NEW YEAR - NEW FLIGHT REPORTS!
Flight routing
- 1AA2907 - Economy - Raleigh > Philadelphia - Airbus A319
- 2
- 3
- 4
Happy 2025! Welcome to my first flight report series of the year, where I fly AA A319s from RDU to BOS via PHL.
RDU AIRPORT
Welcome to Raleigh-Durham's Terminal 2 again!
I've already checked in with the AA mobile app, but I have to drop off my bag. Due to my status, I can use the priority line.
Security done, let's head to the gate!
Here's my plane for the flight up to Philly (and eventually to Boston as well, as you will see in my next report): N813AW. N813AW is a 24.8 year-old A319-132 that if you could tell by the registration, it was delivered to America West on May 17, 2000. America West opted for the IAE engines on their A319s at the time, and the former AW fleet is the only set of IAE-powered A319s in AA's fleet. After AW merged with US Airways, it became part of the US Airways fleet on September 27, 2005. After US merged with American, it became part of American's fleet on December 9, 2013, and has remained with AA since. AA is the largest customer of the A319.
Let's board!
ONBOARD
Not pictured here are 8 Collins MiQ seats in first class. The economy cabin (or "Main Cabin") has 120 Collins Pinnacle seats, of which 24 are sold as "Main Cabin Extra".
Legroom isn't the worst, but not the best.
The seatback contents are typical: safety card, IFE guide, and sick bag.
Classic early A320 PSU, although the bins have been replaced with Enhanced-style bins.
I guess the flight crew forgot to turn on the no-smoking sign? To be fair, the warnings on the tray table do include a "no smoking" disclaimer. My guess is that the flight crew assumed that this was an "electronics off" sign, like what some other ex-US aircraft had. But, the weird thing is that the set of flight crew that operated this plane to BOS afterwards also forgot to turn it on!
DEPARTURE
This A319 will be departing from RDU's runway 5R. Goodbye Raleigh!
IN-FLIGHT
Let's check out the BYOD IFE on my trusty Galaxy Tab S6 Lite.
There's a decent selection of movies and TV shows. Live TV is more limited and supplied by Dish, unlike the much better DirecTV system on the A321. The WiFi is powered by Intelsat, instead of the Viasat WiFi on the A321, which also has a free trial..
Not long after, the service began. The service consisted of a pack of Biscoffs and a drink of your choosing. I went with a coffee, partially for the fact that Biscoff naturally tastes much better dipped in coffee!
However, unlike Delta, the Biscoff is unbranded, despite the AA logo on the packaging.
Some nice views!
ARRIVAL
As this flight comes to a close, here are some nice views of the Philly skyline!
Welcome to Philadelphia!
Oh, and I forgot one more thing, each row of seats has 2 power outlets.
And with that, thank you for reading my first FR of 2025, and anything that I missed will be covered in the next report, when I take N813AW on the flight after this to BOS.
Thanks for sharing these reports on AA. I’m surprised that AA doesn’t operate a RDU-BOS route, seems like it could support at least an E170/175 given the demand that must exist to skim off some passengers from B6/DL. Two on-time flights in the winter is about as good as it gets on the East Coast so little to fault with AA.
Probably suggests it is a maintenance issue since they are probably always illuminated by default?
Nope. I flew another ex-AW A319 a few days later, and the no-smoking sign was also off. Probably had a different crew, too.