Review of American Airlines flight from Paris to Philadelphia in Premium Eco

#65 out of 94 Airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings. 596 reviews

By KévinDC SILVER 3174

Published on 19th September 2018

Summary

1 – Introduction

2 – Check-in & Lounge

3 – Boarding

4 – The Flight

5 – Arrival

Introduction

Hello and welcome to the return segment of this short series of Flight-Reports,

It was time for my annual pilgrimage home to the motherland, but this year the choice of airline and routing was a bit more difficult than past years. OpenSkies would have been my first choice, unfortunately, this lovely boutique airline was due to cease operations at the beginning of September 2018 so I would have only been able to take OpenSkies on my outbound flight. I'd flown OpenSkies several times in the past and I was saddened to learn that one of my favourite carriers would cease to exist. As a French expat and oneworld flyer in the U.S., I liked OpenSkies for its perfect mix of what I like about British Airways but with French flair and elegance. *sigh* Au revoir OpenSkies ! ?

Living in Washington, DC, there are no non-stop oneworld options to France and I generally prefer to avoid connecting at Northeast U.S. airports in the summer unless I have time to build in a long layover to minimize risk of missing connections. With AA's Philadelphia hub being about 2 hours up I-95, I looked at non-stop flights out of PHL and found a good deal in Premium Economy. I'd been wanting to try AA's new Premium Economy and often find this class of service, positioned between Business and Economy, to be the perfect for short transatlantic flights.

I was impressed with the experience on the outbound flight–let's see if AA provides a consistent passenger experience in the new Premium Economy cabin.

Routing:

Philadelphia PHL ✈ Paris Roissy CDG | American Airlines, A330-200, Premium Economy
Paris Roissy CDG ✈ Philadelphia PHL | American Airlines, A330-200, Premium Economy

Check-in & Lounge

Being that it was the first Monday in September, a time of the year known in France as "la rentrée" (back-to-work/school), we left Paris to head out to the airport around 6:30 AM for our 10:30 AM flight to avoid morning rush hour traffic. We made it to the airport in just over a half hour and dropped off the rental car.

We were at Terminal 2A by 7:15

Check-in was very fast as there was no one in the Priority queue…or any other queue for that matter as you can see below.

We then headed through immigration and security, which was also very quick at this time of the morning.

Past security is a shopping area beyond which is found the elevator to the mezzanine level where the lounges of carriers serving Terminals 2A and 2C are located.

This lovely art piece hangs from the mezzanine level above the shopping area

The lounges are clearly labeled

Once upstairs, there are four airline lounges, of which two are oneworld carrier lounges located right next to each other: the American Airlines Admirals Club and the Cathay Pacific Lounge. When given a choice between an Admirals Club and any other oneworld carrier's lounge, I would usually chose the latter.

The Admirals club in Paris is actually quite nice compared to Admirals Clubs inside the US. It seems that US carriers often have nicer lounges outside of the US than within the US–though that is changing with the introduction of new upgraded lounges like the United Polaris and American Flagship lounges.

Either way, as I don't often have the opportunity to visit Cathay Pacific lounges, it was an easy choice.

The Cathay lounge is quite spacious with nice tarmac views and a good amount of seating.

At this early hour, we mostly had the lounge to ourselves and were able to get good seats facing the tarmac and south runways.

Quite a nice view for #AvGeeks

The food selection was decent, with hot options as well as traditional continental breakfast fare. Breakfast isn't the most exciting time of the day as far as food options go in most lounges, but there was a good amount of choice and a noodle bar. I was hoping there would be some dim sum like in the Honk Kong lounges.

Hot options

Meats and cheeses

Breads and pastries

Some drink options

My selection–I started with the hot options

And later got some pastries

I enjoyed the activity on the runways and tarmac during breakfast.

Air Algérie A330 with an Air France A380 landing

Our A330-200 arriving at the gate

The gate was just below the lounge…

Which was convenient for access and also for close-ups of the bird ^^

Hi-Fly A380 (formerly Singapore Airlines) flying on wet-lease for Air Austral

Delta Air Lines B767-300ER

American Airlines B777-200ER

Air Canada B777-300ER in the new livery

Boarding

After an enjoyable stay in the Cathay lounge, we headed to the gate and arrived as boarding began.

We were the first to arrive in the Premium Economy cabin. The cabin is comprised of 3 rows of seats in a 2-3-2 configuration.

My window seat in the bulkhead row.

As mentioned in the first report, I selected the first row as there is a bit more room and the seats in that row have full leg-rests, while seats in other rows have pull-down footrests.

Video screens in the first rows are in the armrests, while they are integrated to the seat-backs in other rows.

Very good legroom in the bulkhead row

Pre-placed on the seats were a pillow, blanket, noise-cancelling headphones, and amenity kit by Cole Haan.

View of aircraft parked at Terminal 2A from my seat

In the first row, video screens are located in the armrests.

There is one video screen on the bulkhead, which shows the moving map for most of the flight.

An El Al B737-900ER replaced the Air Algérie 737

Cabin crew handed out menus towards the end of boarding.

Drink menu on the reverse side.

