Review: American First Class A321 New York To Los Angeles

So, I've flown this product maybe a half dozen times. I will say that sometimes I've had a *phenomenal* crew (shout out to FA Karen!). The last time I flew this product, I had a pursuer who forgot to bring the small plate AND salad to three different passengers (including my wife) in a First cabin with only 8 passengers (80% full). She dropped the entree on my table, and I had to separately flag her down to ask where the rest of my food was. "What do you want?" she asked. Um...the other stuff that's on the menu? Amazing that it happened to two others. We all looked at each other, wondering what was going on. So I agree with you on this point: Service makes *all* the difference on this route.

One other point. How do you know the other passengers were non-rev/employees? I have (once or maybe twice) in the past been upgraded from Business to First on this route when Economy was oversold. Not sure if you had any insight there.

Thanks!

"The gate area for LAX was quiet," -- Shouldn't that be JFK?

Flew the opposite routing in February and had the same impression, 100%. Our FAs were fun, though - cheeky and engaging and just the right amount of unprofessional at the right times because they knew their audience. Everything else, though, was absolutely mediocre and not worth what someone would pay if they'd used cash. The only thing about this flight that was premium was the F seat. The J product is the same as UA flies, so you can't really claim that as much of a marked improvement other than being newer seats.

And I love/hate the sundaes. Love them because I have a sweet tooth but hate them because they're so unimaginative and a total copout. Definitely not a first class experience. AA has a long way to go with this. So much potential squandered.

Typo in your flight info summary near the top:

Seat: 4A (Business Class)

Running out of (dessert)options in first class? That's sub par, if you ask me.

I flew the JFK-LAX first a few times and thought the seat was poor and not nearly as good as the seat on the 77W. Product is unremarkabel and I agree the soft product is lacking.

Also, bro, stop apoligizing for things like the forks etc. Not providing the right amount of forks is a big deal and makes the whole experience common. No more semi apologies!

Don't usually fly American, but if the first class cabin only had two paid seats before non-rev upgrades, wouldn't they offer the ones who paid first choice of meals and desserts so they can't "run out" before getting to one of the two people who booked that class of service?

Agree with @PalmBeachWasp -- I've been on the 77W from LAX-MIA, and its first-class product is far superior to this transcon. Much more space, and the seats have a massager! Thanks for the heads-up, Lucky. Will not be flying AA between LAX-JFK. I'll stick with JetBlue Mint.

we only fly first class and it is unreal on AA Kudos to Julio, Israel, and Latasha--stewards/stewardesses for making those 5-6h flights fly by! The quality of the food, seats, service are fantastic!

@ Jake -- You'd think so, but that's not how American does it. Once you're on the plane they took orders front to back or back to front, and don't take status into consideration. You can pre-order your main course, but that's it. Agree it doesn't make sense, but that's how they do it.

I believe the seats on the A321T are angled more sharply than the ones on the 77W, making them feel narrower and harder to get in and out of. I find the A321T F seats to be somewhat claustrophobic, which I never feel in the 77W J seats.

I agree that back in the day, when AA flew the 762s, F felt materially different from J. Now, not so much. I guess if you have a lot of time before the flight to enjoy the new Flagship First Dining, that might be a differentiating factor. But on balance, I don't find F to be worth all that much over J.

@Billiken - he means the gate for hte Los Angeles flight was quiet. Which makes sense given how empty he said the flight was

They should take food order by membership tier and do operational upgrades last. On this flight, with few revenue passengers on first, its not acceptable that they were out of your choice of dessert. With only 10 seats on a long flight, that shouldnt be difficult to manage.

I have a friend who says as a non-rev, this is one of the easiest routes for him to get a seat on (well, SFO-JFK in F). He says that revenue management is happy when there are at least 2 paying customers on the flight in F. Personally, I think they made the cabin too large (or could discount a bit to fill it up). You often see J oversold on this flight and F full of non-revs. Have never actually flown this myself, but I really don't see much of a difference between business and first on these routes other than direct aisle access. And J seat is "comfortable enough" for a route of this length. Service is really where AA could differentiate themselves - and in fairness to them, sometimes they do.

@ Ben - does it not seem odd (scary?) that they give you a pre-landing mint with the old American Airlines typeface - circa 2013?

I have flown JFK-SFO and LAX-JFK in F twice, both times I had a good experience but it's true, it wasn't the greatest. Food is marginally better than in J - and I overall like it for a domestic flight. Seat is very private and IFE is great. Also, FA's were good both times, the second time I'd say they were excellent (although they kept serving prosecco when I asked for Lanson...). Getting that type of seat on a domestic flight is without comparison - so can't really complain about it. Overall, this is a product tailored to the corporate clients, and apparently AA is very happy of how successful it is (I read in a LA newspaper some time ago I think)

“they didn’t used”?

