My trip to NYC with AA (American Airlines)

Member Name: forzaf1

Product:	American Airlines
Date:	08/12/02 (392 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: quickk boarding time, cheap ticket price

Disadvantages: none

I suppose that AA make most of there money from us UK residents by flying us to New York. I believe they do something like 4 daily flights to New York with the first at 8:30am and the last being something like 9pm at night.

If like me you want to do a 3 night trip I recommend that you take the 8:30am flight on Saturday morning which gets you into New York at 11:30am and then get the 6:30pm flight on Tuesday evening which gets you into Heathrow at 6am the next morning.

AA are the official carrier for the US and they are big.....I don't know exactly how big but
they are bigger than British Airways. There fleet of airlines consist of Boeing 777, 757
and a few older verions but they don't have any Boeing 747's anymore.

They had 3 flights go down on Sept. 11th and it really did hit them hard with reports last year that they were in trouble...they then lost a flight soon after due to the rear wing falling
off and they lost control of the Airbus and it crashed into a town. People lost faith in them
but since all of that they have come along way which mainly installing security features like
bullet proof cockpit doors and improved x-ray machines etc.

I did a trip to NYC last weekend and first off I have to say that if your leaving to go to the
US it may be better to be at the airport at least 2.5 hours before your flight because they
are very busy with various flights. Infact after checking in which was fine, no problems
(they now want contact details for you if anything goes wrong they need to contact a relative
for you) we got to duty free and our plane was already boarding. 'Oh no we are late!!' but
basicly they board the flight at least 45mins before take off so they want to leave on time
and not sit around. Infact I prefer to be sat on the plane than in the departure room. Leaving Heathrow though surprising without being searched much is pretty easy. I got searched by
Heathrow staff when going through Duty Free but I didn't get checked going on to the plane.

We took off on time and did the route which all American planes take to the NYC which means flying over Greenland. Total flying time was 6hrs 30. The drinks like United Airlines are proper 330ml cans of soft drinks rather than BA's tiny little cans but now they charge you for alcholic drinks. £3 for a 330ml of beer.

You may of seen adverts for AA saying they have taken out seats so you get more room. I haven't flown with them before so I don't know if this is true but you do get alot of leg room. Me being 6ft I have no problem getting in. On our Boeing 777 flight the seating arrangement is 2-5-2. Interior is not to bad although I thought the seats looked abit...well old looking...the head rests did match the material on the seat. Anyway you get your own TV like you do on most flights now and it included 10 channels with movies like My Big Fat Greek Wedding other channels include BBC, CBS, Nickeloden, National Geographic, 4 movie channels, Comedy channel (showing 6 episodes of Everyone loves Raymond). No games though :( Inflight map is another option which tells you how far to go, current
weather conditions, current speed etc. Radio channels...well they seemed abit naff and again
there was about 8 channels to choose from...but I would prefer maybe abit more modern music as it was Jazz, Country, French etc.

The air hostesses were fine and vary in age but I didn't notice any stroppy ones and they
were more than happy to help you out.

On the way back at JFK airport we were searched by JFK staff and then when going to the departure lounge as we boarded the plane they did random searches where they would take you off to a small area and search you and your luggage in more depth and take out most things and search them. Again the flight was boarded pretty early but as we left the gate on time we were put in a que a
nd ended up leaving late. Flight time is reduced by an hour as they take a different route home and its always bumpy along the way. AA actually send 2 flights to Heathrow within the space of 20mins of leaving JFK. On the way back the movies were XXX, Spy Kids 2 and the usual channels above but the comedy channel was Spin City.

We arrived so early into Heathrow that they weren't even open (Heathrow opens at 6am) so we had to circle for 20mins. Arrived and left the plane quickly. All in all there wasn't any problems with the flight or people on it. Passenger numbers were high but they were always going to be high at Christmas because its XMAS shopping in NYC for most Brits.

The only problem I had...and I don't know if it was BAA staff or AA staff but on arriving at my hotel I found out I had lost my Ralph Lauren shirt from my baggage. I thought I had not packed it but on arriving home and searching the house...it can't be found. My fault I guess because I take a addidas holdal bag which can be open easily and had no lock on it. Like I say it could be anyone that got into that bag.

Flight to NYC cost me £202 including all taxes from Heathrow.

Alex

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