So after monitoring FT for a long time I finally decided to post up my 1st flight report; actually I take a couple of flights every year and I always feel a lack of motivation to take photos and post them up here so hopefully this will be a good start for future reports that are coming up.
I might start by apologizing for the lack of photos (and their poor quality, let's blame AAPL :) ) but for those of you who know how poor is the service on US domestic and short transborder flights it's understandable.
This YVR-LAX flight is only the first leg of a mileage run that took me to PTY and back in under 55 hours and combining 8 flights. I was super tired to take extensive photos during the subsequent segments as I spent most of the time to.. nap :)
My routing was YVR-LAX-DFW-MIA-PTY-MIA-TPA-DFW-YVR, all on AA metal and booked under Q class (the lowest for TP/Avios collection, you now understand I'm a member of BAEC).
So getting into serious things, my mini-report starts with a skytrain ride to get to YVR on this spring-ish February 15th 2015:
View on the US side of the airport:
Once inside I headed to the self service kiosk to grab my 4 boarding passes till PTY.
BP for this first segment:
I then headed to security, the process was smooth and fast using the Nexus lane. Same quick process with US customs and within minutes I was chilling by the designated gate waiting for the incoming flight from LAX to arrive.
AA5395 arrived on time and soon after boarding started with priorities being respected. I boarded shortly after Business folks as I'm a OW Sapphire. Here's how the pitch looks like on this CRJ900, sorry I couldn't take a photo of the aircraft as it is tiny and the jet bridge opaqueness wasn't helping either.
Our neighbour, an AC Rouge bound for LAS if I'm not mistaken:
We departed on time, shortly after takeoff the pilot made a sharp left turn towards the Gulf Islands and then down towards Cali along the Pacific coast, some snaps:
Note that I declined the drink service on board as I'd already filled up my tummy at a restaurant in the terminal, I had a bottle of water to freshen up throughout the flight.
Starting the descent into LAX:
Taxiing to our gate, I managed to catch an aussie 744 and a kiwi 763:
This was all about my YVR-LAX flight where I managed to take most of the trip's photos. Now time for some highlights of subsequent segments:
The load factor on LAX-DFW was very low, I'd say 40% at most. I got a whole row to myself, and before taking off the FAs asked passengers not to swap seats in order to keep the aircraft balanced. I got a can of coke, the low load factor explains it all :) otherwise it's a tiny plastic cup.
Oh and on a side note the LAX-DFW was operated on a B752, all remaining flights on this MR/TP trip were operated on 738s.
We arrived at DFW on time at around midnight, I had to spend the night in the terminal as my flight to MIA leaves at 5:15am and boarding starts at 04:40am.
Next flight was on a 738 with the new cabin that has PTVs, quite surprising for US domestic:
Next photo shows how lazy I am, taken 7 hours later on at the Canal of Panama :D
Next morning, view from my seat looking at PTY's tarmac, you know it's COPA's empire (CM) here with its 738s that can go down to SCL (sorry I can't spend 7 hours in a cramped 738).
The last photo from the trip is a sorta tribute to AA (Taken on TPA-DFW), the 738 did a great job, perfect for 2-4 hours flights :) hopefully the new cabin will roll out throughout AA's fleet soon.
I can't wait for your feedback, let me know what needs to be improved.
Cheers!
