American Airlines Awards and upgrades. The meals in Premium Economy are served on a single tray, but the presentation and the tableware is a noticeable step up from what is used in Economy Class – all the food items are served on china and the cutlery is made from metal.The starter consisted of “seasonal greens” with sundried tomatoes and parmesan cheese…..and a small bottle of olive oil mixed with balsamic vinegarette was provided on the side.The salad was very dry so the olive oil and balsamic were needed to male it a little more palatable…but the olive oil had solidified in the bottle so I was left with just the balsamic vinegar.
I’m often saying that the level of service you’ll get on American Airlines is very hit and miss (that’s still true) but on this occasion it was a definite “hit”.All the crew I saw and interacted with were pleasant, amiable, polite, and efficient and it’s hard to ask much more of them. Amerian Airlines should definitely work on removing paper cups from its Premium Economy offering (there’s nothing premium about a paper cup) but the tableware used for the rest of the meal was actually pretty nice.There’s nothing great, amazing, or fantastic about the American Airlines Premium Economy product but it’s definitely a noticeable improvement (in all areas) on what you’ll find in Economy Class. The pitta chips were soggy and, once again, the olive oil had solidified in its container. We booked this flight as part of a round-trip ticket from Madrid (MAD) to New York-JFK and then from New York to London Heathrow (LHR) for €1,251 (about $1,402). Full cabin details, tips on what to expect and where to sit, a look at the food offered onboard and more. The lentils were pretty good too (they tasted a lot better than they look in the images) but the beans were rubbery and a noticeable weak spot of the course.I didn’t try the crackers, bread, or the cream cheese that came served on the tray……but I can report that the chocolate caramel truffle that was served for dessert tasted a lot nicer than it looked.The flight attendants served drinks at the start of the meal and came through the cabin part-way through the meal to see if any of the passengers needed a top-up and, once again, all drinks on the menu were available for selection.The most pleasing aspect of the meal service was the efficient and pleasant way in which it was carried out. If you like to keep a lot of items near you when you travel, bear this in mind when selecting your seats.The seat’s universal power outlet, the USB socket, and the headphone jack are all to be found in the storage area under the armrest……and, for added comfort, the armrests on the aisles can be raised…It’s also in these armrests that American has hidden away the tray table.The tray table can open out to act as a small drinks table……or it can be opened up to its full extent at which point it’s a little larger than a 15″ Macbook.If you’re sitting in one of the aisle seats you’ll find that although the legroom is fine, there’s a verticle bar under the seat ahead which can get in the way if you want to stretch out your legs (the window seats didn’t appear to have this issue).To stretch out properly you have to angle your legs towards the middle of the seats ahead of you and although this isn’t a critical issue, if you or the person seated next to you want to use the under-seat area to store a bag of any size, you may find the space for your feet is slightly restricted.Last but not least it’s worth mentioning that the seats in the 777-200’s Premium Economy cabin all have air nozzles above them so passengers have some degree of control over how hot or cold their seat areas are.This can be especially useful on night flights where some crews have a habit of overheating the cabin.The seat is comfortable to sit in, the recline is good but not great and, overall, the seat is not a bad place to spend a daytime transatlantic flight.
There’s a magazine rack (full of magazines) and small netted pouch on the back of the seat directly ahead……and there’s a small storage space hidden away under the center armrests (you have to raise the top panel of the armrest to access it properly).Overall there’s probably just enough storage around the non-bulkhead seats to keep most people happy – the netted pouch will hold most personal electronic devices (although not many at one time) and the storage area under the center armrest is big enough to store small handheld devices, books (as long as they’re not too thick), cables and other small items….and there’s always the area under the seat ahead where you can store a small bag.In the bulkhead seats, the story is a little different as there’s no netted pouch directly ahead and there’s nowhere to store a small bag (because there’s no seat ahead of you) so these seats have considerably less space for passengers to store the personal items they’d like to keep close to hand. She then told me that I had to delete a picture of the door of the aircraft I had just taken because it constituted a security risk.…just two of many pictures I’ve taken without issue on other American Airlines 777 aircraft.I deleted the picture as soon as the Flight Attendant asked me to but, when I can pull up schematics for large parts of a 777 with a simple Google search and when American Airlines Captains are happy for me to photograph the inside of their 777 flight deck,….…I’m left wondering what exactly this Flight Attendant thought she was achieving in this instance.While this flight attendant’s colleague carried out his duties with as much courtesy as the poor guy could muster (he always returned a smile) the obnoxious attendant was short and sharp with all the passengers around me and never cracked a smile once while I was watching.This particular flight attendant have been having a bad day or, if past experience is anything to go by, she may also just have been one of American’s perpetually disgruntled flight attendants too – either way she wasn’t exactly a joy to be around.The best way to sum up the service is probably to say that one flight attendant managed to be polite and friendly throughout while the other managed the exact opposite – it didn’t leave a good impression.A few minutes after take-off the cabin crew brought around bags of mini-pretzels…...and around 35 minutes after take off drinks were offered.
American regularly charges 110,000 (or more) AAdvantage miles and the requisite $5.60 in taxes and fees for one-way premium-economy flights originating in the US on its own metal, which is an astonishingly high rate. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility or any other advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered. American Airlines offers a Premium Economy cabin on most of its long-haul fleet and this is a review of the airline’s product on its Boeing 777-200 aircraft flying between London Heathrow and Los Angeles.
American Airlines has airline tickets, cheap flights, vacation packages and American Airlines AAdvantage bonus mile offers at aa.com […][…] way to get back to LA and I’m getting tired of my upgrades not clearing and finding myself stuck in Economy Class for 10+ hours so this was a risk I decided was worth taking – hopefully others weighed up the risks in a […]Traveling For Miles is produced and written for entertainment purposes only.