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#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
Welcome to my first FR! This trip report is the start of my first Central American round trip from Salt Lake City, UT to Comayagua, Honduras! I saw a few weeks prior that American Airlines was having some enticing award pricing on this destination and since I have family living there I decided why not ;) . This fare was a main cabin so I was able to strategically pick a good window seat with good window alignment (thanks to aerolopa!).
I'm also excited as this particular flight is on a rare seasonal nonstop service that AA offers between Salt Lake City & Miami. Only Delta of course is the other airline that offers year-round service to Miami from SLC. Moving on to the day of flight, since this was a after noon flight I had plenty of time all morning to get everything ready and make sure I didn't forget anything as I occasionally seem to do compared to when I have early morning departures. Can anyone relate? haha
On arrival to the airport I waved goodbye to my family as I made my way to the AA check-in desks to get a paper copy of my tickets & check my bags. AA counters are behind the first doors where as Delta are located at the far end of the check-in hall.
After stopping at the check-in desks, I dropped off my checked bags and made my way to security.
Knowing that I was flying another airline other than Delta, I knew my flight would be departing out of concourse B here in SLC. Walking to concourse B is a whole travel experience of itself as it takes you underneath the apron between concourse A & B. Luckily there are moving walkways available but also there have been plans to implement a train system to connect the two concourses in the near future.
After a 15 minute walk I finally made it to my gate where it was overflowing with people waiting to board the plane.
Some information about my plane:
Flight number: AA619
Aircraft: Airbus A321-231
Registration: N124AA
Delivered: September 2014
Boarding began on time. Being an AAdvantage member I was given group 6 boarding.
Made it to my seat (27A). Sorry for the lack of seat picture as oddly enough the back part of the plane was already full with people all around by the time my group was boarding and couldn't pause to take a quick picture. Usually a bulk of economy passengers come aboard in groups 7,8 & 9 however that isn't the case on this particular flight.
Legroom was pretty good. (I'm 5'9" or 176cm)
Individual USB outlets were available at each seat and universal power outlets (2 per every 3 seats).
My window view for the next 4 hours :)
Boarding is complete and of course this flight is 100% full. Not surprising as we are in the month of February where a lot of Utahns want to escape the freezing cold and head to warm and sunny Florida :)
As we pushed back the FA performed the manual safety instructions and provided info about our journey.
Passed by these parked Delta jets. Airbus A220-300, Boeing 737-800 & Airbus A319 (From left to right)
Snow capped mountains near the airport to remind us what we are leaving behind ?
Here's the full taxi and takeoff video:
Taking off on runway 34R
About 30 minutes later we reach cruising altitude of 32,000ft
Made use of the power outlet to charge my computer and explore the onboard entertainment. AA has a decent selection of movies & TV shows however it lacks an interactive map. The only thing that it provides in terms of the journey information is a tab that shows the flight's progress and time remaining :/
Seatback contents
About 45 minutes into flight the drinks and snacks service commenced. As this was a fairly long domestic flight I politely asked the FA if I could have a coffee and a coke. However she either did not hear me make those requests or flat-out didn't give me a second drink option and only gave me a coffee. I could however tell that this FA and her colleague pushing the cart were trying to rush the service and get it over. Not a nice way to start the journey but I didn't let it bother me.
This is the typical fare you get on a domestic American Airlines flight whether it's an hour flight or a 5.5hr transcontinental flight (e.g. PHL-SFO). Except though on flagship transcontinental flights such as JFK-LAX or JFK-SFO where you actually do get a meal in economy.
After the service it got very uneventful and couldn't really see much outside so I decided to take a quick nap and later woke up flying over the Mississippi River.
As with all eastbound flights, it began to get dark very quickly.
An hour before landing, for the very last service the FA's passed around cups of water.
Tallahassee, Florida
We flew over Tampa International airport (TPA)
We began our initial descent and cabin lights were turned on for FA's final safety checks.
Not long after the amazing bright lights of Miami started appearing.
Here's the full landing and taxi video:
Preparing to land on runway 12
While taxing to out gate, we got a treat of seeing 2 Boeing 777-300's heading to Europe this evening.
AIR FRANCE B777-300ER heading to Paris (CDG) flight time: 7h 56m
SWISS B777-300ER heading to Zurich (ZRH) flight time: 8h 31m
A 15 minute taxi later we arrived at our gate
That concludes my first leg of two on my journey to Honduras :) Thanks for reading!
Overall this was a typical domestic flight on American Airlines. The cabin on the A321 was clean however lacked an IFE system that is popular when flying competitors like Delta and soon to be United. The FA's on this flight weren't in the best of moods and really seemed tired and not wanting to be there which is ashamed. With American Airlines FAs it's almost a hit or miss when it comes to getting great cabin crews on your flights and not as consistent compared to Delta or Alaska Airlines in my past experiences. Lastly the inflight service was also very underwhelming as many other full service competitors would still squeeze in a second full drink service (especially on a 4 hour flight) at the end of a medium length flight as this one.
1 Comments
Thanks again for sharing and welcome!!
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