Greeting and welcome to another flight report! Today I will be flying g from LHR to CLT on American Airlines. After a drive from Lewes, I had arrived at Heathrow. Funnily enough, on the way to the airport, there were signs indicating where to go to the long closed Terminal 1. Not long after, I had an impressive view of the entirety of British Airways' Terminal 5.
I headed to Terminal 3 and went straight to bag check. After a long-is line, my bags were checked and I headed to security. The line was relatively short and soon I was released into the gaudy duty free area. I wasted no time in finding my gate. On the way, I got a glimpse of an Iran Air A330, which satisfied my inner AvGeek.
Before long, boarding was called and soon enough, I was onboard.
There had been an aircraft swap in which our flight switched to an A330-200 from an A330-300. With the smaller plane, seat assignments were all mixed up, but thankfully I didn't encounter any related issues. I wasn't expecting power, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a USB port in the armrest by accident. There was a cheap blanket and pillow at every seat.
As for the IFE, it was dated, slow, and had a quite limited entertainment selection. There was Before long, the annoying safety video was screened as we were pushing back. I really miss hearing "There are so many places to go in this world"-It reminds me of a better time with less cost-cutting.
We had a short taxi to the runway on which I saw the stunning as always BA Concorde.
Soon, we were ascending through the gloomy London skies.
Upon reaching cruising altitude, a beverage service commenced. This was followed by meal choices (I only remember what I chose, which was shepherds pie). Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the meal. It tasted ok but didn't look appetizing in the slightest.
After the meal ended, the crew disappeared for a couple hours for their break. They left a snack basket in the galley from which I took a bag of pretzels purely because of the pun on the bag.
Around halfway through the flight, vanilla ice cream was distributed, which was a nice touch and it was surprisingly high quality.
Before landing, another round of drinks was offered as well as a pre-landing snack, which I declined. Before long, we had begun our scenic approach into CLT. The views of lakes and the suburbs surrounding them were breathtaking.
We had a short taxi to the gate on which we had great views of all the AA planes there.
Upon disembarking, I bypassed immigration and re-cleared security and spend the rest of my time before my flight to DCA at a restaurant eating cheap sushi.
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And from PMAA metal we go to PMUS metal for the return and what a difference! It's really a shame that all AA could do to these ancient A330 cabins was slap on some new seat covers--meanwhile all PMAA long-haul metal got fantastic makeovers.
That's a shame to hear. In my experience, PMUS crews were generally the more consistently nicer, whereas PMAA crews could be hit or miss (usually super nice, but I've had my share of surly and rude).
I'll admit I've only flow up front the A330s--I didn't know it was looking so rough back there. And this flight was a year and a half ago...I can't imagine how run down the cabins look now! Yikes.
I guess the takeaway from this series of FRs is avoid PMUS A330s if flying in the back.
Thanks for sharing!