Day 4 : Flight 6 Apr 16th LAX-HNL American Airlines 08.20

Day 4 : Flight 6 LAX-HNL American Airlines 08.20

Aircraft: Boeing 757

Class: First

Distance: 2550 limes

Tier points: 210

I wake up naturally at 4.30 am local time, finish writing the previous day’s blog posts and head to the airport.

The shuttle service was having problems and the chap outside the Hilton had 2 queus of people waiting for the next 2 busses. I had time to spare and so waited in line for bus 2. People in the US are really vocal, the chap was taking luggage and getting it ready to load onto the shuttles and everytime new people turned up he’d explain where to stand, what was happening and that he was sorry for the wait.

All too often in Europe you’ll have some sort of weird little set up where no one knows where to stand and the chap co-ordinating stands there shrugging his shoulders when you ask what’s going on (I’m thinking Italy and France in particular here). Good queue marshalling kept everyone from getting angry. Shuttles turned up eventually and I went to terminal 4.

The airport shuttles all run on propane or compressed natural gas, a result of fracking no doubt!

I got my boarding pass, went through security and into the AA Admirals lounge where I was intending to meet flyertalkbuddy although I was quite late and my phone would not lock onto a network so we missed each other in the lounge.

The layout of the lounge was great but unlike the BA lounges in Heathrow almost everything is chargeable. There was a small area with tea, coffee, water and OJ as well as some croissant and doughnuts (or I suppose donuts now I’m the other side of the pond).  The lounge angel gave me a drink voucher for a beer or a glass of wine from the bar but I was not in the mood for this at 7.30am.

Onwards to the gate and a I boarded I saw flyertalkbuddy on the flight, he laughed and said he thought I wasn’t going to make it. Anyone who knows my timekeeping would probably have a pretty hefty bet on me missing one of these flights sooner or later. So far so good.

On board a pretty old 757 I was actually pleasantly surprised by the first class cabin, it’s not lie flat and it is quite dated (the TV’s are still CRT’s) but with 2 seats on each side, a decent amount of legroom and a decent amount of recline they seem comfortable enough to sleep in.

Head out of LA onto a sunny Honalulu without any fuss. No wifi on this flight unlike the trans continental yesterday.

Pancakes for breakfast!

Flyertalkbuddy is on the flight and is reunited with his wallet but we are seated apart and the cabin is full. I’m sat next to a woman from Finland who explains to me that she’s been on the go for 30 hours now, she flew from Helsinki to JFK yesterday around the same time as my flight from London but they were diverted coming into JFK as they were told to circle and ran low on fuel. The landed elsewhere, refuelled and then took off again and headed back to JFK, missed her connection to LA which sounded like a much worse experience than BA001. She also complained of heavy turbulence at JFK.

It turns out that she is a Finnish diplomat so we quickly put the EU and world issues to rights before I settle down to some Oasis tunes.

Flight is pretty smooth, passes without much to note other than some chap who decided to play candy crush at full volume on the ipad, he soon quiets down.

The approach Hawaii looks like paradise. Arrive at 11am Hawaii time and feel very fresh, meet up with flyertalkbuddy as we leave and he offers to store my bag in his hotel room for the day, take the shuttle to the Hilton and change into some shorts for a day at Waikiki!