And you're surprised at your treatment at the hands of Air France?!

+1. I agree with this. Apart from snoody service and granny like flight attendants serving your nuts, a terrorist is more likely to attack an American carrier over anything else. But I feel that the low-cost carriers such as jetBlue and Virgin America are not being attacked at all over the big 3. If flying domestic is unavoidable, low-cost is the way to go.

For passengers who want to practically maximize cabin baggage, US airlines are hard to beat. Also, US airlines tend to be better about gate-check-for-gate-delivery of strollers.

Just to add to this discussion. Those low cost carriers are not necessarily cheaper than the legacy airlines. I don't view VA or JB as being a low cost airline. They are more or less an option away from an American, United or U.S Airways. Now Spirit and Allegiant on the other hand, yes, they are low cost airlines. Southwest, at one time was, however, they seemed to have broken out of that typecast of being a low cost carrier. More often then not, they are more expensive than their legacy competitors. In all honesty, every U.S carrier is a low cost airline in today's world when it comes to domestic travel.

:D LHR is THAT bad that I would rather connect at EWR. IAD is foul but I'd only use it if the EWR connections don't work.

As one who actually enjoys flying, including the service and meals, I tend to avoid U.S. airlines for international travel unless the price differential makes flying them just too compelling.

Well, as a foreigner who spends most of his time in the US and mainly flies US airlines I'll chip in my own few cents.

I prefer Asian and to a lesser extent European carriers as well, but for different reasons than most. I prefer an egalitarian approach to service (say... AF) but I never have the same fears about bad service when I book a flight on OZ or NH that I do when I book flights on UA or US (which I booked 3 flights on today). There is a huge difference between being egalitarian and being outright hostile.

Other than the legacy CO BF seats and a few DL SCs, there is little to actually like about US airlines. The public (and WN, et al.) have demanded the legacies reduce prices, and consequently services, to the bare minimum and the result is what we have in the US today. I don't mind too much though, I pay LCC prices and I can at least try to convince myself I'm not flying an LCC.

To answer the question in the thread title:

Yup.

LHR ground service at T5 is better than anything I've ever experienced in the US.

No, I don't tend to avoid American carriers as I find the experience to be largely the same in J and Y; can't comment on F.
In the past two months, I found the J experience between AA/BA to be more or less the same in-flight between the two(AA 767-300 and BA 777-200) as well as UA/LH (UA 777 and LH 747-400) between those two. The biggest difference was the lounges on the ground. The AA lounge at LHR is pretty shabby when compared with BA while the UA lounges in IAD are really bad. The Senator lounges in MUC have great food and drink, but tend to be very very crowded.
In the air I really enjoyed AA's two class Business Seat and BA's Club World Seat. I don't much care for UA's lie flat seat and the LH flight was with their old business seat.
On the other side though, JAL and ANA beat out AA/DL/UA any time in any class of service.

You have every right to favor American products; I don't thin there is anything "highly unpopular" about it.

BUT...
1 - Boeing is way less American than you think. ;) The planes are assembled in WA, but parts come from all over the world. The same goes for Airbus.
2 - Most TATL travel is on a JV. E.g. whether you fly AF, KL, AZ or DL, your money goes into the same pockets. Your contribution to the American and European economies is exactly the same.

I flew a US carrier, DL to be exact, for the first time in 1995 on a TATL flight in J. That was also my first intercontinental flight, as well as my first flight in "real" J, and I thought it was heaven.

In 2000 I got a job with a lot of flying, and in around 2002 I flew with UA across the pond. It was about the same as DL, and also the worst intercon flight I've ever had. It's rather amazing what a bit of perspective can provide, and in my case I learned that US airlines suck when compared to European or Asia ditto. Must admit a lot of the learning came from the poor unfortunates who'd been subjected to a TATL on a non-European airline; one noticeable experiencing on US Airways in particular springs to mind, which involved a very stroppy FA with the person skills of a female alligator in heat, serving a cold meal and loudly whinging when it's pointed out that beef tastes better warm, water deliberately spilled in lap and a toilet that had been puked all over but was neither cleaned nor closed off.

For the last 10 years I've successfully avoided any US based carrier on the 4ish Atlantic return flights I do a year. Our travel provider has long given up even offering me options on US carriers. Well, except for domestic flights in the US of course - pretty hard to avoid them for that.

That's okay...if the front cabin is accessed with a J tariff or award, that's fair game! Sounds like a very good product indeed. ^

I'll also give OS credit for having an excellent narrowbody medium-haul J product. On a four-hour midday VIE-CAI flight a couple years ago, we received a fantastic catering service with multiple courses, a thorough drink menu, and terrific service from top to bottom. The seats themselves were typical narrowbody F/J, but we had about 45 inches of pitch instead of the more typical 36 or so you get with a U.S. carrier in narrowbody F.

Reread what I posted: I don't disagree with you on that fact that J lounges elsewhere can be superior to J lounges in the U.S. Depending on what you're looking for, far superior. (Although I've only personally seen truly great Scotch in F lounges, not J ones.)

But I've also been in some dark, understaffed and less-than-full-service lounges in Europe and Asia as well. You sometimes find it when you're flying the opposite alliance to the dominant one in that country. The Star Alliance lounge in MAD, for example, seemed to be staffed by non-airline-employees who could not edit my US Airways itinerary. The beer was adequate, but what I really was hoping for was to switch a segment in my itinerary. The people there appeared to be airport employees, although I don't know for certain.

U.S. airports don't seem to have as many of the "generic" lounges. You're almost always in an airline-branded lounge, likely flying that alliance that day. If top-shelf liquor is what you're looking for, you will be disappointed. If irrops support is what you're looking for, you're better off than in a generic unbranded lounge.

In-flight service does not make me avoid a carrier, the price, schedule and connecting city will.

Well, it wasn't an international flight, but I'll mention it anyway given my original post: I actually had a USA airline flight attendant smile while serving me some coffee this morning. I was even in coach. It happened on a US Airways flight. First smile from a domestic flight attendant in at least 25,000 miles. So it can happen. Next time, I think I'll ask for a comment card. I think they qualify for awards if they get enough commendations.