Review of American Airlines flight Dallas/Fort Worth → Los Angeles in Business

When United Airlines announced the inaugural flight of their new 787-10 aircraft for January 7th, 2019 I knew I wanted to be on it. However that flight departed from Los Angeles and I was in the United States 3rd largest city, Chicago.

Shortly after I booked the UA flight I began looking for flights to LA. It’s almost better to find revenue flights between these cities as saver redemptions for Business/First are typically around 25,000 points. There were a bunch available on AA with stops somewhere, even going east to Philadelphia then west to LA. United doesn’t have domestic Saver Awards anymore that I can find. Alaska had a direct flight that could have been booked on their own site or with American at 25,000 points. The flight was $450 I believe. That’s about 1.8 cents value, I value my points to be worth much more than that.

Unless you come up with this for 25,000 AA points and a desire to fly both variants of American’s 787:



AA 2300 was a 787-8
AA 84 was a 787-9
UA inaugural of course was a 787-10

American Airlines 787-8 Business/First Class ORD-DFW - click to view

American Airlines 787-9 Business/First Class DFW-ORD - this report

United Airlines 787-10 Business/First p.s. Transcon LAX-EWR - to come
United Airlines 737-900 First Class ORD-EWR plus Classified dining - to come



AA2300 from Chicago arrived in Terminal A so I needed to take the tram to Terminal D to catch AA84 to LAX. It’s an easy journey, especially late on a Saturday night. The flight boarded on time.

Notice the 2 flight attendants chatting when boarding commenced. That would be their #1 priority throughout the flight.



The 30 Super Diamond business class seats are all located in the front cabin before door 2. This is pretty typical among carriers fitting 1x2x1 all aisle access where they fit 28-30 seats up front. Air Canada flies the 787-9 with the same 30 Super Diamond seats in the front cabin as well.


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The single front lavatory behind the cockpit wasn’t nearly as big as the 787-8, however that one was at door two. Maybe the same configuration applied on this aircraft.


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I had selected Row 1 seat A which garners the automatic yellow flag on SeatGuru for being “too close” to the galley. They also wrongly state that there is no floor storage at this seat.



Looks like plenty of room to me.



The galley is a fair distance away. The issue is when the flight attendants leave the curtain open and talk the whole flight.



Super Diamond seats are well documented. There didn’t seem to be any special modifications to the American version.


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Small containers for storage. I’m still not sure what is expected to be placed in some of these. Some airlines place a water bottle in the aisle-side armrest that opens.



Window controls are actually below the side wall of the pod.



The serving tray in the Super Diamond can be used as a half tray or folded out for full size. I wouldn’t be needing the full size on this flight.



Standard touch pad seat controls.



Plenty of power ports in the compartment that holds the IFE controller.



And the aircraft has overhead air nozzles.



We departed on time. The cabin lights were dimmed. They were never turned back on until arriving in LAX where we sat on the tarmac for 40 minutes due to whatever. Granted the weather in LA wasn’t great. Just after takeoff I could smell the cookies being heated. Before reaching cruising altitude a cookie was passed out. (No photo as the cabin was too dark.) I asked for a glass of wine.



Apparently the flight attendants thought they were done. Granted this is a 10PM departure so I didn’t expect a meal. But I did want a 2nd glass of wine and had to ring the call button to get an FA. They had no interest in being in the cabin. Their chat fest in the galley continued all flight. In this case SeatGuru was correct about being too close to the galley.

Arriving in the LA area where a significant storm had just passed.



Flight path.




To see how this flight compares to other short haul wide-body flight click this link to reward flying