Review of American Airlines flight Miami Lima in Economy

Airline American Airlines
Flight AA917
Class Economy
Seat 18F
Aircraft Boeing 757-200
Flight time 06:15
Take-off 06 Mar 16, 18:00
Arrival at 07 Mar 16, 00:15
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
767 traveller
Published on 4th May 2016
MIA-LIM

Hi and welcome to the last segment of this series featuring my trip from LIM to LHR and back that took place during the first week of March. My routing was the following:

LIM-MIA on an AA 752

MIA-LHR on AA's flagship 77W
LHR-MIA on a British queen of the skies
MIA-LIM on an AA boring an uncomfortable 757… (you are here)

Having arrived from Heathrow after a very good flight on a Queen of the skies with a British flag, I had to walk from concourse E to concourse D to clear immigration. There was no significant line and I was quickly seen by a very chatty officer. He asked me a couple of questions and while stamping my passport he started talking about Obama, US politics, etc. He wished me good luck and I was once again through baggage claim and had to clear security again. About 40 minutes later I was airside. I took the sky train and headed to the D30 Admirals club, since it was the closest one to my gate. I found a seat by the window and after settling down went to the “buffet” looking for something to satisfy my hunger. I answered some emails and chats while making an attempt to feed my stomach with some chips and a coke and then took a very relaxing and much needed shower. I am always impressed by the quality of US lounges, I mean adding something extra to the complementary biscuits and chips won't hurt much I guess.

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My snack

After coming back from my oasis, the lounge was bustling with people. Of course people who couldn’t care less about the view outside took all of the seats by the window. I had to walk a few times around the lounge to find a spare seat, obviously one that didn’t have a view. You know that you are in Miami when the guy seating next to you is speaking with his wife on the phone about how fit is his 20 year old son. I then had some tea with biscuits and then a few glasses of water, before heading to my gate half an hour before my flight.

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I walked relatively fast to the gate since I presumed that boarding could have already started. Turns out I was right and most passengers were already inside the plane. I tried to board, but the scanner wouldn’t read my boarding pass. I thought that the flight was full and there could be a last minute operational upgrade, however they just wanted to have another look at my passport. After about five minutes of doing I don't know what, I heard one of the gate agents tell his colleague that my passport was expired, rather than asking me something about it. I told him that it was not and that the renovation was in the last page. He seemed disappointed to know that I had made the rest of his day less exiting.

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Towards the gate that was located near the end of the concourse.

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I still managed to snap a quick pic of my 757 before boarding.

This time boarding was done by door L1 so I had to pass through J. Fortunately I managed to get an exit row for this leg which I guess made things better since I was very tired by then. A very big guy occupied the aisle but the middle seat remained empty.

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The crew was made up mostly from senior flight attendants that looked like they would much rather be taking some sunshine in Miami beach, than working on their flight back to Lima. They were not in a very good mood except for one FA who just went with the flow, doing her job relaxed and with a smile.

Meanwhile there was a really nice sunset outside so I started taking pictures, the guy seating in the aisle started giving me strange look as if I was either a security threat or just had some mental issue for taking pictures on a plane.

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AA A319 as we were taxing towards the runaway.

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The cheery captain came on the PA announcing that we were being slightly delayed for takeoff due to other aircrafts having Priority to land before we could take off.

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We took off and he came on once again informing our flight path and asking us to enjoy the service saying that "the lovely young ladies down the back" will deliver excellent service. Well, Thanks for your enthusiasm captain but I think the rest of the crew was having none of it.

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Meanwhile the view outside was fantastic.

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The crew did a drinks run with some pretzels followed by dinner. Kudos to AA for that! I was served pasta by the crew member who just went with the flow. The food looked similar to the one I had on my flight to LHR last week but was completely tasteless.

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I took a ginger ale along with my pretzels.

