American Airlines

cson

Flying LHR - ORD in a few weeks, what are they like?

I've gone transatlantic with BA and EI and they were super - AVOD/food/service - free beer on the BA flight. How does AA compare?

BuffyBot

No AVOD, though the 777's have individual screens. Food - well pretty average to poor, depending on your taste. No free alcohol.

cson

Ah ****e.

Sounds like one of the worst products out there - I thought AVOD was pretty standard nowadays.

klypso

cson wrote: »

Ah ****e.

Sounds like one of the worst products out there - I thought AVOD was pretty standard nowadays.

You will get AVOD on AA's 777

Have a read of this - http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/trip_reports/read.main/171313/

Foggy43

AVOD is not the standard with all airlines. To make matters worse Hi8 Video Tapes are no longer being produced since the earthquake in Japan. They were only made there and unfortunatley the factory was seriously damaged or destroyed.

BA still have the old tape system. They have 17 B777-200's with the old GMIS (12 Video Tape Players) still in operation. BA will install the new Thales (AVOD) system on these aircraft after the remaining B777-300's are delivered.

seanmacc

I've flown AA a few times and everytime I have I always say to myself never again. Their transatlantic service is average at best, old fleet no individual screens and I have had issues with jobs worths of cabin crew every noe and again. One time my wife was flying with our at the time 16 month old son. After checking the buggy in at the gate and carrying the child onto the aircraft with a bag and a car seat she asked a stewart for assistance to get to her seat only to be told "I'm not allowed do that" and they turned their back to her. Their internal flights in the States are of even worse quality with older planes, less leg room and uncomfortable seats. They would want to be seriously cheap for us to fly with them again. We fly from Dublin to Portland Oregon three or mfour times a year so our options of carriers are very price dependent.

Bessarion

Foggy43 wrote: »

AVOD is not the standard with all airlines. To make matters worse Hi8 Video Tapes are no longer being produced since the earthquake in Japan. They were only made there and unfortunatley the factory was seriously damaged or destroyed.

I didn't realise that. I had read speculation about the impact of the quake/tsunami on future car/aircraft production.

cson

Any advice for surviving that LHR - ORD spin in Economy from anyone who's done it?

cson

Just to bump this;

767 on the way out; 777 on the way back.

By a country mile the worst airline I have ever flown with. Rude staff, dated planes, ****e food - I struggle to see how they could make their product any worse. Even the AVOD on the 777 was the worst I've ever seen; diabolical programming running on a loop.

owenc

This is good now we will know to avoid them when travelling to western usa etc. Thanks.

markpb

I can't say anything new. Flew AA from Dublin to Toronto via Chicago and won't be going near them ever again. Slow check-in, disinterested staff, uncomfortable seats and poor in-flight entertainment.

To top it off, when our flight from Toronto to Chicago was delayed by high wind causing us to miss our transatlantic flight home, the AA staff in Chicago and in the rebooking call centre were among the rudest people I have ever met. Americans are usually so friendly and helpful to customers but all AA staff (with one exception) seemed to hate dealing with customers. They ignored people, shouted at people, were rude to people, offered no information at all (when our flight was delayed a second time) and were reticent about giving us hotel and food vouchers (for a 36 hour delay).