American Airlines - AAL

I have been flying with American Airlines on a regular basis since about 2001, when it was the airline of choice of my then employer for trans-Atlantic flights. For about five years I made reasonably regular trips over the pond in business class paid for by my company and around the same time I made a couple in economy class paid for by myself. Currently I am based in Bermuda which inevitably means plenty of trips to the US East Coast to relieve ...
...American for several trips to each of New York and Miami. Last year we travelled to Mexico and Ecuador with AA on holiday and finally this year I cashed in seven years of air miles purchasing first class tickets to Japan for myself and my husband. So in a nutshell, this is an airline I have used a lot, I have been in all travel classes and the review will be based on all my experiences.

I have been a member of the AA travel awards ... more

I have been flying with American Airlines on a regular basis since about 2001, when it was the airline of choice of my then employer for trans-Atlantic flights. For about five years I made reasonably regular trips over the pond in business class paid for by my company and around the same time I made a couple in economy class paid for by myself. Currently I am based in Bermuda which inevitably means plenty of trips to the US East Coast to relieve what we call 'rock fever' and so I have used American for several trips to each of New York and Miami. Last year we travelled to Mexico and Ecuador with AA on holiday and finally this year I cashed in seven years of air miles purchasing first class tickets to Japan for myself and my husband. So in a nutshell, this is an airline I have used a lot, I have been in all travel classes and the review will be based on all my experiences.

I have been a member of the AA travel awards program since I started to use the airline and for much of this time I have been a gold card carrier and so will share a few thoughts on that too whilst I am here. I know it has a separate category but I don't think I have a whole reviews worth of opinion.

Booking / Prices / Customer Service~~

In the past I have had flights booked by my company, have booked through expedia.com and have booked through Trailfinders. For the last two years I have booked my flights on-line directly with AA.com and I have found this to be the most effective method. The website is intuitive and the advantages of booking this way are that you can immediately see all the flights available on your preferred dates, that you can separately choose the time of the outbound and return flights (unlike on expedia say which might not have the combination you want) and also you can pre select your seats at the time of booking, even in economy class. The rows with extra leg room are only available for pre-selection to gold card members, I am one, so have been able to get these seats for me and my husband, who is not.

I think there is little point discussing prices for too long, as these things move around far too much for me to provide any real insights. But I do spend far too much time researching flights and holidays and so feel reasonably confident in saying that on the whole, American is one of the more competitively priced airlines and good deals are not hard to come by.

I have had reason to communicate with AA several times over the years and have done so by either telephoning, for instance when changing tickets and a few times I have sent queries by email. I have been pleased with the service provided, the phone is answered quickly by knowledgeable representatives who have been able to deal with my request to my satisfaction and without referring me to another department. The emails I have sent, including the most recent which concerned changing to my married name, are generally answered overnight. They certainly compare extremely favourably with BA who I have had unfortunately had to contact a few times in the past and generally if you have to call BA you can expect to spend a long time in a phone queue and forget about an email enquiry being responded to ever. If you can find the e-mail address that is, it is quite well hidden on their website. Changing to my married name was a four month process.

I have only had one bad experience with AA customer service and that was quite recently and concerned redeeming my air miles which I will come to below.

In the air~~

I have found the AA fleet of aircraft to be far from pristine on the whole, in fact they generally look a bit tired and I think a complete face lift is long overdue. Unlike some of their competitors operating trans-Atlantic routes, such as BA, United and Virgin, American Airlines does not have a premium economy class, i.e. some more expensive seats offering typically 6-7 inches more of leg room. Instead American Airlines offers a slightly larger than average seat pitch throughout economy class and personally I think the extra two - three inches quite important in such generally cramped conditions. I have travelled from London to New York in economy class and would say the extra space was noticeable and much appreciated, but I would not go so far as to say comfortable.

The rest of the economy offering on the trans-Atlantic route is fairly standard; seat back entertainment (although not on all planes yet), choice of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages and a couple of meals including a fabulous pizza for the second snack on most flights when I traveled although it might have changed by now. On my short haul economy flights, such as between Bermuda and Miami or New York and indeed, Miami and Ecuador and Mexico, the economy class flight is fairly cramped and we are served one coffee in a polystyrene cup. But it was adequate for a journey of two or three hours.

Most of the business class trips I have made in AA were several years ago when I worked for a different company. This was when I first started to travel in business class and so although there were no flat beds, I still found it extremely comfortable after economy class. The seats are wider, with very good leg room in front, personal TV screens plus noise-eliminating headphones. I found the experience quite pleasant on a day flight but most business people tend to travel home to the UK on an overnight flight and these seats are not conducive to a good nights sleep.

Six months ago, a good four years since I last did it, I made another trans-Atlantic business trip. I had heard that the business class had been re-fitted in the last couple of years however my outward flight was on a plane that had missed the re-fit. It really showed its age and as it was an overnight flight and I found it very uncomfortable, there is lots of space in front but the seat hardly reclines at all and the foot rest doesn't come much off the floor. I have been somewhat spoiled by BA business class in the intervening period so this just didn't cut the mustard.

