American Airlines Business: LHR to ORD on the Boeing 787-900

⭐ Overall Score: Incomplete

You’ll notice above that the score for this one is an incomplete which is a first (it’s also one of the first reviews on theexectraveler.com, but I expect this to be unusual).  The reason is that this flight was not a good example of the AA international business experience for reasons I’ll get to in a moment.  I have flown AA business class out of London more times than I can count, so rest assured there will be a more representative review in the future.  However, this experience was so below standard that I still wanted to call it out and if I was actually giving it a score I’d probably have given it a 2 out of 10 considering the price I paid for the ticket.

This American Airlines business class flight from London to Chicago was a tale of two experiences – excellent hard product and crew, but a completely unacceptable catering situation that fell far below expectations for a $5,000 ticket. While the new 787-9 business class suites are impressive and the service was friendly despite difficult circumstances, the food and beverage experience was a major failure that significantly impacted the overall flight.

Booking

As this was a business trip I booked through our corporate travel agent.  I was piecing together a quick Europe trip for several meetings relatively last minute and it ended up being cheaper to book this trip as a series of one way flights which is rarely the case (round trip international tickets are generally cheaper than separate one way tickets). The one way business class fare from London to Chicago plus another short inter-Europe business class leg was $5071.  Prices were high generally compared to what I like to pay to fly to Europe, but my outbound fare (subject of a future review) was exceptionally low, so between the two and the Europe short haul leg, the overall airfare was not terrible compared to the even higher price of comparable round trip tickets.

I got an inkling something was up with this trip a few days before my flight.  AA allows business class customers to select their meal before their flight starting 30 days before departure.  I had selected a meal back when I booked the trip as it was only a couple weeks before my trip, but decided I wanted something different a few days out.  When I went to change it, I kept getting an error when I tried to get to the selection screen.  I figured it was a glitch and was fine with my original choice so didn’t think that much of it, but it was odd.  Then the night before my flight I got this email from AA:

So yeah that sounded ominous, but it was actually worse than I expected…

Airport Experience

I know a lot of people like to hate on London’s Heathrow airport.  Yes it can take a long time to transfer given the sheer size of the airport, and yes delays are common due to weather and traffic, and yes the lines can be long (although vastly improved since they installed better x-ray equipment a couple years ago), but I’ve always liked it.  It was the first overseas airport I ever flew to as a child and probably the airport I’ve flown to or from the most outside of North America.

AA flies out of Heathrow’s Terminal 3.  Terminal 3 is far less grand than Terminal 5 which serves as British Airways’ flagship terminal, but it does feature a great collection of lounges.  In addition to the AA flagship lounge I could access by virtue of my business class ticket, I could also access the Qantas Lounge via my Oneworld Emerald status or the Amex Centurion Lounge with my Amex platinum credit card.  However, I selected one of my favorite lounges anywhere in the world – the Cathay Pacific First Class Lounge which I could access via my Oneworld Emerald status.   While I wasn’t starving, given the email from American I decided I better take advantage of Cathay’s sit down restaurant and got my usual wonton noodle soup and some assorted dim sum.  Both hit the spot and let me imagine for a few moments that I was having lunch in Hong Kong rather than London.

Food and Drinks

Ok…let’s get the negative part out first.  The catering on this flight was atrocious under any circumstances, but when you factor in that I paid over $5000 for this flight the compensation of 10000 AAdvantage miles was entirely inadequate.  I also want to point out that I recognize this is fully a first world problem, but if you’re reading this blog this probably matters to you too.  I do recognize that AA was in a bit of a bind here – the story going around is that they had to sever ties with their caterer in London because of food safety concerns (the rumor involved a mice infestation) – so while I admire AA for making a hard choice by putting safety of passengers above the resulting service problems, this is why large companies should have contingency plans in place.  London to the US is probably AA’s most important route and as complicated as airline catering is, there had to be a better way to handle this.

The result of the issue was that all catering was done from the US.  So meals were flying 8+ hours to London before being reheated and served.  This meant limited choices – 2 to be exact for each meal – but surprisingly also limited catering of shelf stable items (i.e. beverages) as well.  And this was a daytime flight so very few people were sleeping through the service.  So what did the limited service look like…

Predeparture beverages were limited to a choice of orange juice or sparkling water served in plastic cups.

