About Flight AA51

Originally published on Tumblr.

American Airlines is graceless. Can I say that about an airline? I think so. They aren’t terrible – there’s too much competition for terrible in the industry to use that word – but they aren’t good. They’re competent. Nothing about their product is impressive. I think graceless describes them well.

I fly American a lot. I fly American because I’ve flown with them so much I have permanent status. I fly American because they’re usually the cheapest option.

It’s too easy bashing an airline, but I think it’s important to warn people about particularly bad routes, so that they can prepare. This is a about American flight 51, from London to Dallas.

I take AA51 about once a month. It’s advertised as a route with in-flight wifi. That’s true in theory, but it turns out that in-flight wifi doesn’t work if the antenna is broken. The service hasn’t worked during 3 of my last 4 flights. Some stewards will admit that it won’t work until maintenance deals with the antenna, but most pretend to try to fix the problem with a “reboot”. This makes me wonder if the reboot theater is part of the staff’s training or ignorance. It also makes me wonder why fixing the antenna is so low on maintenance’s priority list. Would they allow a plane to fly without a working entertainment system?

But the truly bewildering aspect of AA51 is their food service.

The flight leaves at 9:45, which means waking up somewhere between 5:30 and 6:00 to catch it. If you’re like most people, you figure you’ll just have breakfast on the plane. That would be wrong. Soon after the plane takes off the stewards cheerfully pass around aperitif snacks. When you ask if they’re serving breakfast, they say “yes”, and a few minutes later show up with the hot food trolly of “chicken or pasta?”.

With so many more hours to go you figure they’ll serve another meal before they land. Wrong again. About half way through the flight someone brings you another mini bag of nibbles. By that time your body thinks it’s lunch time.

If that 25 calorie bag of sustenance keeps you alive until close to the end of the 9 hour flight, you’ll be offered the famous American Airlines pizza. It’s easily their best cost-cutting measure ever, because even starving people won’t eat it. It’s brilliant.

Right before the AA51 gate at Heathrow, a little sandwich shop has hung a sign saying: “Don’t forget food and drink for your journey.” They should be more explicit and write: “Last real food till Dallas”. Whatever you do, heed their advice. Buy a sandwich. Buy some potato chips. Anything.

If you forget, let me know if you manage to eat the pizza without breaking the fork.