Review of American Airlines flight from Dallas/Fort Worth to Los Angeles in Domestic First

introduction

Welcome to the sixth and final leg in this series of Flight-Reviews that took us from Southern California to Southern Chile and back again.

For years, Chile had been on the top of my travel bucket list and prominent Flight-Report member Pilpintu's beautiful Flight-Reports have always been an inspiration. However, the pandemic had other plans! As the Covid-era restricted us to travel between our two homes in Europe and the US for several years, this trip to Chile would mark our first trip outside of those two continents since 2020. And what an amazing trip it was! Such indescribably beautiful and raw nature, quaint towns, and friendly people with a fascinating culture mixing new and old world traditions. Photos and videos, which you'll find in the tourist bonus sections of the previous 3 reviews, just don't do justice to the majestic scenery of the Chilean lake district. Sadly, it was time to return to the US, but I fell in love with Chile and there's no doubt that we'll be back. 

This report is admittedly the least interesting flight of the six-segment routing. Originally booked on a 787-9, a schedule change a few months prior to the flight had us changed to a plain old domestic A321 for the final leg between DFW and LAX.

As I've covered AA's domestic First class experience many times, this flight review itself will be on the short side; however, this report will have the first review of the Flagship Lounge DFW on the English-language site.

routing

transit & flagship lounge

As mentioned at the end of the previous review, transiting from an international to a domestic flight in the U.S. is not usually an easy process when you have checked luggage.

1) First you must clear immigration controls
2) Then wait for baggage to be delivered and collect all checked bags–even if they've been checked to a final destination beyond the transit airport
3) After collecting all baggage, queue up again to clear U.S. customs with all baggage and customs documents
4) Once out of U.S. customs you must bring all checked bags to a transit re-check belt, where they will continue their journey onward to the final destination
5) And finally you must clear security checks again in order to access the gate for the next flight–and in the case of large airports like DFW, this often entails taking a train to another terminal.

This can all be pretty daunting after a long-haul flight, especially in the early morning hours arriving from an overnight flight. However, luckily we have Global Entry and TSA Pre-check access, which greatly speed up passing through immigrations, customs, and security, making for a smoother transit experience. 

It also helped that there was no one in the TSA Pre-check security lanes in International Terminal D due to few international flights departing so early in the morning. 
 

Since we were already in the International terminal and had about 2 hours before our next flight, we headed to the Flagship Lounge located in the same terminal prior to heading to our next flight in one of the Domestic terminals.

American's premium Flagship lounges can only be accessed when flying on international itineraries and are worlds better than standard Admiral's Clubs. 
 

The DFW Flagship lounge originally opened in May 2019, but less than a year later, it was closed for more than two years due to the pandemic. The lounge finally re-opened in May 2022. 
 
The lobby on the concourse level is shared with the new Capital One lounge, which is located adjacent to the AA Flagship Lounge. 

Like most Flagship Lounges, there you are greeted by a champagne station right as you walk in, which sets the tone for a more luxurious experience than typical U.S. lounges. 

The space is huge as the main walkway appears to go on forever.

There is a buffet, self-serve bar, and dining area to the right after the entrance. 

More seating areas all along the long corridor which all have great tarmac views being in front of huge windows. 

Towards the beck of the lounge, there is a separate quiet rest space with about a dozen comfortable lounge chairs. 

More seating areas in the far back of the lounge. It was very pleasantly quiet in the lounge that morning and there were entire empty sections. 

There are large flight information screens in several locations throughout the lounge. Our flight to LAX was showing on time and departing from Terminal B. 

Back to the buffet area to have a look. 

There is a nice variety of fresh food and hot options for breakfast. 

I wasn't hungry as I was still full from breakfast on the previous flight, and knew there'd be a meal again on the next flight, so only had some refreshments. 

It was so nice to have most of the dining area to ourselves. It made for a relaxing experiencing between flights. 

boarding

We left the Flagship lounge about 15 minutes before scheduled boarding time and headed to the inter-terminal "Skylink" train.
 

We could see our aircraft at the gate as we were coming down the escalators from the Skylink train. 
 

As we arrived at the gate, boarding had already begun, slightly ahead of schedule. We were able to board immediately through the Priority lane, skipping ahead of the long queue in the general boarding lane. 
 

The aircraft operating this flight was a pre-merger US Airways A321ceo with the new Oasis cabins. The nearly 100 pre-merger US A321s in the AA fleet were recently refurbished with new interiors as part of Project Oasis, which updated and standardised the cabins of AA's Boeing and Airbus domestic narrowbody fleets. The A321ceo interior is now virtually indistinguishable from the A321neo cabins, save for placement of exit rows.

Seats in the Domestic First class cabin are laid out in a 2-2 configuration over 5 rows. Seat pitch in non-bulkhead rows is 37" (94 cm), which is on the tighter side for domestic First class and 1" less than long-haul Premium Economy, which also has the same Collins MiQ seat model.  
 

There is more legroom in the bulkhead row; however, there are no cut-outs at foot level, so you can't really fully stretch out your legs if you're over 5'8" (173 cm) tall. Again, the legroom on the two long-haul Premium Economy flights in this itinerary was better . 
 

The A321 in AA's special "Stand Up to Cancer" livery was parked at the next gate. 

the flight

We pushed back from the gate early and were off on a crisp and clear late autumn morning.
 

There are no in-seat entertainment screens on these aircraft with the Oasis cabin interiors, which make up the vast majority of AA narrowbodies. There is streaming entertainment to personal devices, however, with a huge amount of content–the same found on widebodies. 
 

There are hundreds of films, TV series, documentaries, and multiple Live TV channels including live sports events and news.  This is actually better than the long-haul widebody fleet which had dropped the Live TV channels since the beginning of the pandemic for cost-savings, and only recently re-introduced one of two live channels.
 

Bulkhead rows have tablet holders built in to the tray table, whereas non-bulkhead rows have tablet holders in the seat-back at eye level. 

Breakfast was served about 45 minutes into the flight. I don't remember the options, but I believe the other options included a hot main, but I wasn't particularly hungry so went for the charcuterie and cheese plate. The meal was served with a side of fresh fruit and a tiny pastry. 
 

I always enjoy flying over the Western U.S. on a clear day with varied mountain and desert landscapes.  
 

As we crossed the mountains making our descent over the Los Angeles basin, it became overcast with scattered rain showers–not typical Southern California weather, but this was a preview of things to come during this abnormally rainy winter 2022-2023 season. 
 

 One of the rare times I'd seen more than a trickle of water in the L.A. river

There was enough clearing in the cloud cover to see downtown L.A. and the Hollywood hills. 

That's the famous Hollywood sign near the top of that mountain behind downtown, for those who may not be familiar. 
 

Another aircraft was also on final approach landing on a parallel runway. 

It's nice to see A380s making a come-back at LAX after a few years' lull during the pandemic. 

Last view of the cabin on deplaning. 

Thank you for reading this series of reviews and see you soon for a new flights!