Check in
AA uses Terminal D at Miami International Airport, and being booted off our cruise ship at 10:00am, we arrived five and a half hours before our 4:20pm departure to Madrid. We were only traveling with hand baggage, but the AA app would not allow us to check in online, so we visited the First-Class check-in area on account of our OneWorld Emerald status.
We were the only two customers in there and were a little surprised when the agent not only swiftly printed out our boarding passes but also escorted us through a little side door from the First Check in area, which cut the entire TSA queue, which was fairly long. Handing our passports over to the TSA agent, she bid us farewell.
Lounge
Being an AA hub, the airline has one of its Flagship Lounges at Miami International near gate D32. The lounge was easy to find. Depending on your eligibility, staff on level 1 directed you to level 2 for the Admirals Club Lounge or handed over a black invitation card for the Flagship Lounge on level 3. We went up to level three and handed over our invitation cards to the staff at the door.
The lounge had an aesthetic that fit perfectly with me. It is large, modern, and has loads of natural light on account of floor-to-ceiling windows and great views overlooking the apron. There were plenty of seating areas varying from dining tables and lazy recliners in the lighter and brighter area to more typical sofa-style seating and daybeds in the darker, more subdued back of the lounge. A few of the day beds are even in semi-private pods. Power sockets abounded, and the Wi-Fi was fast.
The lounge never felt busy at all the entire time we were there, and the large and varied buffet was well stocked with lots of fresh items, which reflected our 11am arrival was mainly breakfast. It included fruit, cold cuts, eggs made to order, pancakes, and chia pudding. After midday, more salad and all-day dining options replaced the breakfast selection. There is a large, tended bar as well as a dedicated Flagship First Dining room (although AA will phase out First altogether later this year). For those in the mood, there was also a Bloody Mary bar with all the bits and pieces.
There were other drink and snack stations dotted around the lounge with tea, coffee and coke branded soda machines that had some OTT customisation options that I loved. Fancy a sugar free, caffeine free, lemon flavoured Coke? No problem!
Boarding
Boarding started at 15:40 with ‘Concierge Key’ members called first and then Group 1 which included us. We had a friendly welcome at the door, and I was unexpectedly impressed by first impressions of the business class cabin when I entered the 777. The colour palette, mood lighting and woodgrain effect all contributed to a fairly classy feel. First thing I clocked was that we were on one of the aircraft with the forward facing/rearward facing alternating seats known as the ‘concept D’ product.
AA has direct aisle access 1-2-1 business class seating on all of their 777-200’s but two different seating products. Both the ‘concept D’ and the ‘super diamond’ 777-200’s have 37 business, 24 premium economy and 212 economy seats. And it is actually impossible to tell which seating product you will fly on by looking at the seat map, so it is a little bit ‘business seat surprise’. The seats at first glance looked comfortable and felt high end with the casing of the seat a kind of textured grey panelling instead of the usual ‘airline white/cream plastic’.
Already at the seat was the Casper bedding, bang and Olufsen headphones, a washbag with Shinola products and the menu.
A choice of Cava or OJ was offered by a flight attendant sporting a pink bow tie in recognition of the breast cancer charity AA supports. As a US carrier, this was naturally served in a plastic cup, which, despite the lack of premium feel, does serve a practical purpose. On airlines that use glassware, this will all need to be collected once the crew secures the cabin, whether you have finished your drink or not. Obviously, with a plastic glass, you are free to hang onto that Cava and have a sip as you hurtle down the runway.
The crew took the main course order on the ground, and I was glad I had pre ordered mine as I overheard the flight attendant advising a passenger across from us that he had run out of two of the four main course options. At this stage I was also asked if I wanted to be woken for breakfast before landing.
Boarding was complete by 4:10pm, door closed at 4:20pm and we were airborne at 4:38pm. There were obviously some very strong winds over the Atlantic as our flight time was 7hr35min versus 9hr40 minutes on the same route the way over.
