Our trip to TLS started out at our home airport of RIC with an almost three hour delay due to stormy weather. After getting rebooked to an earlier, but still 90 minutes late flight to CLT, we landed and immediately ran from our arrival gate to our departure gate for LHR. Thanks to a previous ground stop at CLT, we actually made this flight minutes before it closed! We had some serious doubts if our luggage would make it– but at least we would!
Our FA's could tell we had ran some distance and were quick to offer some bubbly refreshment…which I perhaps drank too quickly ;) My spouse somehow got sparkling wine in a plastic cup instead of the plastic stemware… I think it was because they had already dumped everything else out in preparation for departure!
This was my first trip in the PMUS Enovy cabin. I really like the setup and find it very comfortable and private.
As we enjoyed some bubbly refills, menus were distributed.
Amenity kit: AirCal
High quality pillow…better than what I have at home!
The excellent Bose noise cancelling headphones…
Warm nuts, and my usual, double vodka rocks, were served while flying over our home region.
My FA payed extra close attention to my drink level and kept bringing me bottle after bottle with fresh ice each time. Even after I told her I was done, she brought me more and told me to hang on to the bottles for my next flight :)
The dinner tray seemed a bit crowded with the salad and appetizer on it. After having flown UA a few weeks before in BusinessFirst, I could now appreciate having each course brought separately instead of all at once.
I had the Tilapia which was fantastic. Very flaky and moist underneath the breading.
My spouse went with the beef and it was very surprisingly moist, tender and a bit pink inside. The sauce really complimented the meat quite well.
I went with the cheese plate for after dinner– nice derby cheddar variety.
The mousse cake option was excellent.
After dinner I kicked my feet up to listen to an audiobook and put the air show on. Drifted off to sleep for a good 3-3.5
hours…
…and was very happy to wake up for breakfast feeling moderately with it!
Earlier I had ordered the omelette with sausage. It was rather watery and it tasted as if it were made from egg whites only. The potatoes were also a bit undercooked–but that always seems to be the case when I get whole potatoes on board.
My spouse ordered the granola and fruit plate and it far exceeded my expectations for freshness.
Invitations to the lounge were distributed along with Fast Track instructions. Immigration paperwork was left on my side table while I was asleep. Wouldn't need this as we were simply transiting.
Upon arrival we quickly made our way through security and enjoyed about a half an hour in the BA Lounge before going to our connecting BA flight to TLS.
Wooo, that WAS a stressful connection. I didn't know y'all were cutting it that close! Thank goodness it worked out! Looks like you had a really good cabin crew with 2 PDB and the constant flow of vodka. Really nice of her to offer bottles to go; that's great service. It's funny to compare your Transatlantic flight with mine to Paris, as they were only a few days apart. The first thing I notice is that you had real champagne, a decent one at that, but just a few days earlier we had Prosecco...to FRANCE!!! The biggest difference I see, which was actually better on my flight, was that although our menus were essentially identical, our dinner was served in courses with bigger portions. Not sure why you had smaller portions with everything on one tray!? Maybe because of the late departure time? 10:30 isn't terribly late, plus CLT-LHR is a good 1.5 hours longer than JFK-CDG so they had time to do a full service. Didn't know AA has an arrivals lounge at LHR, the BA arrivals lounge is nice, but not in the same terminal.
Overall looks like you had a great flight! Thanks for sharing this great report that I've been looking forward to seeing (and badgering you to post) for a long time! haha. Looking forward to the return leg from MAD. I'm guessing there's no report on the LHR-TLS leg? Would have been interesting to see the BA intra-European J.
Looks like you had a nice flight with AA!
Has American begun serving the appetizer, salad, and entree dishes on one tray all at once? I'm surprised they don't space things out a bit more. Food looks tasty, though.
Thanks for sharing!
Matthew
Thanks for sharing this FR, you are banging out these Envoy class reports!
For how bad most of the US planes were, the Envoy class on the A330s was actually a very competitive product for US carrier standards. It may be an old Cirrus product, but it is still nicer than some of UAs long-haul products.
I thought this menu looked really familiar, must have remembered it from Kevin’s report on JFK-CDG as he mentioned. The single tray dinner is really bizarre, I can’t possibly think why they opted for this instead of a coursed meal. The other weird thing is that the arrangement of your spouse’s tray is different than your’s (placement of salad/starter). The tilapia looks pretty good. I would say the beef portionsize looks on the smaller end. I’m also impressed that you had linens for your breakfast! This is an unicorn sighting for AA^^ It’s good to see berries on the fruit plates for breakfast, nicer than just getting your standard melon/orange slices.
As Kevin said, I never knew AA had an Arrival’s Lounge at LHR either…