Review: American Flagship First Dining Miami Airport

I've said this a few times, but at the end of the day, they will either have to expand access to this amenity or scale back the amenity a bit. Not enough people have access to it for it to be worth it to run.

Meh. I am born Miami. But, everything in this city is shotty.
We once up'ed ourselves to being the 6th Borough of NYC. --- the Southernmost point of Manhattan.
Now. We are the uppermost point of Havana.

AMEX Lounge is a total mess.

We deal with anything AA here..... its like 60% of all traffic.
Hope I can access at some point as a AA EXP member - at some point.

Strange that they wouldn’t offer breakfast to those areiveinh from BA on AA F in the early morning.

@ John -- That's true, I thought about that as well. Though I guess their thought is that it would be for at most 16 passengers, and chances are many of those have tight connections, are terminating in Miami, etc. I suspect it just isn't worth the cost.

Seems like AA is trying their best, but it's still amazing that they miss essential things like quick timing. AA should take a lesson from the Lufthansa First Class Wining & Dining at JFK. The timing and service there are very good (they also open on time and come and retrieve you from the senator lounge if you are a bit early). It's also nice to see AA offering a more premium champagne in the flagship dining, Taittinger 2009 vs. the non vintage Taittinger that was on the menu when you reviewed the JFK flagship dining. I don't know if this was just a menu printing error? but regardless it seems logical that the flagship dining should offer a more premium champagne than the one offered in the flagship lounge (Bollinger). In any case I'm glad to see AA has upped their game in this regard. I'm flying AA First JFK-LHR in January (I redeemed 85,000 AA miles + $5.60) so I'm excited to try out the flagship dining and see if they've ironed out the kinks.

What happened to the three class 777-300 departure to LAX? It used to leave around 5pm, but I do not see it available across the next week. Presumably if AA decides to reinstate this flight out of MIA, those Flagship First passengers would also have access, too, right?

Another quick question on access; do inbound Flagship First passengers have access? If you're arriving from LHR on a 777-300 flight and connecting to another AA flight, would you have access in that scenario? I guess the inbound South American 777-300 flights would arrive before the dining facility opens.

I agree with your point re: expanding access. I feel like AA should run the numbers to see if access could be expanded to include ConciergeKey (or even EXP) on departing international Flagship Business flights.

And one final point; completely agree that the Centurion Lounge is awful. I have complained many times. I often find there is not even a single free seat in the entire place and leave to go to the Admirals Club.

@ Sam -- It's no longer operating. That's because it used to continue to Sydney, but Sydney is now operated by a 787 rather than a 777. And yep, inbound passengers have access as well.

Rob in Miami
It's so true and so sad miami turned into a 3rd world banana republic

While good in concept, in execution they have taken a lot of space away from the Flagship Lounge, which they expanded access too, and will be very crowded.

Hi Lucky - So I get your preference for warm rice, but proper Poke is served with cold rice. In Japan or Hawaii you'd most likely get the Poke with cold or room temperature Sushi rice (rice with vinegar)

Seems so strange to sit down to a full meal before they stuff you with food on an international first class flight. I guess they needed some way to differentiate from business class since the on-board products are so similar these days on AA. Personally, I would love to see a sleeper service meal in the lounge like BA offers for the short transatlantic hops so I can go right to sleep after takeoff. It would make sense for a lot of the flights out of PHL to Europe. Although I guess you can pretty much make a meal out of the food they have in the FL these days.

1 EZE, 2 GRU, 1 LHR flight 8 FC would be 32 max pax.
32 passengers makes a very exclusive club. I might use
85,000 mi for a Gircl Class trip to Europe or South America in order to get in.

So can the flagship dining not be accessed if in BA first?

I usually won't go to a regular restaurant that has been open for less than a month because there are just so many service issues that need to be worked out for it to be an experience worth the money. This place has only been open about a week, give them a little time to get their act together. Also, with the food timing, they probably weren't expecting every starter to be ordered when they said they could feed you in 1hour, Just saying.... New staff, new facility, these things take time to gel and develop a rhythm. Definitely not an apologist for AA, but it only seems fair.

@ Till Eulenspiegel -- Correct, BA passengers don't get access.

@Chris, I believe all of AA's MIA flights are overnight flights. The idea is F customers, if they so choose, can enjoy a leisurely good-quality meal on the ground where their taste buds are fully perceptive, and then can just sleep onboard. I appreciate being able to do this on flights like JFK-LHR on BA or JFK-FRA on LH, for instance.

@lucky. Thanks - i’ll be there on NYE flying back to LHR in BA First, so was hoping to try it out. No big deal - I’m sure we’ll enjoy the rest of the lounge. Dining looks fantastic, though - especially for a US lounge. Thanks for sharing.

Would BA passengers flying F to Miami and connecting to a domestic or short haul AA flight have access as well?

@ Airways and Travels -- No they wouldn't. Only American first class passengers, with the exception of Cathay Pacific passengers departing JFK, due to a special arrangement.

lol ma'am you're too much! 🙂

This reminds me a lot of the Concorde Room. Those tall booths and the almost-comically oversized plates. Still, this actually looks like they hit the nail on the head, if they can make it last. The thing that always worries me, though, is that AA's on-board product (crews and food) are so hit-or-miss, and usually it's a miss. There's an incongruity here now. I've been to the Flagship Lounge at JFK (just a scant few weeks before Flagship First Dining opened, so I didn't get to try it out) and had a great time. But once you leave the confines of the lounge/dining room, you're thrust back into the reality of sometimes-palatable food served by "senior" FAs that bid for the flight and got it not because they love their job, but because they've been around a bit and enjoy the layover and tolerate the passengers long enough to endure the flight. I'd love to see AA take the time, care, and effort they're putting into Flagship Everything, and focus that on their soft product. They clearly have someone that knows what they're doing - or at least has taken cues from their QF and CX OneWorld partners.

Ben, from my experience, the servers and hosts are friendly and well intentioned, but they are not professional and polished. They seem unsure at times, and could use someone in management to oversee the customer experience.

The service in the Qantas F lounges is superior.

Ben, maybe I'm remembering inaccurately but doesn't AA also operate the three cabin A321T MIA -LAX?

@ Gaurav -- They haven't. They did fly a 777-300ER for a while on one daily flight and often also had a variety of other widebody aircraft, but never an A321T as far as I can remember. 🙂

Poke never has warm rice.

Arrived From LHR in First earlier this week connecting domestically in First and was denied access. I asked numerous staff. All had to check with someone - likely he same person, I imagine. According to my experience earlier this week you have to DEPART in 3 class First to gain entry, not ‘to/from’ as this article implies. The website isn’t clear either.

The 77W flight MIA LAX with 3 cabins was operating earlier in the year but has not been used for many months now.