Review of American Airlines flight from Auckland to Los Angeles in Premium Eco

Introduction

Hello and welcome to the 4th and final flight review in this series taking us down to beautiful New Zealand. After a fantastic trip discovering both the North and South Islands as a family, it was time to head home to Southern California. 

American Airlines operate seasonal nonstop flights between Los Angeles and Auckland over the Southern Hemisphere summer. They only operate for a short few months between December and March–we were on one of the last flights of the 2024-2025 season. Note that AA fly year-round between Auckland and their mega-hub at Dallas-Fort Worth.

We'd had a very decent experience on the flight down to New Zealand. Let's see how the return flight will compare.

Routing

Flights in this series

Check-in & Lounge

Having driven the 2.5 hours from Rotorua, we returned our rental car back to the Domestic terminal, which is where we'd picked it up a few days earlier. 

We then headed out to the International terminal, which was a surprisingly long walk from the Domestic terminal. 

Luckily we only had cabin baggage and there was ample signage all along the way between the terminals. 

It just keeps going and going…

Almost there! It was when we walked through the parking garage that I realised we probably could have returned the rental car directly to the International terminal. Oh well, it's always good to get those steps in before a long flight!

Finally, we made it! 😅

A look at the departures board indicated that check-in for the AA LAX flight was not yet open.

We walked to the American Airlines ticket counter anyway and found that check-in was, in fact, already open. Likely because there was a flight to Dallas departing before our flight to LAX. 

There was quite a long wait in the standard Economy queue to the left, but no one at all in the Priority queue. 

Though we had checked in on the AA app and didn't have any bags to check, I wanted paper boarding passes in case I needed to do a missing Avios claim with British Airways. It happens so often I've become paranoid and ask for paper boarding passes every time to make the claim process more efficient if needed. 

We were checked in quickly and headed straight to security and passport control 

Security was a breeze as there was no need to take anything out of cabin baggage–all approved liquids and electronics just stay in, which speeds up the process considerably. 

We followed signage for the airline lounges, which are located on the upper level of the terminal. 

oneworld Business class passengers and frequent flyer status holders have access to the Qantas lounge here in Auckland. Thanks to our Emerald status, we had access to the Qantas First lounge. 

Agents at the entrance were very friendly and welcoming and pointed us to the left to the First lounge. 

There's a small business centre to the left upon walking in to the First section. There are several work stations, complimentary printing, and two "phone booths" with doors and a desk where one can take calls without bothering others. 

Some reading materials are available near the entrance. 

It was nice and quiet at that time as there weren't many departing flights. 

As it wasn't busy, we had no problem finding a nice quiet corner. 

The lovely lounge staff had offered my son a Qantas Kids pack with games, activities, and a magnetic drawing tablet. A wonderful gesture!

There's a decent variety of fresh food including hot dishes, though the level of the offering is more typical of Qantas Business lounges than First lounges. 

There's a ice cream cooler–you don't see that in lounges very often! My son was very excited when he discovered this 🤣

This is more what I was looking for 😉

A nice cold glass of champagne on a hot New Zealand summer day. 

Boarding

We left the lounge and made our way towards the gate a few minutes prior to boarding time. 

There's a quick passport check at the top of the escalators leading down to the gate. 

Boarding started a few minutes after we arrived at the gate, just slightly behind schedule. 

With oneworld Emerald status, we boarded with group 2 right after Business class–Premium Economy is normally called in group 4. 

There are 28 seats in the Premium Economy cabin arranged in a 2-3-2 layout over just 4 rows. 

As usual, we selected seats in the last row of the cabin. 

The first Economy cabin is right behind. Because the rows are not perfectly aligned in Premium Economy, with the window seats further back than the centre seats, the window side of the last row of Premium Economy protrudes a bit into the Economy cabin (see seatmap above). 

At each seat was a packaged set that included bedding, an amenity kit, and noise-cancelling headphones. I like the neck/lumbar pillow AA recently started providing in Premium Economy–much better than traditional pillows. 

There was also a bottle of water at each seat. Under the central armrest you'll find a small storage space, perfect for tablets or small laptops, a headphone jack, and a 110v universal power unit. 

The 38" seat pitch in long-haul Premium Economy is significantly better than the standard 31" in Economy. Seats are 19" wide vs 17" in Economy on the 787. This Collins Aerospace MiQ seat model is exactly the same as AA have across the majority of their narrowbody Domestic First class cabins with similar seat pitch and width. 

There's also a footrest in long-haul Premium Economy, something that Domestic First seats do not have. It definitely makes a difference in comfort to be able to raise your legs on long flights.

You'll find a USB-A port underneath the IFE screen along with another headphone jack. 

The in-flight entertainment remote and seat recline button are located on the side of the centre console. 

