Review of American Airlines flight from Dallas/Fort Worth to Calgary in Business

This weekend's trip took me to Calgary, AB for a special "enthusiast flight" aboard an Avro RJ-100. We'd be departing on Saturday around 10am, which meant I had to make my way up to Canada the night before. I decided on American Airlines primarily because they were the only airline flying nonstop to Calgary, but also because I had some Alaska miles to burn and the rate wasn't awful for a business class award ticket.

BOOKING

Alaska Airlines has a pretty standard partner award chart. While the chart does state that awards "start at" these levels, I've never seen American Airlines space outside of the chart values–seems like the space either exists for the base rate or it doesn't exist at all. I redeemed 25,000 miles for this 1,524 mile flight, plus $5.60 in security fees and $12.50 for Alaska's partner award booking fee. This was a fairly close-in booking (less than two weeks), so cash fares for business class were over $800 USD for this particular flight.

CHECK-IN/AIRPORT

My flight departed from Terminal C in DFW. This terminal is in the middle of a multi-billion dollar renovation which will effectively see the entire terminal rebuilt, but the existing (old) terminal has definitely fallen into a sad state. Terminal C is the only one which was not renovated as part of the "Terminal Renewal and Improvement Program" in the 2010s, which means it retains the tight corridors, concrete walls, and harsh fluorescent lighting from the original 1970s design. However, the newly-built sections are a world of difference, and I'm excited for them to finish the renovation over the next few years.

American Airlines offers two different tiers of business class fares. The first is their premium Flagship product, found on intercontinental long-haul routes and a handful of transcontinental routes. All other international routes (think Canada, Mexico, Central America, and northern portions of South America) get their standard Business service with recliner seats. The biggest difference between these two products on the ground is lounge access–while Flagship customers can access the Flagship Lounge, I was only permitted into the membership-based Admirals Club on my standard business class ticket.

Terminal C's Admirals Club is (in my opinion) one of the worst ones in the system these days. The furnishings are worn and outdated, the entire club feels like one long hallway, and there's very little natural light save for a few corners of the lounge. The food on offer is also pitiful when viewed through the lens of an international business-class fare–I wound up with a lukewarm empanada, a few pieces of pita bread, and a bowl of jelly beans:

Normally, I'd head to Terminal A or D for the Admirals Clubs there, as they're much newer and tend to have a better variety of food and drinks. However (as I'll soon get in to), we were facing a challenging travel day and I didn't want to stray too far from our departure gate. Given the time, I'd definitely recommend visiting the club in a different terminal.

BOARDING

This was a challenging travel day at DFW. It had been storming all day, and flights were getting delayed and cancelled left and right. At one point, I counted 53 planes in line for the runway on FlightRadar24. This was the only flight that would get me to Calgary in time for the flight the next day, so I was crossing my fingers that it didn't get outright cancelled.

While we were sitting in the lounge, we got the first of what would become six separate delay notifications (each about 10-15 minutes each, in true American Airlines fashion). The club was only a few gates away from our departure gate of C15, so we sat upstairs for a bit before eventually deciding to head downstairs.

Our ride to Calgary today was a 15-year-old Boeing 737-800 registered N829NN. About an hour and fifteen minutes after the originally scheduled boarding time, the gate agents began calling pre-board passengers followed by business class. American had just tweaked the boarding order and created a separate boarding group for first/business class–they now board prior to the airline's top (published) status tier, which I appreciate.

I quickly found my seat–2F, a window seat on the right side of the aircraft. American has made big investments into standardizing their cabins across the fleet, so you're likely to see the same seat on a narrowbody aircraft no matter what route you're on. This also means that all of their cabins are fairly modern, although they did make the decision to rip the screens out of many of their planes in the process–certainly a drawback if you (like me) prefer to use seatback screens over your own device.

There are a couple of different sleeves on the seatback for small storage, and a rather large cubby next to your seat for things like headphones and chargers. I like that American has opted to use hard backs for their first class seats, meaning you can't feel the person behind you rummaging through the seatback pocket for their things. 

The tray table is stored in the outer armrest and can be brought out by pulling the black tab in front of it. The seat also features two shared table spaces, one at the front of the armrest and one which flips down from the armrest in front of you.

The flight attendants greeted us as we boarded and were very friendly the entire flight, definitely one of the highlights here.

I'm generally a fan of American's premium product on their narrowbody planes (save for the lack of built-in IFE). Note that American (as with all US airlines) generally doesn't differentiate their fleet with respect to domestic vs. short-haul international flights, so this is the exact same product that is sold as domestic First Class.

IN-FLIGHT

Our lead flight attendant offered our choice of water or orange juice as a pre-departure beverage about 15 minutes after business class had finished boarding. We pushed back and were off the ground before too long; most of the departure delays had worked themselves out with the sheer number of cancelled flights throughout the day. The climb out was quite bumpy and the flight attendants stayed seated for around 20 minutes.

The flight attendant took my order at 8:48 pm, around 22 minutes after takeoff. For this flight, I had preordered the "Short Rib with Espagnole Sauce", served with classic mac n' cheese. Although short-haul international flights don't get the full Flagship dining experience, I have noticed the meal choices to be a bit elevated over what I normally see on domestic routes.

Hot towels were distributed 30 minutes after takeoff, and I received my drink and a dish of warm nuts 43 minutes after takeoff.

I received my meal (served on one tray) one hour and seven minutes after takeoff. American's short rib has never disappointed me, and it's the same here–it was a bit dry, but very flavorful. The mac and cheese is something I haven't seen on AA before and it was very good, and a nice large portion at that. The salad was pretty boring (as always). I'm not sure exactly what the Mediterranean salad was supposed to be, but it wasn't really my cup of tea either. My tray was cleared 4 minutes after I finished my meal–pretty quick, all things considered.

Dessert was brought out as a separate course, about an hour and 42 minutes after departure. I ordered the cheese plate, while my wife asked for the mango sorbet. The cheese plate was good but pretty uninspired; the sorbet was definitely the highlight and I regret not ordering that.

VERDICT

I'll be the first to throw American Airlines under the bus–their product has been on the decline for years and it seems like they see Frontier and Spirit as their primary competition, rather than Delta and United. However, I really did have a great experience aboard American's short haul international business class (once we got into the air, at least) and it was a great way to start our weekend of nonstop travel. I'd recommend it if you can find it at a reasonable price, or if you can nab a good mileage redemption.