Review of American Airlines flight from Miami to Lima in Business

Welcome to the second part of this series covering my flights home for the Christmas Break. The previous instalment covering my flight from Madrid to Miami can be found here.
After retrieving my phone I thanked the crew for their help and walked out of the plane. I was immediately met by a sea of people at passport control. The ESTA queue was huge but appeared to be moving quickly, however I had to queue with the mortals, the queue was completely packed and didn't seem to be moving at all. There seemed to be lots of families going to spend the holidays in Miami so you could feel the holiday vibe . There was no AC in the immigration hall and we were all sweating like pigs. It was one of those moments where you would really appreciate a shower, however there was obviously no time for such thing!

Then it was through baggage claim and turn right into flight connections. Security was extremely packed and having pre check wouldn't have made much of a difference anyway.
At that point my flight was supposed to start to be boarding and I was not in the mood to run to catch a five hour flight after having just gotten off a TATL. When making these sort of connections I like to leave a bit of time to enjoy the lounge and freshen up, however couldn't get anything else to work out. When I was walking towards the gate they did the final announcement for my flight saying that “if you have an assigned seat on this flight this was the last chance to board”, but I was still a good 5 to 10 minute walk away. I decided not to rush and that if I missed the connection, I could have been rebooked for later on or the next day.

I had to walk all the way towards the end of Terminal D.

Mighty 777
However when I arrived to the gate it was still open and some passengers were getting in. I heard that a passenger in Y got his seat swapped at the last minute and when the passenger before me boarded the agent said “ah, business, come on board then”.

I settled in seat 2A and a was soon offered a PDB by a female flight attendant. I chose OJ. Then the male purser came back offering the amenity kits. The purser presented himself and announced a flying time of 5:11hs. We took off without having to wait on hold and had some nice views over Miami. Too bad it was dark and was only taking pictures using my Iphone, because I could not get a decent shot.

Once airborne I tried to recline my seat, but nothing happened. I tried again pressing different buttons, but the seat would stay the same. I saw the purser and asked for help and he said he said he would come back to take a look at the seat. He did all he could and managed to raise it and get it to recline a bit. He told that the captain had advised the staff at the gate that the seat was broken and that they should have let me know before boarding. I guess that they may have called my name at some point, but at that time I was way behind! He seemed pissed by the fact that I wasn’t advised about this and suggested that I complained with AA. I told him not to worry and that I will set a claim.
Then my seatmate started to make conversation by asking how was the seat situation. He was a nice guy from Miami doing his final business trip before the end of the year. He seemed to be quite an AA regular, because when the purser offered drinks and mixed nuts, he asked him to warm up his nuts as that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
They started the meal service not long after I was back at my seat. The starter was a quinoa salad which was quite good. There were four main options which were ribs, chicken, beef or a burrito.

Interesting dish and tasted quite well too.
I originally chose the chicken but it wasn’t available anymore. The purser was apologetic and seemed disappointed that I did't managed to get my first meal choice. Not that I cared much about anyway! I ended up settling up for the ribs and turns out I had made the right choice. They were pretty flavourful and had some spicy touch which added even more taste to the dish. The crew was very proactive and friendly addressing everyone by name and doing multiple drink and bread runs around the cabin.

I wasn’t going to have dessert but ended up having the sundae and the purser insisted I take it with all of the toppings. I washed the meal down with a cup of tea and then went to sleep. I started to re watch Mike and Dave, however I slept hallway from the movie and woke up about an hour before landing, despite my seat not reclining. Not hard to do if you are a Y regular, I’d say or maybe I was just too tired.

There was supposed to be a pre-landing snack but I don’t know whether it was offered (and I was asleep by then) or not. I watched an episode of two broke girls before the captain announced that we were starting descent.
Landing was smooth and we were quickly let off the plane. There was no queue at immigration and my bag was one of the first off the belt. I saw the purser at customs, we had a small chat and he reminded me not to forget to complain about the seat situation.
All in all, this was a very good flight. Despite the broken seat, service was top notch. The male purser did a really good job throughout the flight, he was always attentive and delivered all requests with a smile. He really impressed me and I appreciated that he encouraged me to take action about the seat situation and get what I paid for rather than just say the typical “we’re sorry sir but there’s nothing we can do”.
I made a complaint and AA responded quickly with a USD 300 voucher for future travel in American. Personally, I would have thought they were going to send a bit more, but I can’t really complain.
Finally, sorry for the lack of photos and perhaps some detail about the flight, but I was too tired and couldn't be bothered to be snapping pictures around the cabin. I promise my next reports are going to be more detailed!
Thanks for reading. I hope you all had a very nice Christmas and have a happy New year! I should be back with more on a couple of weeks time. The return flights are going to see me fly AA's retrofitted 763's and a British queen of the skies back from Miami to LHR. I am already exited about those!