The seat
Business Class is spread over two cabins with rows 1- 5 in the forward cabin and a slightly smaller cabin of four rows behind doors 2. I had selected 9L and 10L for Fer and me, window seats of the last two rows. The seats alternate forward and rearward facing, and I found my rearward-facing seat extremely comfortable. The only downside I would say is that this design has a lack of stowage apart from a small shelf and area for your water bottle, it is just the overhead locker.
There were plenty of charging points with two universal plug sockets as well as two USB-A ports. The seat can be adjusted by using the buttons on a touchscreen, although there are also two ‘quick buttons’ for flatbed mode or take off/landing mode. A good-sized IFE screen is released by a button and flips out, and a large wood grain effect table that can also fold in half is stowed in the armrest. Impressively, there were also two individual air nozzles (sometimes it’s the small things!).
I had read in other reviews of this particular seat that some report that the seat physically wobbles whenever the person in the adjacent seat moves (the forward and rearward seats comprise the same attachment to the floor); however, I did not experience this at all.
Inflight
The Flight Attendants sprang into action quickly after take-off with hot towels offered and then a tablecloth laid. Within 25 minutes of take off I had a glass of French red, a glass of sparkling water and some mixed warmed nuts in front of me which is impressive.
It was only five or so minutes after that my tray was delivered which contained the starter and salad as well as a choice of bread from the basket. Top ups were also proactively offered. The salad was nice and fresh although the ‘sundried tomato tartar’ starter was not really to my taste, a bit dry and bland.
The starters cleared, and the main of bourbon-glazed salmon with rice was delivered. It was a nice meal, although a little dry. Bread and wine toppings were also made again. The other main choices were peppercorn seared beef fillet, golden roast chicken, or cheese enchiladas.
Within just an hour of taking off the entire tray was cleared, and I was offered dessert (sundae or lemon tart) or cheese and trying to be good (well, less bad) I went for the cheese. The Flight Attendant was testing my will as he asked if I would like the sundae as well, but I resisted.
I was really impressed with the pace of the service. Within one hour and ten minutes of take off I had my cheese plate in front of me. The service was efficient yet it also never felt rushed and there was no faffing exactly what you want on a short overnight flight.
I appreciated that breakfast started just an hour before landing which allowed a good 4 or 5 hours sleep instead of some airlines that start the pre landing service unnecessarily earlier on overnight flights. The breakfast was a very generous offering of a fruit bowl, Greek yoghurt, granola as well as a hot dish of scrambled eggs and bacon which was all served at once on a tray.
The headsets were collected 45 minutes before landing, which is the price to pay for using such expensive tech. It would be great if they could look at what Air France and Lufthansa do with their headphones and simply hardwire them into the socket.
Given the on-time departure and fairly quick flight time, we landed in Madrid at 05:20, almost an hour before our scheduled arrival.
Staff Service
Inflight service on US carriers is often polarising and can run the gauntlet from appalling to exceptional. I think much of this is down to a lack of leadership onboard flights where most non-US airlines will have some form of management structure onboard whereas US carriers typically have a ‘lead’ flight attendant which is just a regular FA that gets paid a few bucks extra that day to do all the paperwork and announcements.
On our flight we were predominantly looked after by one MIA based crew member, Aldo, who was an absolute rock star. Welcoming, professional, warm, engaging and even a little funny (‘you still not found something to watch yet’) after observing me flick through the IFE options for a good half an hour) he ticked every box of what you could want in a premium cabin on a flight.
Final thoughts:
US carriers tended to previously be viewed as a lower standard in terms of customer experience than the European airlines across the Atlantic however from this experience with AA I would say it offers good competition to their cousins across the pond. There is little faff or pomp but everything just seemed to work very well – the ability to pre-select your main, check in was efficient, the simple yet effective walk to the front of the security line, great lounge that wasn’t crowded, stress free boarding, excellent punctuality, decent catering and where we were very lucky, inflight service that was up there with the best as it really did seem to come from the heart. Dare I say it, when purchasing a transatlantic business class flight from Europe to the US, AA would be one of the Joint Venture airlines (BA, Iberia, Finnair) that I would likely seek out.
