Review of American Airlines flight Comayagua → Miami in Economy

introduction

Welcome everyone to another trip report! After spending a few weeks in Tegucigalpa, Honduras visiting beloved family & friends and exploring this beautiful Central American country it was sadly time to start heading back to the U.S.. I will truly miss all the exotic fruits, cheeses & meats I've tried here and hopefully I'll be back soon :)

Today's flight will be departing from the relatively new International airport of Palmerola in the city of Comayagua, about 1.5-2 hours drive north west of Tegucigalpa. It opened in late 2021 to replace the aging and dangerous airport of Toncontin in downtown Tegucigalpa. I managed to fly into Toncontin for the last time in Dec. 2021, a week before they closed for international operations. That landing will always stay with me for the rest of my life. I highly recommend you watch YouTube videos of the approach into that airport so you could understand what I mean ;).  

Nonetheless let's go ahead and start with the trip report. Our flight's departure was at 10:03am so we left my aunt's house in Tegucigalpa around 7am and sprinted to the airport.

Luckily there was no traffic leaving Tegucigalpa this morning so we made it to the airport in just over an hour.

Check-in

We arrived at the airport with no issues and proceeded to the checkin desks.

For some reason the AA app didn't allow us to do mobile check-in (probably a normal thing I'm not sure ?) so we go our passports verified & baggage checked in all in under 10 minutes. Next we headed to security check point.

Going through security and immigration was a bit hectic as you had to scan a QR code and fill information on the website where it generates another QR code needed to get through to immigration officers. Many older passengers including myself were having difficulty filling the new form online as it would start to glitch at certain points. This was because this policy had just rolled out in Honduras where they got rid of physical paper forms and introduced this new paper-free method. Nevertheless, I somehow got it to work and managed to help a few fellow passengers in the process and all in all the process took about 30 minutes before I made it airside. 

The airport was a bit empty. However there was one other flight operated by Avianca at the opposite end of the terminal departing shortly for Guatemala City. 

Since last being here a few months ago I've noticed that there are more shops and restaurants open. Before there was just a coffee shop (Espresso Americano) and a souvenir shop in the entire airport.  

The gate area

Some information about my plane:
Flight number: AA804 
Aircraft: Airbus A319-112
Registration: N733UW
Delivered: April 2000 

Boarding started on-time and we made our way down the jet bridge.

Boarding / the Flight

A closeup look at our 23 year old A319 delivered originally to US Airways before joining American Airlines in 2015.

Going back to the U.S. I had booked a basic economy ticket so I was pre-assigned seat of 26C (aisle seat). For me it didn't seem worth it to spend $28 to just reserve a window seat on this 2 hour flight. I also looked at the seat map for the flight in hopes it wouldn't be a full flight however it showed completely full right before boarding.  

Legroom was ok, I'm 5'9" or 176cm for reference

I decided to give it a shot and ask a passing flight attendant if by chance there would be an empty window seat. She did reassured me that it was a full flight but she was going to see what was available once the final paperwork was done. To my surprise she notified me that there was one empty window seat two rows ahead of me but that I needed to move asap as we were about to push back. I was very grateful and I thanked her as I really wanted to see the beautiful landscapes upon takeoff from Honduras :). I'm now at seat 23A.

Boarding was complete and this was a completely full flight.

We pushed back on time and shortly after the engines started up.
You can checkout the entire pushback & taxi video below:

Here's the other flight I was talking about earlier, an Avianca A320 preparing for it's short hop to Guatemala City.

This aircraft is showing it's age and needs a new coat of paint ?.

We'll be departing on runway 35

Flying directly over the city of Comayagua.

Eventually we reached cruising altitude of 34,000ft

Here's a look at the tray table.

Seat back contents:
safety card 

Inflight entertainment guide

Air sickness bag

inflight service

Not long after about 45 minutes into flight the FA's sprung into action and started the inflight service. Here is your typical North American offerings onboard AA which consisted of a choice of soft dink and a snack. 

Went with a good ole coke ;) though I also usually get tomato juice which is very delicious at 34,000ft ?

AA's inflight entertainment platform has a good amount of movies & tv shows to choose from 

After the service the flight went very uneventful and spent the rest of the time gazing through the beautiful tropical scenery below.

I spotted the coast of Quintana Roo, MX. For this route we seemed to have taken a more northerly closer to Mexico and around Cuba this time. 

Island of Cozumel, MX

30 minutes later we began our descent into Miami.

Flight attendants preparing the cabin for landing

Looks like today we'll be landing into a very cloudy Miami. 

We'll be landing on runway 6
You can check out the whole landing in the video below:

Welcome to Miami!

AA Airbus A321 just landed from Dallas/Fort Worth

DHL B767-300F

Arrival

A quick look at the mini 8 seat first class cabin

There goes that DHL aircraft we saw earlier.

Last look at our Airbus A319. Thanks for the safe ride ;)

This concludes my flight experience from Comayagua (XPL) to Miami (MIA), thanks for reading!