Review of American Airlines flight from Santiago to Dallas/Fort Worth in Business

introduction

Welcome to the fifth leg in this series of Flight-Reviews.

For years, Chile had been on the top of my travel bucket list and prominent Flight-Report member Pilpintu's beautiful Flight-Reports have always been an inspiration. However, the pandemic had other plans! As the Covid-era restricted us to travel between our two homes in Europe and the US for several years, this trip to Chile would mark our first trip outside of those two continents since 2020. And what an amazing trip it was! Such indescribably beautiful and raw nature, quaint towns, and friendly people with a fascinating culture mixing new and old world traditions. Photos and videos, which you'll find in the tourist bonus sections of these reviews, just don't do justice to the majestic scenery of the Chilean lake district. Sadly, it was time to return to the US, but I fell in love with Chile and there's no doubt that we'll be back. 

In this report we'll have a look at American Airlines' business class service on the 787-8. Those who read the first reviews in this series may remember that I had originally booked the American Airlines long-haul flights in Premium Economy intending to use SWUs (Systemwide Upgrade Certificates) to upgrade to Business class. For those not familiar with the AAdvantage mileage programme, top tier frequent flyers receive a certain amount of upgrade certificates each year that must be used on American Airlines-operated flights.

The upgrades hadn't cleared on the outbound flights, but they did on the return, thankfully! With only 25 seats in Business, the 787-8 is a tough aircraft on which to score an upgrade. 

routing

check-in & lounge

We took an Uber from our hotel in the chic and modern Providencia area of Santiago. It was a quick 20 minute drive as there was no traffic that day.

We were dropped off on the backside of Terminal 2, which was very quiet as it was mostly parking and not the normal drop-off zone.  

We took the skywalk across from the parking lot. The new Terminal 2 building is impressive and imposing!

A long corridor leads to the check-in area on the other end of the terminal. 

We arrive over the expansive check-in zone. 

A check of the information screens indicated the American Airlines check-in counters were in zone B.

It was still early so the AA ticket counters were still uncrowded. There was no wait through the Priority lanes and we were checked-in within minutes. 

Security was also a breeze and we were airside a few minutes later. Once airside I realised that the check-in staff hadn't indicated the location or name of the lounge. 

The new terminal is huge and the only lounge that was indicated by signage in the immediate area was the LATAM lounge, so we walked towards the gate to see if we could find the lounge. 

It was another long walk down long corridors.  

There was a children's play area towards the end of the concourse, across from the AA gates, so our 3 year old son was able to play for a while as I tried to figure out where the lounge was located. 

Checking on the AA app, the lounge information for SCL appeared to be outdated as the Andes Lounge is located in Terminal 1, now a purely domestic terminal. I was surprised the information was so out of date, considering American have been operating from Terminal 2 since it opened at the end of February 2022 and it was November 2022! 

Luckily, as the AA Miami flight was about to board, there were agents at the gate. I asked a gate agent about the location of the lounge. She indicated it was called the Pacific Club and located towards the entrance of the concourse. I thanked her and showed her on my phone that the information was different and outdated, to which she rudely replied "Listen, I work here, I think I know where our lounge is." I was taken aback by such a rude response, and simply replied that AA have had plenty of time to correct this information on their own website.

So we headed back down towards the entrance of the concourse and found the Pacific Club–it wasn't hard to find as there was a ridiculously long queue to get in!  

As we stood waiting in line I contacted AA to let them know about the outdated lounge information. 

They responded immediately that they'd advised the proper department–the AA Twitter team are always great and responsive in my experience! 

The very next day, the information on the website was updated. Yay! That was my good deed for the day, haha. I was still surprised that seemingly no one else had said anything in all those months. 

It was about a 20 minute wait to finally get into the lounge–I don't think I'd ever waited so long to enter a lounge. The wait would have been even longer, actually, if it weren't for a lounge agent going through the queue giving priority to business class passengers over Priority Pass holders, so we were able to skip a few spots ahead.

The agent was very friendly and apologetic, as were all staff we saw, but clearly they were overwhelmed by all the demand. The lounge itself is very small, with seating for around 50 only.  
 

I wanted to sit along the wall, but different sections were reserved for different carriers and it turned out to be the Air Canada section. The AA section was just 3 or 4 low tables with two chairs at each table! There was only one free table in the AA section when we arrived so I had to take my son on my lap until an adjacent table left. There wasn't even space to add an extra seat, not that we could because the chairs were nailed to the ground.  

The layout of the lounge is weird and cramped with a huge, mostly empty buffet area taking up most of the space and only two small seating areas on either end of the buffet area. There are no views to outside as the lounge is situated smack in the middle of the building. 

Food was nothing exciting, but there were quite a bit of fresh options and a few hot items. All individually wrapped per Covid safety measures still in place at the time. 

boarding

As we left the lounge to head to the gate, there were still people waiting to get in. 

As we were waiting for boarding to begin, one of the gate agents waves us up to pre-board with our son. An unexpected and pleasant surprise considering AA's policy has pre-boarding only for babies under 2 and our son was 3 1/2. The nice gesture helped to make up a bit for the rude encounter a few hours prior. 

Our aircraft, N811AB, was delivered in 2015 and features the older "Concept D" Business class cabin–a bespoke AA seat design manufactured by Zodiac Aerospace. For some quick background, only about half of the AA 787-8 and 777-200ER fleets are equipped with these seats. Seat delivery delays led to AA cancelling the contract with Zodiac in 2016 and equipping the rest of the 788 and 77E fleets with Collins Super Diamond reverse herringbone seats. 

