Not Down on my Knees! (American Airlines)

Member Name: TheChocolateLady

Product:	American Airlines
Date:	23/06/06 (1743 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great Leg Room in Coach, Prices, Service, Safety

Disadvantages: Not such great movies, not extremely clean on short "shuttle" flights

There was a point when over three months I flew a total of eight flight legs, both trans-Atlantic and US-domestic, on American Airlines. I think you might agree with me that after this extensive experience, I now have sufficient fodder to allow me to forward to you my opinion of this particular airline.

First of all, I bet you’re wondering why I would even bother to tell people in the UK about an airline that caters mostly to US flyers? Well, you should know that American Airlines (AA) is in partnership with many non-US airlines, including British Airways (BA) through a program called One World. This means that AA points can be used to purchase BA flights and visa versa. Any of my readers out there that have some BA points that are getting dusty, you might be interested in using them for a hop over to the left side of the big pond. And if you don’t have enough BA points for that, its nice to know that your BA account can get a boost with any AA flight you take. So, that's my justification for writing this review. Take it or leave it.

One of the things that impressed me most about AA is their security. In these post-9/11 days, I found it comforting that AA is so very strict about its security. This, in direct opposition to the outright lack of security I found at so many US airports in general, should make one feel just that much better about traveling abroad. I'd say that even El Al could learn some lessons from AA, and certainly BA has a long way to go before they reach even what I would consider to be a passable level of security. While many people find their measures to be a bit overboard, I cannot agree in the least. On AA flights absolutely all baggage is x-rayed when you check in. They are extremely careful and if they find any substance that they think might be in the least bit suspicious; they'll open your bags and test it. This meant that twice my bag that had the Dead Sea cosmetics I purchased as gifts were opened and carefully examined. Did this annoy some of the passengers? Of course it did. But I say, better they find only bath salts than miss something that might explode. Good for you, AA.

The other biggest plus on AA has to be their biggest marketing ploy as well. They are touting left, right and center that they have more legroom in coach than any other airline. Well, they speak the truth with this one. Flying between Heathrow and both JFK in New York as well as O'Hare in Chicago on coach was almost comfortable. Remember, we're talking 7-10 hour flights here, where usually only the business and first class passengers can get a good rest. I know, we all walk past these expensive seats and drool - especially the first class ones that lay completely flat. "Some day", we say to ourselves, "we'll take a trans-Atlantic trip and arrive really refreshed". Well, I can't promise that you'll arrive refreshed after flying coach on an AA trans-Atlantic flight. However, you will arrive much more alert and rested than you would on any other airline, all because you'll be able to stretch your legs in that extra room they give you. Even my 6'2", long-legged, hefty-sized son felt the difference and informed me that he got more sleep on the two AA flights between London and Chicago than he did on any non-AA, shorter flights.

Further to the comfort of the legroom, there is one problem with the AA seats. On many of the larger planes (such as those used on trans-Atlantic and coast-to-coast domestic US flights) there are these funny bendy things on the headrests. If you’ve ever taken a BA long-haul flight, you'll find that their planes have bits on their headrests that bend downwards. On the AA flights, these bend inwards instead. The disadvantage here is that pressure on the pieces that bend inwards, will make them easily unbend back to their original position. The ones that bend downwards don't do this because your head pushes from the side but the headrest moves only up and down. A bit confusing, isn't it? Okay. Let's try this. The BA headrests are like a light switch. Up and its closed, down and its on. When the switch is pushed on, and you push the switch from the side, the switch won’t move, will it? Now, imagine if your light switch was rotated 90o. If you push that switch from either side (like one's head would do when trying to rest), you'll move that switch, won't you? Get it? I thought so. Tsk, tsk, AA.

But that's not quite enough of a disadvantage to drop a whole star from this airline, is it? And I do feel I should justify the removal of one star from this airline. The other reasons are simple enough - in fact, they're all "little" things, just like the headrest problem. But those little things can add up. For instance, the selection of music is, to say the least, pretty poor. I realize that if the music on offer is boring, it may only help you nod off. However if, on the other hand, the selection is actually annoying, you may find yourself hoping that your neighbour will start snoring like a lumberjack’s power saw. Furthermore, the headphones are terribly uncomfortable. I would suggest you bring your own comfy ones with you - especially since they don’t provide headsets for free on domestic US flights, and you never know when a good movie will come on one of those flights, and why pay an extra $2, right? You should know that when you land in the US after a trans-Atlantic flight, they will actually encourage you to take the headsets with you for just such a purpose on any domestic flights. That said, when there were movies or other video programs available, the selection seemed quite good - we actually enjoyed two of the selections, and were sorry that we missed a third one that was listed for one flight in November but off the list in December (here again, that old jealousy of the business and first class passengers cropped up. They get the really good stuff to watch). I saw somewhere that from certain cities they now have a new service available - you can rent a DVD player and a collection of DVDs to watch on the plane. I‘m not sure what the cost for this is and you might have to be going between two cities that both have this service. I can’t find anything about this on their web pages, but if its true, it could be totally cool!

There is also quite a bit of inconsistency regarding the supply of head cushions, blankets, in-flight magazines, and other amenities from flight to flight, as well as some seemingly slap-dash clean-up work especially on the shorter flights that are almost shuttles - like our St. Louis to Kansas City leg.