"The privacy in this product is unbeatable for the domestic flights this plane operates."

I'd disagree and bestow that title on the the throne seat, with a door, on Jetblue Mint.

Add the service disparity on top of the privacy and B6's J class offering is decimates AA's F class offering.

This is a side note, but...
I find AA's terminal 8 to be offensively boring and tedious, and the opposite of a premium experience. Admittedly, by NYC standards it's well above average (at least it's not Newark/LaGuardia/JFK T2), but it feels like it was supposed to be a much nicer building that got budget cut by bean counters. It's particularly annoying to have to traverse 3 sets of escalators coming from gate 38 to baggage claim. While the flagship lounge is nice, it's a loooooong trek to that gate, and everything from the institutional grey walls to bought-in-bulk lighting to no paper towels at the gate bathrooms speak to the crapulence of American Airlines and the type of 'how much can we cut service' attitude they have.

JetBlue's T5 is a much more pleasant experience.

Nothing appealing to me about these "First Class" seats. Cramped, uncomfortable, claustrophobic. Very little foot and leg room. For me First Class is about being able to stretch out and be comfortable. That and some decent food and attentive service. Privacy was never an issue for me.

I've done these transcons several times in first to LAX and SFO. I love the seat of course, and I find the crews really variable. Sometimes (like the last time) I had an incredible crew who called everyone by their names, we had very attentive service and one of the FAs has been doing JFK-LAX for nearly 30 years!

The food can be like the crew: sometimes good, sometimes not so. I do like that you can order your main in advance. I completely agree with you though about nothing being truly special. It would be great if there was a special training perhaps for the crew working in first as there is on Jet Blue.

As always, thanks for your indefatigable work!

1) Why would American spend more on extra F amenities when no one is buying F in the first place? I know its a chicken and egg situation, but paid premium F in the US simply isn't that strong.

2) There has never really been strong paid F on this route because J is very good. You can buy business class for $700 or less if you plan ahead, get comparable food, double EQM, etc. Why would people pay extra for F?

3) The best part about this route is the plane. Both J and F are very "private." American and United's planes are bigger, and make it less appealing from that perspective.

4) While JetBlue mint is a great product, I'd still rather buy a J seat on American and earn 5,000 EQM each way. JetBlue Mint is also often more expensive than AA, Delta and United depending on what corporate contract you are flying on

@ Anthony -- I obviously don't have access to any numbers as they keep those private, but American management has claimed they're happy with their decision to keep first class on the route and that there's strong demand. If there weren't, then why bother having it? They could fit significantly more business class seats in the same area. As far as your point about "why would they invest more in the product?" I think it comes down to a chicken and egg argument. What comes first -- a product worth paying a premium for, or people paying a premium for a product that isn't worth it?

From what I have read here, these passengers for the most part are condescending snobs who do not understand how fortunate they are to have such great service on a domestic flight. THESE First class seats are not Cramped or Uncomfortable or Claustrophobic.
My observation is that the airline employees should Not be given first choice on menu selections over paying passengers. That is a No-Brainer.
Otherwise, on a Domestic Flight the service provided sounds wonderful.

I wonder how old that mint is... it still has the old logo on it from at the very latest early 2013...

I would fly this in Business or first as I have a dozen times in the past
but the economy seat is unacceptable if you want to fly coach and upgrade to business if you don't clear
First is a respectable seat but the food brings down the whole experience to coach with food Being American thinks that this redemption is worth 50k to 100 k each way I'll let them keep it
at 32k it made sense but the whole program and bad saver award inventory doesn't make sense so I have moved on!

The seat is definitely narrower than the similar seat on the 777, and is not a great seat for sleeping. I've only flown the route once and had phenomenal service, but I must have been lucky that day.

They definitely need to do something about the five-year-old mints they're handing out. I notice them every time I fly domestic F.

Variability is the order of the day with AA crews and food. You simply never know what you're going to get. It used to be you had a better chance of good service and excellent food on a flagship route like JFK-LAX, and a hard product to be proud of - but those A321Ts are approaching five years old and starting to look a bit scuffed and worn, with the infamous AA "security tape" showing up in lavatories and on wall panels. Under the Parker regime the premium routes are a total crapshoot, like everything else. Pay them lots of money, then roll the dice and see what you get.

@Lucky, what's wrong with a bottle of Dasani still water? They could have used the absolute cheapest brand of bottled water, for the convenience, it really doesn't matter. Its perfectly fine.

PS, Delta serves Dasani in First Class as well (albeit in the little bottles).

@John - every time I get one of those mints with the former logo I wonder how many millions of these wrappers they purchased. Buttermints don't have a 5 year shelf life, so I think it's reasonably safe to assume they're somewhat fresher. But still embarrassing.

The main courses seem very mushroom-centric with 3 of the 4 featuring mushrooms. Surprised all the mains weren't covered in cilantro, too.

