For long time readers, it will come as a surprise that I flew American Airlines anywhere.  Relax, this was a trip made on award points. I confess that I did regard this as an opportunity to re-check my thoughts regarding travel on American Airlines.

I scheduled myself to fly from DFW (Dallas / Fort Worth) to EWR (Newark, NJ) for my brother’s wedding.  When checking the schedule, I noticed right off that, once again, the flights available for this route all included what I like to refer to as the Ubiquitous MD-80.  Mostly MD-83 aircraft.

I despise the American Airlines MD-80 fleet.  They are old, very old, compared to virtually any other legacy airline fleet in the United States.  They are not well kept aircraft and lack any cabin updates that would be described as meaningful.  Their seats are extremely dated and you have to love (not) a seat that you can sit on and actually feel the support structure through the cushion.

It’s true that I’ve always liked the 3-2 seating configuration in this aircraft because only 1/5 of all seats are middle seats instead of 1/3.  That said, I readily acknowledge that the McDonnell Douglas DC-9 fuselage is not the most economical around and should have drifted away to retirement about 20 years ago.  China’s COMAC who is building the ARJ21 should take note.

There is a reason why the AA MD-80 fleet is seeing more and more mid-air engine shutdowns and other problems that are cancelling and grounding flights.  It isn’t well maintained.  Yes, the MD-80 is built like a brick outhouse but if it isn’t maintained in the manner of, say, Delta, it starts to deteriorate badly.

On my outbound trip, I watched another AA MD-83 lineup and do a full power take-off while we waited on the ramp for our turn.  This aircraft was a former TWA aircraft as it had the “TW” suffix to its registration.  It made it about 1/4 of the way down the runway, clearly suffered a problem as it appeared that thrust on the aircraft wasn’t equal and suddenly the aircraft did a rejected take-off and quite quickly took a high speed exit from the runway.

If AA pilots are feeling frustrated by this aircraft, I feel your pain.

So, let’s kick off the outbound segment of this trip.

American Airlines Flight 1554 (DFW – EWR)
Scheduled Departure Time:  11:40am  Actual Departure Time:  12:12pm
Scheduled Arrival Time:  03:49pm  Actual Arrival Time:  03:45pm

Arrival at DFW airport was smooth and I almost always use The Parking Spot on the north side of the airport because A) it’s far less expensive, B) I can get into the terminals as fast or faster than DFW long term parking and C) I can remember the name of the place.

I made it to the terminal and checked both my bags and then found myself killing some time because I actually arrived faster than I even planned thanks to a quick driver at the Parking Spot.  The terminal was fairly crowded and I’ve come to despise the bottlenecks at DFW known as the TSA.

DFW’s design isn’t TSA friendly and I get that it is expensive to run many entry points to DFW but, hey, that’s the design of the airport and better to accommodate it or redesign it.  In AA’s case, they just live with it.

I entered the line with AA Priority Access privileges and despite bypassing roughly 2/3’s of the crowd, it still took me approximately 15 minutes to pass through TSA.  I find it disappointing that after 11 years we still are removing shoes, belts, jackets and other items of clothing to get through security.  Even more disappointing with the new(ish) scanners in lieu of being sexually assaulted.  Yes, I used the scanner.  The backscatter scanners are quick(ish) but really don’t save anyone any time since we’re still removing our clothing, our jewelry, our wallets and our dignity.

The Dance of the Privileged Passengers aka boarding the aircraft was somewhat delayed and when begun, it was slow due to gate agents more interested in frantically locating standby passengers than, you know, filling the aircraft with those who were there.

First hint for AA:  Manage your standby passengers better and when you have more than 30 people waiting to go standby, make the call for the passenger once, maybe twice and move on to the next.  Don’t spend 10 minutes making repetitive announcements requesting that Johnny Doe please come to the counter for his standby ticket.  If Johnny isn’t interested enough in getting on the flight to be standing at the ready to get his ticket, move on to someone who is.

Despite Priority Access for this flight, I boarded after roughly 1/3 of the flight had already boarded.  It’s shocking how many people boarded for first class.  I counted 21 people going through as first class passengers.   The problem with that is that there are only 16 first class seats on that aircraft.  Right, so the gate agents weren’t really paying attention to whether or not it was someone’s turn.  I suspect this was true as well for Executive Platinum and Gold passengers given the number of those who went through.

Next hint for AA:  Don’t do this Dance of the Privileged Passengers unless you are truly willing to enforce who gets on by status.  Otherwise, it becomes a farce in which the dishonest are awarded with early boarding.  Although, one does question the sanity of a person who wants onto an AA flight early.

Passengers boarded in a disorganized and frantic fashion while literally claiming overhead bin space for their overstuffed carry-on bag as much as 5 or 6 rows away from arriving at their seat.  I boarded with a small briefcase and jacket.  Many seemed to be carrying considerably more than intended by current rules.  For instance, I’m pretty sure that a large purse, backpack and carry-on rollaboard was a bit over the line.

The flight finally departed the gate, struggled to the runway 100% full and did an exceptionally high powered takeoff to the north that took a fair bit of runway nonetheless.

We climbed fairly quickly, achieved cruise altitude pretty quickly and after the Chatty Captain finished his lengthy description of his flight plan, the flight attendants went to work doing their beverage service.

This beverage service was amusing to watch.  I was in seat 12A which was the 6th row back in economy. With 2 flight attendants working this service, you would expect it to move along reasonably well paced despite the full load of passengers.

You’d be wrong.  I timed it.  It took 38 minutes to reach me and offer me a beverage.  I requested and got orange juice and asked if there was food available.  There was in the form of either a roast beef or chicken sandwich.  I was hungry and asked for the roast beef sandwich while trying to offer my credit card.

I’m still waiting for that sandwich.  Folks across the aisle from me aren’t waiting for theirs.  Theirs came roughly 5 minutes after their request.   Another hint for American:  If you want to sell things on board and earn extra revenue, then deliver what’s been requested.  Furthermore, don’t make it hard to get later.   Seriously, you have to act like you want to sell the stuff to get people to buy it.

The aircraft arrived in New Jersey quickly taking just 2 hours, 33 minutes as a result of some very fast tailwinds that day.  Somehow my butt was still quite sore after what is a fairly short trip time.  I believe it was the metal structure it was riding on due to very worn cushion material.  I’m not one of those guys who minds thin cushions.  I don’t.  Airtran had fairly thin cushioning but it was cushioning.

Summary:

• Boarding experience:  B-
• Flight Crew experience:  C
• Onboard Seating experience:  D (Because there is no reason for this discomfort on a airliner today)

• Departure / Arrival experience:  A (but you got lucky with a high speed jetstream pushing the aircraft AA.)

Tomorrow, the return trip.

 

 

Filed under: Airline Service by ajax