Review: American Business Class 777-300ER Hong Kong to Dallas

Think you mean Terminal D at DFW? I can see the Grand Hyatt peeking out in your last photo, and D is where Immigration and Customs are located 🙂

I managed to get about four hours of sleep, and upon waking up found us right over the middle of the Pacific, cruising at 710+ miles per hour. Yowza!

At 35,000ft the speed of sound is 660.7MPH. Obviously your air speed wasn't that high, but still cool to think that your "ground speed" was above Mach 1.

@ Rob -- Good catch, fixed!

do you know if there's a similar bar setup in first class?

As you defined: Unmemorable!!! Unless AA biz is way cheaper than CX I would never trade of a CX flight for AA.

@ Santastico -- I agree, though I will say that for me personally the wifi is a big differentiator. Cathay Pacific is better in every other way, but having wifi on a 14+ hour flight is invaluable to me.

@Lucky: Totally agree that in your case wifi means a lot. As a business traveler where my company pays for my ticket I prefer to have an amazing service and an amazing seat for 14 hours after working for a full week in Asia with jet lag. Also, what really bothers me is that AA does not charge less than CX even knowing they offer a way worst product. Thus, if I have to spend $10k+ on a business class ticket I rather get the best quality vs wifi.

great report, thank you for posting, it seems like a great way to spend time on a mileage run!

Cheers,

PedroNY

Thanks for that Lucky. How did you know that there were 30 EXP members on the waiting list that didn't clear? I'm doing the DFW-HKG round trip in late November. I booked business on the way to HKG so I could system wide upgrade to first (I didn't want to chance booking a ticket and ending up in economy for that flight time), however, I booked economy on the way back. My upgrade hasn't cleared, unsurprisingly, but now I'm getting nervous after reading your trip report! Oh well, at least I have the outbound taken care of.

Do you think this flight is especially hard to get upgraded on as EXP? How did you get upgraded? I have a flight booked in mid/late Nov and am very very nervous. Couldn't even get MCE so that 14 hrs could get really uncomfortable with a 6'3" frame, both for me and my seat neighbors!!

"Interestingly there was also an upgrade list of about 30 people that didn’t clear, and at least half of them were Executive Platinum members."

Ben - how can you tell? (that half of them were EXP)

Thanks,

Good to hear you didn't change at your seat on this occasion.

"I did change into my pajamas before takeoff, though."

Ben-Were these provided to you or did you bring some of your own? If given, then that is yet another small element of the in-flight service where AA is doing things better than United. I just flew UAL Global First Tokyo-SFO and was surprised to find NO pajamas provided. It was a daytime departure but would think for such a long flight that it would be something available no matter the scheduled time. Also, the snack bar (or lack of one) was pretty depressing as far as the selection and quality of items offered.

@ Chris Stuart -- Because I know a few EXPs that were on the flight and were halfway down the upgrade list.

@ Eric -- Given how long it is, yes, I suspect it will be one of the toughest upgrades in the system. I confirmed upgrades at booking. When American first announced the route they had a ton of confirmable upgrade space, but now there's of course very little space to be confirmed in advance, so you do have to chance it in many cases.

@ matthewsf -- They were provided aboard.

Lucky: I fly American domestically a lot and often in first class (rarely on miles). The meals that you were served on this flight from Hong Kong to Dallas seem only maringally better than the slop, er, meals served domestically on American. It got me thinking.... Given the hefty fares charged by airlines for business class and first class (particularly on international flights), how much does it actually cost American (or, for example, Etihad or Singapore) to actually cater these biz and first class meals? For the food and inexpensive wine that you were served (I have never heard of Champagne Dangin, but what do I know?), did it cost American $50?? $75?? $100?? It would seem to me that if they are able to charge thousands of dollars more for biz and first class, it would not kill them to spend $20 or $30 extra to enhance their meal service and serve something a litttle bit more special. But maybe I have no clue what it takes to serve good food on a airline. Your thoughts? Thanks.

Brian

@ Brian -- I tend to agree. I suspect catering the entire meal service for one passenger in business class is a LOT less than $100, and probably even a lot less than $50.

Hey Lucky how fast was the wifi? We're you able to run any speed tests?