We also had a problem with one of our bags. The wheel came off somewhere between Los Angeles and Kansas City, and the damage seems irreparable. Unfortunately, they have a disclaimer regarding “protruding” parts to bags, which includes pull handles and wheels. But it seems that there isn’t an airline around that will fix a broken wheel for you, even if its their fault that it broke. Pretty annoying, but not specific to AA - however, this wheel was hardly “protruding” and there must have been one hell of a bad handler for it to break like that. In this particular case, I do blame them for poor baggage handling, but other than that, our bags arrived very quickly at each destination and undamaged.

Finally, I did find that their landings were, in general, a bit on the bumpy side. Oh, I’ve had worse, that’s for sure (especially, I’m sorry to tell you, on BA), but I’ve also had much, much better landings - and here my own pride comes into play since I will continue to maintain that El Al pilots are the smoothest on landing of any airline I’ve ever flown.

I think that ends my list of small gripes with AA, and although each one separately isn’t all that horrid, together they do make up one less star for this airline. Perhaps I’m too tough on them, since by my standards, I don’t think there’s an airline out there that could rate a full five stars. Well, this is my op and I’ll rate them as high or low as I please, right? Right!

I’d like to add a little bit about the crew, here. Does anyone else remember the days gone by of the young, attractive stewardesses? Well, guess what? Those women are still the same flight attendants they have on planes today, it seems. Just joking. Seriously, I find the older, more experienced staff to be much more friendly and efficient than all those young skinny babes of yore who always seemed bitter and bitchy to me. It was as if they were doing you a favour because they had to resort to being flying waitresses, having been turned down by the modeling and theatrical agencies. No, today’s flight attendants - of both genders - seem to be a great team of hard working professionals. And AA is no exception in this. Funny thing is, you often think that the attendants you get on a flight are a well-seasoned team, having worked together often. This, apparently, isn’t the case with US domestic flights (yes, I asked. My readers here at DooYoo deserve proper research). In fact, I was told that it is the exception rather than the rule that a particular group of attendants fly together on a regular basis. This means that these people are highly trained in inter-personal skills, and I'd be willing to bet that only the cream of the crop in that area actually get hired.

The service that these people give is really great. They come by several times even during short flights, with drinks - even if they aren't serving food. I was also pleased that for the special meals they have a habit of serving them at the same time as they serve the other passengers. I can’t tell you how annoyed I’ve been when I’ve had to wait until the whole plane was served before I got my special meal. I also don’t appreciate getting my meal before everyone else since, invariably in those instances, I’ll want to get up after I’m done to wash up, and the person next to me won’t be even through with his first course. I can’t really tell you much about the quality of the food since my special Kosher meals come from an outside contractor. However, I can say that the food I saw the other passengers eating looked about average.

I have to tell you that the major reason why we first ended up on AA was totally by accident. When my father passed away, I had been in the midst of planning my yearly trip to the UK. My ticket was a special BA deal, and I found out that my obligations in the US would end at just about the same time as the start of my UK visit. My travel agent was kind enough to find a way that I could still visit the UK after my US visit, and this was through BA and AA. In the end, the price of these tickets - which included a stop-over for my sister in New York and the stop-over for me in the UK - was less than if we had taken El Al, Delta or Continental direct to Chicago without any extra stops. After that experience, my husband and I thought to try AA for this last trip as well. Lo and behold, but we got a great price for a very complex itinerary which was:

§ Tel Aviv - New York (via Zurich)
§ New York - Los Angeles
§ Los Angeles - Kansas City (via St. Louis)
§ Kansas City - New York
§ New York - London
§ London - Tel Aviv

Some itinerary, huh? And would you believe that this costs us only a couple hundred US dollars more than my trip of Tel Aviv - London - Chicago - London - Tel Aviv? Pretty good prices, no? Well, we thought so.

The only problem with that itinerary was that we ended up flying into JFK airport three out of the four times we were there. We luckily got LaGuardia for one of the landings, but would have preferred Newark for all of them. Unfortunately, that was the price we paid for paying so little for these tickets. We also would have preferred to have landed and left from Burbank airport in California instead of Los Angeles International (LAX), but again, that would have cost us more, or made us have a connecting flight through one of their hub cities. In truth, LAX isn’t such a bad airport, its just a long drive for my California friend. The JFK part, on the other hand, was completely disgusting, and my husband and I have vowed to gladly pay the extra to land in Newark in the future. (But that’s the subject of another review altogether, isn’t it?) In all fairness, I can’t really blame AA for charging less for me to arrive in a less attractive (in all senses of the word) airport, can I?

In conclusion, I’d say that AA deserves quite a good amount of kudos for the services and comfort it affords you at prices that are certainly reasonable. Of course, nothing is perfect, and there’s always room for improvement. But I have faith that a company such as AA, with the competition they have these days, will do their best to make sure that they don’t lose their shirts like some of their competition has done. If I ever find that they’ve fixed those little nits I’ve picked, I’ll be more than happy to revise this op and give it the full five stars. For now, however, they’ll just have to do a little more reaching for that fifth star from me.

Thanks for reading and “Happy Trails”!

Davida Chazan © December, 2002; updated June 2006

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Technical stuff: their web page is located at http://www.aa.com. For reservations in the United Kingdom: Inside London - (44) 208-572-5555, *Outside London - (44) 8457-789-789 - * NBR charged at the local rate, FAX (44) 208-814-4230 - AAdvantage - 08457 567 567
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Summary: A good trans-atlantic airline working with BA