Review of American Airlines flight from Salt Lake City to Dallas/Fort Worth in Domestic First

introduction

Greetings everyone! Welcome to another trip report. A few weeks prior, American Airlines was having a web sale on first class tickets to Central America. I don't normally if not ever pay for first or business class ticket unless I use miles or if my elite status allows for a complimentary upgrade. However, AA had first class fares at around $600 r/t (only $100 more from main cabin fare) from Salt Lake City to Honduras and for me that was a steal! Not to mention it included 2 free checked bags and even lounge access to the admirals club since it was a Central American first class flight. The only down side was that it was 2 days of travel with three legs and I would have to spend 8 hours in Dallas (overnight) and another 3 hours in Miami. I was also quite excited that my DFW-MIA flight would be on a Boeing 777-300 in business class so stay tuned for that trip report ;). 
On the day of flight we made our way to the AA check-in desks and used the priority lane to drop off our checked bags & made our way later to security.  

I like the fact that AA still offers card stock boarding passes instead of the thin receipt paper ones every other airline does now. 

Surprisingly for this being a Saturday there was no line at tsa security!

Made it through security in a matter of minutes. Afterwards I looked at the flight board to learn that our flight had a 50 minute delay. 

After walking for 20 minutes we finally made it to concourse B. 

Here comes my Airbus A321-200 inbound from Dallas/Fort Worth 

After a quick turn around they finally allowed us to board with group 1.

Some information about my plane:
Flight number: AA2846
 Aircraft: Airbus A321-211
Registration: N182UW
Delivered: July 2001 

The flight

My flight to Dallas/Forth Worth will be operated by a 20yr old ex. US Airways A321. She is configured in 16 First class, 46 Main cabin extra & 119 Main Cabin. This particular aircraft configuration has a slightly smaller first class cabin compared to most A321's that have 20 seats instead of 16 as this one. 

My seat 1F. Oddly enough I initially selected seat 4A for a better wing & engine view however my seat was involuntarily changed to 1F before check-in which I thought was very weird. My other 2 flights were not at all affected though and just this one. Still I guess the bulkhead was completely bad as you can easily get up and around the cabin.

Legroom was of course still very good here ;)

A Delta B737-800 bound for Portland (PDX)

My view for the next 2 hours. I'm so far forward that I can barely see the engine.

Boarding door is closed and we are ready for departure.

Todays flight load would be 100% full in both J & Y classes

We'll be departing from runway 34R

We'll be making a 135° right hand turn over the Wasatch mountains and heading southeast to Texas.

Lake Utah in the distance

As this was December, the days are a lot shorter in the winter time so it got dark not long after takeoff. 

Here's a look at the built-in cup tray and tray table.

Here's what I found in the seat back pocket (in my case the bulkhead ?) : safety card, entertainment guide & airsickness bag.

This guides you on how to connect your device to the AA entertainment portal to find the current selection of movies & tv shows. Since it was the beginning of December there were a ton of Christmas themed movies to choose from :). 

inflight service

About 30 minutes into flight, the FA promptly served drinks & took everyone's meals orders.  

This was the time when AA was starting to go back to serving meals in first class due to the pandemic. However only cold meals were currently being offered. If I remembered correctly the choices were Pastrami sandwich on pretzel bun (I got) or pasta salad.

I was impressed by today's flight offerings and the meal was definitely filling and tasty!

Here's my evidence ?

After the meal service the FA went around and asked if we wanted anything else to drink and I requested a coffee :).

Before I knew it we were descending into DFW. This flight went incredibly fast!

Here's our landing (sorry for the blurry images, me camera decided not to focus right as we landed ?).

Arrival

We arrived safely at our gate. This concludes this my flight from Salt Lake City to DFW, thanks for reading!