Review of American Airlines flight from Washington to Miami in Domestic First

Check In and Security

I was running late to the airport this morning because my originally reserved uber driver gad canceled the ride on me for some reason. So I had to wait for another driver to pick up the ride. So my review of the DCA ground experience will be less than detailed, sorry about that!

I arrived at the airport at 5:05 am. I immediately proceeded to the priority check in desk for American which is all the way down by the Alaska Airlines counter. I’ve always wondered why the airport didn’t switch this with the JetBlue counter to make it easier for AA to all be in one place. I know that it was down that way because it also used to be where the American Airlines Shuttle check in was, and was positioned for easy access to the shuttle gates, but the Shuttle hasn't been around, and Project Journey has also been completed for a few years now…

There was no line to check in, so I decided to get my boarding pass printed quickly. The friendly agent printed my boarding passes and sent me on my way.

AA uses the South security checkpoint at Terminal 2. Due to the government shutdown, there was a line, even at 5:00 am. Even with Clear and Precheck, it took me 20 minutes to get through TSA.

By the time I got through security, my flight had just begun boarding. So even though I had Admiral’s Club access because I’m flying in business class internationally, I didn’t use that and went straight to the gate.

Boarding, the Cabin, and Seat

We were boarding out of gate C32 today.

The American 737 MAX 8 is arranged in a 2-2 configuration. The seats feature 37 inches of pitch, 20 inches of width and 4 inches of recline.

This seat had one window all to yourself and one window ahead and one window behind that were in between and kind of “shared.”

At 5:33, I was asked if I wanted a pre departure beverage. I went with some orange juice.

I decided to check out the IFE while boarding was being completed. AA doesn’t have any seatback screens on any of of its narrowbody fleet with the exception of the A321T and the A321XLR, and has no plans to install them anytime soon. In fact, the airline made the decision to remove all of the seatback screens in 2020.

American does have free personal device entertainment, and does have seatback device holders, which is nice.

I used my iPad for the personal device entertainment and noticed that they have a very large selection of movies and tv shows. The list under “all movies” listed 410 movies and from what I saw, there was a good amount of variety in terms of genres and new and old titles. I decided to watch Pirates of the Caribbean.

Additionally, WiFi was available for purchase at a whopping $20 for the whole flight or $15 for one hour. It always amazes me how much AA charges for WiFi- especially since United only charges $8 for MileagePlus members and Delta only charges $5 for SkyMiles members for the entire flight.

Taxi and Takeoff

At 5:51, the captain came on to welcome us aboard and announced our flight time of 2 hours 28 minutes.

At exactly 5:59, the boarding door was closed, safety demonstration began, and we started our pushback.

At 6:13, we began our takeoff roll down runway 1. I got a nice view of Washington, D.C.

At 6:20, we reached 10,000 feet indicating that we were well on our way to Miami.

Cruise

At 6:28, a hot towel was distributed.

At 6:35, the not-so-friendly flight attendant came by to offer drinks and confirm meal orders. I say not so friendly because there was no real service-orient to his conversation. He just came by and said “drink?” When I said “orange juice, please!” He said, “you ordered the fruit plate.” And moved on without even giving me the chance to object if that wasn’t correct.

American allows you to preorder your meal beginning 30 days before departure in premium cabins. There were only two choices, an omelette and a fruit and yogurt plate. I decided to go with the fruit and yogurt plate because (1) eggs generally aren’t great on airplanes, and (2) I knew I’d be having a more substantial meal in the flagship lounge in Miami on my layover.

At 6:45, my meal arrived, again with no pleasantries exchanged, just handing us the tray. This meal was not substantial at all. It’s a few slices of melon (some of them were so hard it was inedible. Some Chibani Greek yogurt, big wow. And a small packet of granola. I finished it within 5 minutes.

At 7:05, our trays were cleared. Again, no interaction. He just pointed at my tray table. And of course, there was no offer of a refill on our drinks.

Big shocker here, I know, but we never saw the flight attendant after that. I settled in to just watch movies on my iPad until the end of the flight.

Descent and Arrival:

At 8:18, we began our descent into Miami, with about 25 minutes remaining in flight.

We touched down on runway 26R at 8:44 am and began our taxi into the runway.

We parked at gate D16 at 8:59 am, 19 minutes behind our originally scheduled arrival time.