Friday 18 April 2014

Day 3 : Apr 15th Flight 5 JFK-LAX American Airlines 16.00

Day 3 : Flight 5 JFK-LAX American Airlines 16.00
Aircraft: Airbus A321T
Class: First
Distance flown: 2470
Tier points: 210

I board one of AA’s new airbus A321T’s, it’s a 3 class service offering first, business and economy seating for domestic trans-continental routes. In first there are 5 rows, with 1 seat on each side making 10 in total.

The cabin was full, there was a lie flat seat and I was going to need it with this headache from BA001!

Flight attendants were absolutely super, this was my first time on AA, they were slightly older women than you usually find on BA and incredibly cheerful and chatty.
The meal service was dealt with at the beginning of the flight which was salmon and tuns starter, a salad and then chicken followed by a typically American Ice cream sundae, it tasted just like the USA! 



I watched the new documentary/film about Lance Armstrong on the in flight entertainment and was planning on writing the blog post for the BA flight up after but my headache combined with the fact that although the local time was only something like 6pm my body clock was still on GMT which put me past midnight. Time to take the 777 pilot’s advice from an earlier trip and just sleep when I’m tired, don’t worry about trying to synchronise with day and night, said he.

I put the seat down and went for a sleep, I was woken by the smell of biscuits and the AA Angels were offering cookies. In need of more rest I declined and got more sleep.

I woke up with the captain’s announcement of ’20 minutes to landing’, I still had a headache but felt better.



All in all a pretty nice flight, although I’m not 100% sold on the first cabin. It’s certainly not very sociable if you’re travelling as a pair, and there was just something I couldn’t get used to. I’m not sure if it was the colour scheme or the cramped feeling in the cabin. I definitely preferred the feeling of the BA set up on the previous flight. Having said that the service was great and you really are splitting hairs if you have a bed on a plane.

Left LAX and went to the Hilton which is a shuttle ride from the airport, the shuttle stop was a disaster zone, it’s a little paved island outside the terminal on a really busy road and there is no structure to it, you can get 6 showing up at once for different hotels and there’s not room so they block each other in then beep at each other. LAX has a lot of building work going on so I’m going to assume this is a temporary set up.
I check in and go for a drink in the exec lounge, its now 9pm local time and 4am UK time. I realise that my body is exhausted so I head for bed to rest up in preparation for the 8.20 am to Honalulu tomorrow. Feeling quite apprehensive about the next part as there’s a lot of flying coming up over 36 hours. I think I’m flying for something like 20/36 hours.


As a point of interest I think I’ve completed the airbus A320 family so far having been on a 318,319,320 and now 321. On to a Boeing 757 tomorrow which I’ve heard bad things about.

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