@Lucky

For signing up for the WiFi, do you know if the price is for a single device (iPad, laptop, etc) or for a multiple devices?

Thanks.

I live in Hong Kong, and do ~10x round-trip to the US each year on CX in J and F and bank to CX's program. There is zero chance I will ever switch my biz and take this AA flight. As long as price is identical to CX (~10k USD for round-trip J), I have no incentive to switch. I guess AA prefers to fill the plane up with guys buying cheap tickets...which is to Lucky's point this route is probably short lived.

For the same price I get AA's 77W, which has the same (in fact, licensed I think) J hard product of CX, and vastly inferior service. In F, the gulf is beyond enormous in favor of CX. I could care less about wifi for 14 hours. And there are no cheapo upgrades on CX J and F, meaning the cabins don't always go out full sometimes, and there are no systemwide coupons or equivalent. When I have to fly AA, I feel like I'm the idiot flying AA paying full fare J and F when I know a lot of people are in there using systemwide coupons or the AA mileage currency. There is almost no integrity to premium cabins. Not banking my miles to AA, I just know that I'm a huge sucker if I pay for the premium cabins on AA. Forget it.

I really wouldn't mind taking AA if the price was cheaper, but it's not....and I cannot justify shelling out the same cash I'd pay on CX to use this flight.

Believe it or not, there are many American business travelers who feel more comfortable flying on an American Airline (American, United, Delta) than a foreign airline. These are the type of people who might pick this flight over Cathay. It is their loss...

@ UnitedEf -- Didn't run speed tests. It's quite a bit slower than Gogo. So it's definitely best for responding to emails, etc., and not for watching videos or downloading stuff.

@ Min -- It's for one device at a time. So you can sign up for an account for the flight and then use your phone, log out, use your laptop, log out, etc. You just can't use more than a single device at a time, but can switch between devices over the course of a flight.

"I ordered the dim sum for brunch."

Looks more like a noodle plate with a side of dim sum...strange though that the Asian offerings were weak when departing from an Asian destination.

Which destinations does Qantas fly A380's to in the US? LA and anywhere else?

@ Al -- LAX and DFW.

I know that many are so enamoured with CX, but I've flown my share of them and it seems to be superficial. Are we really to get excited by after dinner cheese? They smile a lot, and are gracious when apologizing for running out of things, apologizing for marginal food, etc. I don't DISLIKE Cathay, but I think it is vastly overrated. I just returned last week from HKG, roundtrip CX F. Meh. Lots of extra miles burned for a larger seat.

I am intregued by this report. The snack bar looks really great. And the wifi is a huge plus for me. And I don't think you get the PJ's in CX J. 😉

The seats are the same, it looks like I can use fewer AsiaMiles roundtrip to HKG on American than I can on CX, will have reasonably comparable service, and have WIFI. What's not to like?

Did I miss in the report the cost of the wifi?

@ Mike -- Sorry, mentioned wifi cost on the outbound trip report. It's ~$20 for unlimited data. Very reasonable, in my opinion.

Yeah, I saw that right after I pressed POST. Again, great report. I am going to see about trying them next month. I think these seats would be cheaper using AsiaMiles than it would be to be to book J seats on CX using AsiaMiles.

I agree 100 per cent with Mike. I find CX service to so overrated. I have flown with them a lot in all cabins and now I find myself preferring the informal, casual, familiar approach of American. It was a different discussion when AA's hard product was dramatically inferior but now they are exactly the same. I am thrilled that AA is flying to HKG..here are a few reasons...no annoying endless inflight commercials on the entertainment system, no relentless announcements in 3 or sometimes 4 languages, no more small glasses for your wine and water. These things may seem small but they have grown to irritate me after a while. I'm looking at a flight in J in November (it's March now). The round trip cost is $4,000 from LAX...this is a steal. CX can't even come close

How did you find seat 4J in regards to it's proximity to the Lav. and Galley? I've read a lot of reviews with people complaining about the noise coming from these areas when seated in 4J (or 4A). I've got an upcoming trip and am currently in the mini cabin, but I don't want to get locked into a poor seat for 17 hours. Please advise.

@ flyinrian -- Personally haven't had any issues with it. One of my favorite seats.

I'm in the "lucky" seat (4d) on the aa 777-300er from jfk to lhr!!!

4j*