Review of American Airlines flight Vancouver Los Angeles in Economy

Airline American Airlines
Flight AA5394
Class Economy
Seat 17F
Flight time 02:35
Take-off 15 Feb 15, 13:15
Arrival at 15 Feb 15, 15:50
AA   #69 out of 96 Airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings. 591 reviews
redadeco
By 3265
Published on 20th February 2015
So after monitoring FT for a long time I finally decided to post up my 1st flight report; actually I take a couple of flights every year and I always feel a lack of motivation to take photos and post them up here so hopefully this will be a good start for future reports that are coming up.

I might start by apologizing for the lack of photos (and their poor quality, let's blame AAPL :) ) but for those of you who know how poor is the service on US domestic and short transborder flights it's understandable.

This YVR-LAX flight is only the first leg of a mileage run that took me to PTY and back in under 55 hours and combining 8 flights. I was super tired to take extensive photos during the subsequent segments as I spent most of the time to.. nap :)

My routing was YVR-LAX-DFW-MIA-PTY-MIA-TPA-DFW-YVR, all on AA metal and booked under Q class (the lowest for TP/Avios collection, you now understand I'm a member of BAEC).

So getting into serious things, my mini-report starts with a skytrain ride to get to YVR on this spring-ish February 15th 2015:
photo IMG_0919
View on the US side of the airport:
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Once inside I headed to the self service kiosk to grab my 4 boarding passes till PTY.
BP for this first segment:
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I then headed to security, the process was smooth and fast using the Nexus lane. Same quick process with US customs and within minutes I was chilling by the designated gate waiting for the incoming flight from LAX to arrive.

AA5395 arrived on time and soon after boarding started with priorities being respected. I boarded shortly after Business folks as I'm a OW Sapphire. Here's how the pitch looks like on this CRJ900, sorry I couldn't take a photo of the aircraft as it is tiny and the jet bridge opaqueness wasn't helping either.

photo IMG_0926

Our neighbour, an AC Rouge bound for LAS if I'm not mistaken:
photo IMG_0927

We departed on time, shortly after takeoff the pilot made a sharp left turn towards the Gulf Islands and then down towards Cali along the Pacific coast, some snaps:
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Note that I declined the drink service on board as I'd already filled up my tummy at a restaurant in the terminal, I had a bottle of water to freshen up throughout the flight.

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Starting the descent into LAX:
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Taxiing to our gate, I managed to catch an aussie 744 and a kiwi 763:
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This was all about my YVR-LAX flight where I managed to take most of the trip's photos. Now time for some highlights of subsequent segments:

The load factor on LAX-DFW was very low, I'd say 40% at most. I got a whole row to myself, and before taking off the FAs asked passengers not to swap seats in order to keep the aircraft balanced. I got a can of coke, the low load factor explains it all :) otherwise it's a tiny plastic cup.


Oh and on a side note the LAX-DFW was operated on a B752, all remaining flights on this MR/TP trip were operated on 738s.

We arrived at DFW on time at around midnight, I had to spend the night in the terminal as my flight to MIA leaves at 5:15am and boarding starts at 04:40am.

Next flight was on a 738 with the new cabin that has PTVs, quite surprising for US domestic:
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Next photo shows how lazy I am, taken 7 hours later on at the Canal of Panama :D
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Next morning, view from my seat looking at PTY's tarmac, you know it's COPA's empire (CM) here with its 738s that can go down to SCL (sorry I can't spend 7 hours in a cramped 738).
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The last photo from the trip is a sorta tribute to AA (Taken on TPA-DFW), the 738 did a great job, perfect for 2-4 hours flights :) hopefully the new cabin will roll out throughout AA's fleet soon.
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I can't wait for your feedback, let me know what needs to be improved.

Cheers!



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Verdict

American Airlines

6.0/10
Cabin7.0
Cabin crew7.0
Entertainment/wifi5.0
Meal/catering5.0

Vancouver - YVR

9.2/10
Efficiency9.0
Access9.0
Services9.0
Cleanliness10.0

Los Angeles - LAX

6.4/10
Efficiency7.5
Access6.0
Services6.0
Cleanliness6.0

Conclusion

To sum it up, all legs were on time, my plans at PTY didn't get disrupted so kudos to AA for its accurate timing.

Service is just standard for this kind of flights, we're nowhere near ME3 or SQ here.

Nothing to add really, my marks reflect my unbiased impressions.

Information on the route Vancouver (YVR) Los Angeles (LAX)

Les contributeurs de Flight-Report ont posté 5 avis concernant 5 compagnies sur la ligne Vancouver (YVR) → Los Angeles (LAX).


Useful

La compagnie qui obtient la meilleure moyenne est Air Canada avec 7.5/10.

La durée moyenne des vols est de 2 heures et 42 minutes.

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