




































The National Portrait Gallery


Chinatown DC










DC by night

palmanfr

The vacation was now almost over and I headed to Washington Reagan airport, located a 15-min shuttle ride away from my hotel shortly after noon. There is one shuttle available every hour from the hotel if I remember correctly, and that shuttle was stopping at two other hotels before reaching DCA termminals.
Initially, I wanted to book the flight back home via JFK, in order to experience again the business class seat on the front mini cabin of the 773. However, I changed my mind at the last minute to try the new business class cabin on board the American Airlines Boeing 787-800 Dreamliner, and at the same time, test the new flagship lounge in O’Hare. I am glad I did so as the flight I wanted to take to bring me to JFK was cancelled due to poor weather conditions in the NY area.






DCA airport – a few cancellations and delays to the NYC / BOS / PHL area

It took a good 10-minute standing in line before reaching one of the AA check-in counters, and the agent had a bit of trouble to check my bags in, as I had 3 connections. She also wanted to see some documentation and visa stating that I was residing in the Netherlands. Having a French passport, I do not need to have such a thing and tried to explain that the agent, but it took another good 5 minute to explain her the concept of the European Union… Next time, please use Timatic…




AA « Priority » check-in at DCA

I eventually got my boarding passes and was invited to drop off my luggage at the TSA scanner next door and then proceeded the the (crowded) security check point – also known as security circus…


DCA TSA check point.

20 minutes later, I went straight to the AA lounge located upstairs, just after TSA. I was greeted by the lounge attendant and given two vouchers for a premium drink (which I did not use and gave the guy I guested into the lounge). The lounge looks like a standard old fashioned AA lounge, with a bar, and a few snacks and appetizers available. More elaborated meals can be ordered from the bar menu. Nothing fancy, but still better than waiting in the zoo downstairs…


AA DCA lounge entranceURL]
























AA DCA Lounge

It also has a conference room available and some great tarmac views, with the condition that you find a spot available to sit… (the lounge was quite full when I went there).

I stayed about 45 minutes before going back downstairs to board my flight to Chicago. Boarding already started when I arrived at the gate, which was crowded, like the rest of this terminal satellite.




Boarding gate 45 for ORD



AA’s Boeing 737-800 at DCA…

Coming next : The story of the Boeing 737 who wanted to become an Airbus 321…

offerendum

737 wonna be 321? I´m waiting to see more!

palmanfr

American AA1202 – October 24th 2017
Washington Reagan, DCA – 14:45
Chicago O’Hare ORD – 15:55
Boeing 737-800 – N975AN – Domestic First class, seat 04A, window

I boarded with group 2 or 3, which meant that all the first class passengers were already inside the aircraft, so I had to place my carry-on back a few rows after mine.
The seat was a standard domestic AA first class seat, with a decent recline and sufficient leg room. Definitely much better anyway than what most of the European airlines are offering nowadays. Two small « cocktail » tablets, located between the two seats are available.


Legroom on AA 737-800 First class.

A pre-departure beverage, consisting in still water or orange juice was proposed in a plastic cup, just before the safety video was displayed.




Legroom on AA 737-800 First class


Departure from DCA.

We took off roughly on-time, just after a Delta Connection Embraer and with very nice views of the DC area…


Ready... Set… GO !


Take off from DCA

During my previous post, I mentioned that I will talk about the Boeing 737-800 who wanted to become an Airbus 321, so I will not let the suspense last longer… It was just that the safety cards displayed at every seat were for an Airbus 321, but the aircraft we were into was definitely a 737-800. I eventually informed the purser half-way into the flight before visiting the lavatories to which he replied, in a bored way « Well… you are most likely the only one who noticed that on-board… but thanks for the heads-up »
At the times where people can change gender and airlines merge with each other, maybe aircrafts can also change their names, who am I to judge…



Jokes apart, I find this to be a safety concern as the way to open the emergency exits, and their number and location is certainly different on both aircraft types… Same goes for the location of the evacuation rafts.

Shortly after take off, the first beverage service started and lunch orders were taken. A choice of cold cuts or a cheese plate was offered. The cheese plate did not look very appealing and opted for the cold-cuts plate, which I got with some white wine. Before that, the first drink (a tomato juice for me), came with the classical – and quite tasty – warm nuts.


First drink service


Cold-cuts plate

Coffee was served afterwards and we landed on-time in Chicago… under the rain.


Final coffee before landing


Taxiing under the rain, in front of the international terminal of O’Hare

This flight went OK, just like the cabin crew was. I certainly had better crews, but also worse on AA…

Cabin Crew : B-
Seat : B
On time performance : A
Meal and beverages : C – A bit light for a 2 hours + flight. European airlines do a better job in that respect.
Overall experience : B-.

Jaysonb22

Others have already stated this, but this is a fantastic trip report. For as long as you were gone (based on all the legs it seems like months) I am impressed with your ability to consistently take notes and pictures. The pics of the national and state parks are excellent; some breathtaking views for sure.

palmanfr

Thanks a lot Jaysonb22 ! I actually wished I would be done with this report so I can start a new one :-) But this takes quite some time to do, and unfortunately, I did not have much those past several weeks. This trip was however fantastic and it feels like it was yesterday (even if it was 6 months ago !)
I will be going next week for a couple days in Saudi Arabia for work (first time in the country and also on Turkish airlines, looking forward to try their business class) and then 10 day vacation, straight to Norway as a departure point to Australia on Qatar and then Japan and then Doha and then back home :-D Hopefully, I will be able to report this experience too !