An autumn escape (part 4: New York to San Francisco)

After arriving at New York’s JFK airport in terminal 7, I made my way to terminal 8, the American Airlines terminal.  As is the case with all international to domestic connections in the US, I manually transferred my bags.  Terminal 8’s check-in counters were mostly closed.  American Airlines was condensed to a single aisle, split into standard and priority.  The flagship first check-in area was also open (but behind a separate set of sliding doors).  Had I been travelling with Krister, we could’ve used the flagship first check-in (like how we would’ve been able to use the BA First check-in at Heathrow).  After an efficient and friendly check-in experience, I quickly cleared security because it was nearly empty. 

Just past security is the American Airlines lounge, which is currently being operated as an Admirals Club, instead of a Flagship Lounge. Both my BA Silver status and the transcontinental business class ticket get me access to both types of lounge.  American has closed the Flagship Lounges because of the pandemic and converted most to standard Admirals Club.  There was plenty of seating, despite every other seat being reserved for space.  I positioned myself at a window seat, overlooking the center of terminal 8.  Across the way, I was able to see the A321T (N110AN) that would be taking us to San Francisco. 

Having just eaten on the previous flight, I just took some pita chips and hummus.  Warm food was also available for purchase. I settled in to charge my laptop and enjoyed the view.  Around 45 minutes before the scheduled departure time, I walked through the underground connector to the other half of terminal 8.  I joined the boarding queue once it had shrunk to only a few people in zone 9, so as to minimize my time on the flight. As far as I could tell, AA was using its normal boarding procedure of groups 1 – 9.  I was in group 2, both from Oneworld Sapphire and Flagship Business.

American Airlines’ A321T aircraft are some of the nicest domestic aircraft in the US.  They have 10 Flagship First and 20 Flagship Business seats, along with 72 Main Cabin/Main Cabin Extra seats.  This aircraft type is one of the few times American Airlines offers three-class first class on domestic flights. This flight was mostly full according to the seat map on the website, except Flagship First, which was only half full.  Because of the pandemic, the A321T is only flying between JFK and SFO right now and only once a day.  For the other transcontinental route, JFK to LAX, American Airlines is using a 777-200, which lacks a first-class cabin but has substantially more (and better) business-class seats. 

I selected seat 6D for myself, to avoid being in the middle of the Flagship Business cabin.  One thing that I noted was that the age of people in the cabin tended to increase going backward; there were about three in my age bracket at the front, then middle-aged people in the middle, then a couple groups of people in their 70s.  American Airlines uses the same Collins Aerospace Diamond seat found on, for example, United’s former Continental 767-400s and its 757-200s.

The seat itself was not particularly private, but compared to the typical domestic premium seat, it’s a massive upgrade.  Since I was in 6D, I had a wide space for my feet, when in the lie-flat position.  However, I was extremely close to the lavatory, which would’ve been fine, normally, but people kept leaving the door open after they were finished. AA provided their Bang & Olfuson headphones (which they always collect substantially before landing…).  The TV screen was great and a rarity for domestic AA flights.  About 20 minutes after takeoff, the meal service began.  Because of COVID, this is one of the few AA flights where a full meal is still being served.  A (small) three-course meal consisting of a cold beet salad appetizer, chicken and polenta, and a small blueberry crumble dessert.  Everything was served on one tray, with the coverings still on. I’m not the biggest fan of beets, but the dish was presented well. The chicken was cooked properly, but the polenta was a bit dry. The grilled vegetables were a nice addition as well. The crumble was the same as every other crumble I’ve had (mostly on Finnair).  I had some of the ‘house’ white wine (which is to say I wasn’t told what it was) to go with it.

This was my first long, full flight during the pandemic, but it seemed like people moved around the cabin a lot more than on any of the other flights I’d had up to this point. After the meal service, not much else happened on the flight. This flight had a similar set of movies to the previous flight (which was also a similar duration), so I only watched one more movie (Wonder Woman) and some TV shows.  There were ads before each show, and they were unskippable.  Like on all AA flights, WiFi was paid.  After a couple hours, they brought a snack basket through with the standard fare of pre-packaged chips, cookies, or granola. After nearly six hours, we touched down in San Francisco, and my (extremely) long day had finished.

In summary, this Flagship Business service is in the upper tier of domestic US flights.  The lounge experience was sub-par because of COVID restrictions, but at least it’s open unlike a lot of lounges (3/5).  The lie-flat seat was not very private, and the window passenger needed to climb over me to exit his seat, but it’s still one of the best domestic premium class seats available (4/5).  The warm-meal served was pretty good under the circumstances (4/5).  The service on the flight was solid; each class had dedicated flight attendants, and so our two flight attendants only had to cover 10 people each (5/5).  The in-flight entertainment was very similar to the previous flight, but the ads couldn’t be skipped.  Having to pay for any WiFi left a bit to be desired, however (3/5).  Overall, the flight gets a 19/25, which is to say, it was a good flight, but given the on-going pandemic, it was a great flight.

From a points perspective, this flight netted me 140 tier points on BA (which is the same for amount that any flight from 2000 – 6000 miles will earn you).  In addition, I earned 2 572 base Avios (the mileage of the flight) plus a ‘tier bonus’ of 1 286 Avios (50% from BA silver).  Since I booked this as part of an American Airlines ticket (AA6936), I earned a ‘cabin bonus’ of 643 Avios (25%).  Had I booked this on a BA ticket, I would have earned additional ‘cabin bonus’ Avios.