On my return trip I was on a re-fitted plane. I was surprised to find that a recently re-fitted business class still does not have flat seats. This is the way all business classes are going these days, there was certainly enough room for a flat seat so I don't know why AA did not do it. Compared to the outward journey, I found the new business class seat comfortable enough for a day time flight. A few things weren't quite right though. Firstly when you want to recline your seat it sort of raises as well, then when the entertainment systems are handed out (there are portable laptop type machines that slot into the seat in front) you are more or less wedged in. It is bad enough being in the aisle seat, however if like me you are in the window seat it is even worse as every time you want to get out, the person beside you has to return their seat to the original position and dismantle their entertainment system. It is utterly impossible to pass otherwise, unless you are wiling to perform gymnastics. I was also very disappointed that the entertainment systems were collected a good hour to ninety minutes before landing and I missed the end of my film. To summarise, the new business class seat was a bit of a disappointment.

But the service was good and the flight attendants were attentive and polite as I always have found them. Champagne is served before takeoff and the main meal is served by individual course, with proper cutlery and glasses and there is even a white linen tablecloth for your tray table.

In March this year, I finally got to experience the AA First class cabin. It was a very long flight from New York to Japan and after my business class trip I was praying that the First class at least would have proper flat beds. I did look into seat configurations on the type of aircraft we were due to be on but there were two versions and I did not know which, although I optimistically decided they would use the newest planes on this long flight. They did, hurrah! The seat configuration was 1-2-1 in first class and my husband and I were in the middle section of the first row. At take off the seats are facing directly forwards and will not recline at all, however once you swing the seat slightly to the side, it will recline to a fully flat position. At meals times you can swing it round 90 degrees and the space between the two seats effectively becomes a dining table so you can eat with your companion. Very civilized. The entertainment systems are of course individual and the movies and programs are on demand. Overall, it was a very enjoyable flight. Perhaps it would be churlish to suggest it is not quite up there with BA First class which I have travelled in a couple of times. They provide pyjamas and a mattress for your seat / bed. Still we had no complaints.

A quick word on the AA lounges. I have frequented these many times, even when travelling economy as my BA gold card provides me with access. If I have the choice though, I would go to the BA lounge, I have always found they provide more food and the drinks are self service and free flowing. They can be quite crowded though.

The AA business class lounge offers little by way of food, usually cheese and crackers and they give you two drinks vouchers when you sign in and then you have to get served at the bar, which can take a while as they are not typically well staffed. The AA First class lounge was much better, with lots of food on offer and the drinks are available self service and not only by voucher! On the other hand, I find the AA lounges are not as crowded as the BA lounges can be.

AA reward scheme~~

The AAdvantage program is easy to join on-line and you will accumulate one airmile for every mile traveled on AA flights or on any of the One-World partner airline flights. If traveling business or first class the mileage earned increases by 50%. I earn additional miles through having an AAdvantage credit card, operated by Citibank, and earn one mile per GBP1 spent. An exception is that they will not credit the airmiles if you travel between UK and USA on a partner airline, the argument being that you could have taken a flight with them. I learned this to my cost when I was not credited with miles for a British Airways business class flight to the west coast. I did open up a BA account instead but had wanted my miles in one place at the time.

Gold status is achieved by traveling 25,000 miles in one calendar year and platinum status is achieved by traveling 50,000 miles in one calendar year. Points earned on my credit card do not count towards this. For me the two main benefits of gold membership are being able to check in at the business class desk and being able to request priority seats at booking. The gold card does not provide access to lounges, unlike the BA gold card which I also have now. Gold members and above, can buy what AA calls "upgrades" which apparently allow one to upgrade to the next class of travel. The upgrades are bought in blocks of 500 miles, so if you were taking a 3,000 mile flight you would need six of them, also the upgrade would depend upon availability of seats and are not guaranteed. It has always seemed like an overly complex process to me and I have never tried to use it.

In March this year, I redeemed my accumulated miles for the first time. I have never seen the point in redeeming miles in order to save GBP 300 on a flight to New York in economy class, I decided to save my miles to pay for something really special and that was first class flights to Japan, which would have cost USD 30,000 for the two of us. I was slightly short of the air miles required, but it is possible to buy air miles, subject to an annual maximum to top up if you need to.

Before we decided upon Japan, I looked into redeeming miles several times over the last couple of years. I was always going to use them for a business or first class flight which would have otherwise been unaffordable and I have found that availability is quite limited on American Airlines as obviously there are only a certain number of seats on each flight that can be used as award flights. I had to book our Japan flights nine months in advance initially only got my husband in business class.

A few months before our holiday, I called to see if we could move my husband into first class and were pleased to be told that we could on the outbound journey at least it was something. Afterwards I could see on-line that there was a booking in my husbands name with the status "ticketed" but some time afterwards I noticed that my air miles balance had gone back up and I noticed that although my husbands booking sastill id ticketed on the first screen, when I clicked into it for more details it said "purchased" whereas if I did the same with my booking it said "ticketed". I decided to find out why. So a few weeks before the holiday we spent the best part of a year planning, I called AA customer services and after 45 minutes discovered that my husband's business class flight was cancelled but he was not rebooked in first class. Had I not made that call, we would have discovered at the airport that he was not on the flight. It took about two hours on the phone sorting this out, mainly being on hold which was immensely frustrating and there was not a single word of apology.

Overall~~

So in a nutshell. Well I think the planes are rather tired looking and the business class seat is probably below the standard available elsewhere. I have always found the AA team to do a good job whilst I have been travelling and also found the food to be as good as any airline food. I think they are competitive on price and whilst I would not rave about this airline, I would certainly be happy to consider them for any future flights.

Nb: Updated version of review first published on dooyoo as Cat19 

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