As mentioned above, these Zodiac Concept D cabins are unique to American Airlines and have the particularity of featuring backwards facing seats in every, other row. 

My window seat in row 5 was a forward-facing seat, while the centre seats in that row are backwards-facing. 

A Pillows, blankets, an amenity kit, noise cancelling headphones, and dinner menu were pre-placed on the seats. 

Contents of the Shinola branded amenity kit were pretty standard with the usual eye mask, socks, hand cream, ear plugs, pen, and dental kit.

Welcome drinks were served shortly after settling in. The choices of champagne, orange juice, and water were still served in plastic cups, but that's nothing new. This was already the case pre-Covid for pre-departure drinks. 

Checking out the seat's features there are plenty of ways to keep electronic devices charges with two universal 110v AC power outlets and 2 USB ports.

touchscreen seat controls and in-flight entertainment remotes were also located on the side panel. 

Printed menus were re-introduced in 2021 after being discontinued for over a year and a half at the height of the pandemic.

There were 4 choices of mains for dinner and 3 dessert options, which is decent for long-haul Business class. For the wine list, there was one champagne, two reds, two whites, and a port for dessert, again pretty standard.  

The seats are spacious, though noticeably narrower at shoulder level than the newer Collins Super Diamond seats on some aircraft. Still, there's plenty of space. Very good legroom when upright and seats go fully flat with a comfortable bed length of 78" (2m) in bed mode. 

the flight

Boarding wrapped up quite early with the flight not being as full as on the way down. There were even quite a few empty seats in Business class which has been a rare site in recent years as the pandemic has driven more demand for premium cabins. 

We ended up pushing back from the gate 12 minutes ahead of schedule!

The safety video played as we pushed back from the gate and taxied to the departure runway. 

The cabin was bathed in light blue mood lighting as the cabin lights were dimmed for departure. I like the overall look of this cabin, though I have a slight preference for the newer cabins–not that these are old by any means, having been introduced in 2015. 

I always like to put on the airshow on departure. The Dallas flight is about an hour longer than the Miami flight at just over 9h of flying time. One of the nice features of the IFE system is the ability to browse films on the remote screen while having the airshow on the main screen and vice versa. Once I begin watching movies it's cool to have the moving map on the remote controller to know where we are at all times. 

And we're off! Wheels up before we were even scheduled to leave the gate. 

Welcome messages after takeoff.

This aircraft, like the vast majority of the AA fleet is equipped with Wi-Fi. 

The Wi-Fi portal has offers free flight information and essentially lets you navigate AA.com free of charge. 

As far as the pricing, the 2-hour pass for $19 is ridiculously expensive, making the full-flight pass for $24 on this 9h flight a much better value in comparison. While still expensive, it's in line with what I'm used to paying on British Airways and Iberia long-haul, which I fly more often than American. 

Bottles of water were distributed shortly after takeoff. I usually like to save it for the night. 

Shortly after, tablecloths were set and there was a hot towel service. 

Checking out the in-flight entertainment while waiting for dinner service to begin. There's tons of content with hundreds of films, series, documentaries, music, audio books, games, children's programming, and one channel of Live TV. 

The Bang & Olufsen noise-cancelling headphones are very high quality. 

Pre-dinner drinks were served with warm nuts. 

My son's child meal was served first. Once again, like on the way down, it looked nothing like a child meal. And in fact it looked suspiciously like the breaded chicken option in the menu. I honestly don't know if they forget to load CHMLs in premium cabins or they just don't actually have separate CHML options and just pass off one of the options as such. BA and IB do much better with the child meals in my experience. 

Here's a look at the seafood option:

Shrimp, squid, and white fish ragoût
roasted tomato sauce, couscous, black olives, sautéed spinach. 

While it wasn't terribly appealing visually, it was a creative dish and tasty I'm told.   

I went for the beef, which is something I rarely do on planes, but it sounded good to me on paper. And it turned out it was reasonably well cooked and tender.

Herb crusted beef tenderloin
chimichurri rojo, sweet potato purée, asparagus, roasted eggplant, zucchini 
 

Appetiser:

Smoked trout
Dijon potato salad with cucumber, cherry tomatoes

Seasonal greens & quinoa salad 
 

The portion of beef was a bit small, but everything was tasty and fresh. 

For dessert I had a mango tart, which I enjoyed with a glass of Port.

after-dinner chocolates

I never saw the bar area get set up with snacks and drinks, but it very well could have been as I fell asleep shortly after dinner and slept most of the rest of the flight. 

I slept for a good 6 hours or more and woke up as we were crossing over the Mexico-U.S. border. 

My son had barely touched his not-really-a-child-meal dinner so he was happy with his breakfast of fresh fruit, pastry, and yogurt. 

I went for the hot option.

Potato frittata
grilled ham, sautéed asparagus, red pepper 
seasonal fruit & pastries

There must have been a sale on asparagus to get a double dose for dinner and breakfast ?

Soon after the cabin was readied as we were on final descent into DFW.

We landed well ahead of schedule. 

And arrived at the gate a full half-hour before scheduled arrival time!

We were off the aircraft quickly being in the last row of Business by the boarding door.

As you can see from the wait times it was a very quiet morning for international arrivals. 

We finally got a good view of our aircraft heading to the baggage carousel.

As is norm in the U.S., we had to collect our luggage prior to going through customs and placing the bags on the recheck belt to then go on to our final destination of LAX. 

Connecting from international to domestic in the U.S. is never a fun process but having had a decent night's sleep and Global Entry helped to ease the pain. 

Tourism bonus - santiago de chile ⬇