Checking out the IFE as boarding continues, there's a ton of content–hundreds of movies, tv shows, documentaries, music, and children's programming available in multiple languages. A big library of IFE content has always been one of AA's strong points. 

The Flight

Boarding wrapped up fairly quickly. The Premium Economy cabin ended up being completely full.

The flight pushed back from the gate about 10 minutes ahead of schedule. 

The safety video played as the aircraft taxied to the departure runway. 

The below image illustrates the time difference between the U.S. West Coast and New Zealand very well. People have often asked if the jetlag is rough given that there was a 21h time difference; however, many are surprised to hear that it's actually not bad at all! 

It was 3:44PM in Auckland and only three hours later in Los Angeles, 6:44PM. While, yes, with the dateline, it was yesterday in L.A. it's still technically only a 3-hour difference, so it's about the same as the time difference from the U.S. West Coast to East Coast. 

Taxi time was on the short side as Auckland airport isn't huge. 

Off we go for the Pacific crossing back to the U.S.

Beautiful views of the Auckland area on the climb out of AKL.

I was right to select seats on the right side as we were treated to great views of the city centre.

Flying just south of the CBD.

The Wi-Fi was available once the aircraft climbed over 10,000 ft

A relatively short flight at around 11h30m in the air altogether. 

Unlike the flight down, the Wi-Fi was not free on this return segment. 

Not only was it not free, but it was not even possible to pay for access. The $35 price tag is definitely not worth it if it can't even connect to begin with. I believe this older 787 was equipped with the Panasonic Wi-Fi as opposed to the aircraft with free Wi-Fi which was equipped with a better Viasat connection–though even it wasn't great as I explained in that flight review. 

After multiple attempts to try to connect, I just gave up. 

There was just enough bandwidth to display simple things in the AA app, which is thankfully free of charge. 

This aircraft was also not equipped with streaming entertainment, unlike the previous flight. Luckily, we had no issues with the in-seat entertainment. 

Though the IFE worked well, I did notice that the USB port under the screen seemed to come on and off randomly, as indicated by the blue light.

The first meal service began about an hour after takeoff. Despite the long duration of the flight, there was no separate pre-meal drink service like the flight over, it was all done at the same time.

I received my pre-ordered meal of Butter Chicken, which was quite good.

When the flight attendant asked what my son would like, I told her that we'd pre-ordered a child meal, same as the previous flight. She looked through her cart and didn't see it, but confirmed it was on the manifest. She then asked her colleague in the other aisle if she had the CHML, but she didn't have it either. The FA shrugged her shoulders and said "Hmm, I guess they forgot to load it." I get that things happen, but I wasn't too pleased with the lack of a real apology and a generally uncaring attitude. 

In the end it worked out because one of the options was Gnocchi in a gravy sauce, which is something kids generally like, so he was happy with it, not really knowing the difference. 

When it came time for dessert, which was a nice little fruit tart, I noticed we were only given one fork and one knife inside the napkin…no spoon or anything else. I wondered how we were supposed to eat the dessert as none of us had a spoon or extra fork.

I asked the flight attendant as she came by and again, she shrugged her shoulders, "yeah, we don't have any spoons." I replied politely that all we have is one dirty fork and as this is kind of creamy and gelatinous, it's not easy to eat with fingers either. She could not have cared less and just went about her business of collecting trays. 

Pretty pathetic that even Economy passengers had spoons, but we didn't have any in Premium Economy. The least they could have done is attempt to get a cutlery set from Economy, but nope! Maybe I'm just being a snooty Frenchman, but I find it pretty gross to have to eat dessert with a dirty fork that I just ate curry with!

One nice thing I like about AA long-haul flights is that they set up self-serve snacks and drinks in the galley between Business and Premium Economy for most of the flight. I like this space as it's a good place to stretch your legs on long flights without bothering anyone. 

There was a hot snack mid-flight with the option of a meat pie or vegetarian empanada. 

Oh look, now we have a spoon when we don't need one 🤣

It was simple, but a nice little snack. 

I slept for much of the second half of the flight so it went by quickly. 

I woke up as the sun was rising over the Pacific Ocean a little more than an hour before landing. 

For breakfast I went with the "American breakfast" again, like on the last flight. And guess what? NO SPOON AGAIN! 🤣

I mean I don't think I'm being too much of a diva here, but how in the world am I supposed to each yogurt without a spoon! I didn't even bother asking this time because, why even waste my time? But several other passengers did, and they were met with the same shoulder shrug and blank stare. Good times. 

A short video on U.S. Customs and immigration procedures was played shortly before landing. 

We landed a bit ahead of schedule. 

It's a bit rough arriving at the equivalent of 3:50AM New Zealand time, but the flight is long enough that I was able to get in a decent nap. 

With Global Entry and only carry-on bags, we breezed through in minutes.