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I then snoozed off for most of the flight, but still woke up many times trying to find a comfortable position for sleeping. A downside of exit row seats in the 757's is that they have very limited recline. I don't know why mine did also, since there was no exit row behind me, but well… I was tad tired and a bit annoyed by the guy seating on the aisle keeping throwing strange looking’s at me. I just pretended to ignore him and try to keep sleeping. As he did not see me filling my customs form (I just was trying to sleep) he said something like "Do you know how you are going to fill out this form" and gave me his pen to do so. Thanks, but I do know how to fill it out, well thanks for your pen anyway!

An hour before landing the crew did a last drinks run. I took a glass of apple juice and then continued sleeping until the captain announced that we would soon be landing.

I went up to the lavatory before the crew switched the seatbelt signs for landing.

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We landed in LIM 30 minutes after schedule. The airport was full since that's the mid night rush departures of flights to North America (AA, DL, UA, AM, NK, B6 + LA's departures to MIA, JFK and LAX).

Fortunately we were assigned a jet bridge and parked next to an AM 738 and a CM 738 will soon park at the adjacent gate.

I don't remember how I got out of the plane, but once outside I saw an AA crew waiting for the plane to be ready for the redeye to DFW. Funny that AA uses LIM based crew for flights to MIA but US crews for flights to DFW.

Immigration was quick and then I was off to baggage claim. Two of my bags appeared, but one of the boxes I had checked in at LHR was missing. I went to the AA employee in charge of missing baggage claims. I recognized her from the outbound, where she was one of the check in and gate agents. She was very efficient in processing my claim. There were a few fellow passengers that were doing the same, I supposed that all those bags were in MIA, so they should take less than 24 hours to arrive. When it was my turn she told me that my box was still in London and that it could take a couple of days to be delivered. She asked me to call AA to see what was happening. I thanked her for her help and told her not to worry since I understand this things happen.

Less than two days after making the claim I was back in the airport picking up my missing box. I had to enter baggage claim to pick it up and take it through customs myself. Thanks god that the customs agent had lots of common sense and let me out without hassle after seeing I had sufficient documentation that proved what I was taking and for which purposes. The AA employee that took me to retrieve what I was missing was also extremely helpful in all the process.

Well, thanks for reading and feedback is very appreciated!


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Verdict

American Airlines

6.1/10
Cabin6.0
Cabin crew6.5
Entertainment/wifi5.0
Meal/catering7.0

Miami - MIA

7.1/10
Efficiency7.0
Access7.0
Services7.5
Cleanliness7.0

Lima - LIM

6.1/10
Efficiency5.0
Access6.0
Services6.5
Cleanliness7.0

Conclusion

AA behaved mediocrely on this flight, however they left me with a pretty good impression of the airline since all of my other flights with them were fine and they worked very well to find my missing luggage and have it in LIM exactly 24 hours after my flight landed (I guess it took the same flights than myself but on the next

Information on the route Miami (MIA) Lima (LIM)

Les contributeurs de Flight-Report ont posté 7 avis concernant 3 compagnies sur la ligne Miami (MIA) → Lima (LIM).


Useful

La compagnie qui obtient la meilleure moyenne est LAN Airlines avec 7.9/10.

La durée moyenne des vols est de 5 heures et 43 minutes.

  More information

4 Comments

If you liked this review or if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to post a comment below !
  • Comment 348044 by
    KévinDC TEAM SILVER 6668 Comments
    Thanks for sharing this report and the series! The 757s look so beautiful in the new livery...from the outside only, haha! What a dump on the inside. AA needs to retrofit the cabins asap, these birds are looking sad on the inside. It is good that you got a Exit row with an empty seat next to you. That's about as good as it gets in Y :-)
  • Comment 348591 by
    Chibcha SILVER 540 Comments
    Thanks for sharing this series, it was a really fun read.
    I think AA has come a long way but it still a bit far from delivering the kind of service DL gives you when flying to the US.

    Funny thing about the guy in the aisle seat, why wouldn't he mind his own business?!

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