A nice feature of Premium Economy is the ability to pre-order meals on AA.com. This feature was previously only available for First and Business class.

Boarding was completed early and the doors were closed as the safety video played.

First in English…

…and then in French.

The Flight

We pushed back a few minutes ahead of schedule.

There's always good planespotting during taxi in Paris.

Jet Airways A330-300

Gulf Air A330-200

Air Canada B777-300ER

American Airlines B777-200ER

Austrian A321

Air France A380 landing

Air France A330-200

Air China B787-9 and WestJet B737 MAX 8 at Terminal 1

Air China A330-200

Singapore Airlines A380

It's always cool to taxi over highways at CDG

Though it was a typically long taxi to the north runways, there was no wait for takeoff.

The clouds had cleared up and it turned out to be a sunny day.

We took off towards the East and make a U-turn.

Nice views of CDG as we swung back around to the west.

After takeoff, I put on a movie and relaxed. The IFE has good content with movies, TV series, documentaries, and music.

The leg-rests help make the flight more comfortable.

We headed out over the ocean off the coast of Normandy and Brittany.

About a half hour into the flight, cabin crew began the drink service followed by meal service.

There is only one drink service as the meal is served right after, so I asked for a Disaronno as my pre-meal drink and red wine (a Spanish Rioja) to go with lunch.

As on the way over, the drinks were served in plastic cups, so now I know it wasn't a fluke…it's just odd.

Shortly after came the meal tray. I had pre-ordered the chicken option on AA.com.

Seasonal salad
Basalmic vinaigrette

Grilled chicken breast
Grana Padano sauce, orzo pasta, grilled vegetables

Cheese and crackers

Cherry crumble cake

Main

A look at the other main dish option.

Emmental cheese risotto cakes
bulgur wheat, broccoli

The lunch was tasty and the presentation was good. Aside from the plastic cups, the catering had a generally premium feel.

After lunch I had a double Baileys and fell asleep watching a movie.

I slept most of the flight and woke up about an hour and a half out from Philadelphia.

The pre-arrival meal service began shortly after. A Thai noodle salad was an exotic and interesting choice, as well as a tasty one.

We began our descent as we reached the coast of New Jersey.

Atlantic City

The New Jersey side of the Delaware River a few seconds before landing.

Arrival

We landed at 12:24 PM, well ahead of schedule.

American B767-300ER

We parked on the far end of Terminal A-West

Being in the first row of Premium Economy, we were right by the door and were among the first to deplane.

With Global Entry, immigration took less than 2 minutes. Of course, getting through faster when you have bags just means you have to wait longer for the bags.

The first sentence of the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, signed in Philadelphia in 1776, adorns the walls of the International Arrivals hall.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"

Verdict

American Airlines

8.5/10

Cabin8.5

Cabin crew8.0

Entertainment/wifi9.0

Meal/catering8.5

Cathay Pacific Lounge

8.5/10

Comfort9.0

Meal/catering8.5

Entertainment/wifi8.5

Services8.0

Paris - CDG

8.3/10

Efficiency8.0

Access8.0

Services8.5

Cleanliness8.5

Philadelphia - PHL

7.9/10

Efficiency8.0

Access7.5

Services8.0

Cleanliness8.0

Conclusion

This second flight in Premium Economy convinced me that American Airlines offer a consistently good Premium Economy experience. The seats, also used as domestic First class on some narrowbody aircraft, are comfortable with good legroom, width,and decent recline. The IFE is top notch with plenty of content and a sharp image with good resolution. The catering is a very noticeable upgrade from Economy class, with meals resembling a slightly better version of US domestic First class catering. Meals are well presented on china with metal cutlery; however, drinks are served in plastic cups, which is one point that could be improved.

Cabin crew were pleasant and attentive, though again, as the Premium Economy cabin is rather new to pre-merger US Airways metal and crews, it felt like crews were not used to the service as it seemed very clumsy at times. On two separate occasions, different flight attendants dropped meal trays while tripping over each other--one of which ended up all over a passenger in the row behind me. The FA was very apologetic, but having a hot meal spilled all over you cannot be a pleasant experience. The other meal was dropped on the floor--thankfully with no victims this time. I have never seen one meal tray dropped in my many years of flying, much less 2 within 15 minutes. I'm not an in-flight service protocol expert, but I believe AA may need to re-think their service flow in Premium Economy, at least on the PMUS A330s as the meal services were consistently awkward on both flights and I believe using a drink cart, and then a cart for meal trays, when you only have 3 rows of seats, crowds the aisles and FAs end up tripping all over each other.

Although U.S. carriers were late to the Premium Economy party, I believe that years of observing the successes and failures of other carriers' Premium Economy products has allowed them to implement a solid product from the start. In my personal experience, having flown in this cabin class on several carriers, American Airlines offers one of the more premium experiences.

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Information on the route Paris (CDG) → Philadelphia (PHL)

Les contributeurs de Flight-Report ont posté 5 avis concernant 3 compagnies sur la ligne Paris (CDG) → Philadelphia (PHL).

Useful

La compagnie qui obtient la meilleure moyenne est Delta Air Lines avec 7.4/10.

La durée moyenne des vols est de 8 heures et 36 minutes.

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