Ben are the quality of of Bose headsets better on this aircraft ? I notice they are a different model than the ones on the 787 business class . Or are they all the same ?

More often than not people do not buy full fare first class tickets but the JFK LAX route can be lucrative. An athlete or celebrity comes along and purchases 4 round trip tickets that alone can be the cost of 60 economy tickets. Do the math.

"2) There has never really been strong paid F on this route because J is very good. You can buy business class for $700 or less if you plan ahead, get comparable food, double EQM, etc. Why would people pay extra for F?"

Well - Not saying it is as profitable as they want it to be, but there are a lot of people in LA & NY (and I guess SFO) who don't always fly private who have first class written into their deals. With a three class tier, it allows AA to charge an extra-extra premium for first, albeit discounted to corporate customers. As documented here and elsewhere, there is minimal service (and product cost) differences from J, so AA creams off pure profit from F customers. Which is why they can accept only 2 real paid F per flight.

Talking about the order for ordering, more than once I've been on a paid F ticket and been one of the last to get to order food on Delta (where I'm silver) or United (where I haven't had status for 20 years and actively avoid). Meanwhile as an American platinum I get to pick, as @Lucky says, in seating order. Better or worse? Fair or not? The FAs know the non-revs but they don't know the paid vs upgraded on most airlines unless you get upgraded after boarding. But on American if I pay for F I can always pre-order my meal. So there's that.

I was once the last person on a United flight to be asked for my meal order while on a paid F ticket and my colleague loudly pointed on that I was probably the only person in the cabin who had paid. The FA looked offended...

That's either a very large mint or a very small towel.

Air Canada takes food orders “by miles” according to the FA I asked. Regardless of how much (or if) you paid. I still think pre-ordering at online check in would be the more efficient way, and everyone gets what they want.

Your experience pretty much matches what I experienced the one time I flew the A321T SFO JFK. Except my seat didn't recline at all, nor did the second one I tried. Luckily the third (and last empty seat in F) did. So not too impressed with the seat nor the uninterested service.

Regarding tablecloth not fitting the tray, I'm guessing they have one standard tablecloth used across the fleet and the First Class trays on the A321T's are larger than most all other aircraft (where the tray tables are covered by the tablecloth.

I guess it isn't worth it for them to create a sub-fleet tablecloth.

Bose headphones are really overrated and overpriced.

Meow!

If you fly in coach, you can watch the IFE during boarding instead of waiting for ten minutes after takeoff before you can release the screen. Worth the extra $-1600 if you like IFE.

The "Gourmet Cheese Plate" reads like stuff one of the flight attendants picked up out of the 7/11 dairy case on her way to the airport, lol

LOL--William exactly--the "gourmet" cheese platter read like something from Wawas. Seriously, this the "best" 1st class AA can offer -crap from a convenience store? Any wonder why that airline was a bad joke?

I've flown this route several times and have always had excellent (or at least above average) in-flight service.
I usually fly on the weekends though and the number of non-revs in First is annoying - they typically spend a significant amount of time socializing with the crew. I'd prefer the cabin remain quiet and tranquil, as it was obviously designed to be.
As a few others have mentioned, the walk from the Flagship Lounge to the gate can be somewhat long. I'd think AA could easily use gates in the same part of the terminal as the lounge.

Why is the coffee mug so dirty & stained?

And what the heck is wrong with that towel . . . It's so tiny you'd think they made it just for Trump's hands.

There was also a bottle of Dasani water (which isn’t my favorite, but I at least appreciate that they have these)

I agree they so can't get H2O right. I'm giving up my AA status over this

This isn't remotely first class. Looks shoddy.

FWIW twice this month I have seen them take status into account in taking orders. I was on LHR-LAX with a colleague in J and she apologized to him that she had to take my order first since I was EXP which I chuckled at. Also was on LAX-SFO last week where the FA took a CK seated in the middle of the cabin's drink order before anyone else. Same thing with the snack basket. YMMV

Flown this flight about 10 times or so in F. Easiest UPG in the system from J > F, not so much from Y > J. Sometimes fares in F aren’t much more than J either. Do think they should have done only 4 F seats and maybe 28-30 J seats, but probably has to do with the structural requirements of the plane.

Love the F seats for a domestic product, but yes, they are narrower than the J seats on the 77W. They’re a different seat. Look similar, but it’s not the same.

You’re definitely right about the entertainment industry loving this route, but speaking from experience, most only get booked in J, and then they’ll get UPG’d. Only the top A-listers and execs get booked in F. However, all of the contracts with the entertainment give them access to flexible fares that are discounted but still expensive, so AA makes plenty on it. I’m sure even if they can sell a dozen or so $3-$4K fares a week on this route, it’s still probably worth having the cabin there.

Overall, a great product though. Love Mint, but I’m on the AA hamster wheel so.... :/

looks like typical american swill.