There were no menus so I’m not really sure what we were served, but I’ll give my best guess. 

I was told there was one bottle of red wine and a couple bottles of champagne and the charming and very apologetic (and frank) flight attendant – more on that below – managed to keep my champagne glass full so I was either the only one drinking it or she was stashing a bottle for me.  The main meal was served on a single tray with a choice of chicken or pasta.  The “appetizer” appeared to be wakame salad and sweet potato over rice. Dessert was carrot cake (no ice cream sundaes on this flight obviously).  The chicken was a baked breast with pesto and some vegetables.  There was also an ok bread role.  Was the meal edible?  Yes.  Was it good?  No.  Was it free of evidence of a mice infestation?  Presumably 😊.  The carrot cake was the best part.

Several hours into the flight and having not finished my full meal I found myself a little peckish.  So I got up looking for a bag of chips or other snack that AA normally keeps available in the galley during these long haul flights. But as you already know, this was no ordinary flight so I ventured to the galley only to be told there were no snacks besides the pretzels they hand out in domestic economy.  I now found myself wishing I’d eaten the rest of my chicken.  My new favorite flight attendant came by shortly thereafter with a cheese plate – it would be part of the pre-landing meal as well, but they had a few extra (again seems like it would be easier to cater some non-perishables rather than extra cheese plates but I digress).

About 90 minutes before landing, the flight attendants came around to offer a pre-landing meal.  As a glutton for punishment apparently I opted for the “beef.”  And that’s about as good a description as I can offer – it was beef (probably).  It really wasn’t edible, but I did eat my second cheese plate of the flight.

I’ve had various things go wrong on flights over the years when it comes to service.  Seats that don’t recline, wifi that doesn’t work, a malfunctioning in-flight entertainment system.  However, this service failure was actually more impactful than any of those – possibly because this was a daytime flight and I wasn’t planning to sleep.  Admittedly, I haven’t flown long haul economy in a long time (don’t judge me), but is this an AA long haul economy meal service? If so, it would even be bad by my low expectations for that level of catering especially the pre-landing meal. 

The good news: I’ve heard AA has now switched to DO&CO for catering out of London which is used by British Airways among others and in my experience is consistently very good.

Aircraft and Cabin

Now for more the more positive aspects of this flight.  Business class on this 787-900 is in a 1-2-1 layout and featured AA’s new business class suites which I’m a big fan of.  I had assigned myself a window seat on the right side of the plane.  In fact, my favorite seat on this plane – 1L.  While all 51 business class seats themselves are the same, the “bulkhead” seats in row 1 (as well as I believe 10A and 11L in the back business class cabin) feature much larger foot wells and thus feel much roomier.

Seat

The fully lie flat business class seats have 60 inches of pitch and are 21 inches wide.  Additionally, the suites have doors that can be shut during flight providing added privacy.  The door feature is becoming more and more common and I like having the option to close myself off even though it’s not a full door.  I find it makes sleeping easier for me although it can feel a bit claustrophobic if I’m awake working on my laptop. 

The controls for the seat were easy to use.  While I didn’t fully recline, I was able to comfortably lounge with my feet up on the large ottoman.  The controls for the IFE system were also easily accessible and intuitive, but I mostly relied on the touchscreen feature of the monitor.

Since this flight was a daytime flight and I wanted to sleep when I arrived home that evening, I didn’t use any of the bedding that greeted me on arrival except for the pillow.

The seat also features a good selection of storage suitable for small devices and other items (glasses, wallets, etc).  The seat also has a wireless charging pad with what I initially thought was fairly ingenious design in that it effectively cradles your phone.  However, on multiple flights now, I’ve really struggled to get the phone aligned right to continuously charge.  Alas that was the case on this flight and I just went old school and plugged it into the power outlet at my seat.

The cabin also has individualized climate control which I appreciate since I generally like it colder than a normal cabin if I’m trying to sleep.

The tray table slides down from underneath the video monitor.  The mechanism to release the tray takes a bit of getting used to and I noticed several passengers not familiar with it needing help from the flight attendants to get it out.  Once out, the tray is large and comfortably fits my large laptop with plenty of room for drinks or snacks on the side.

Amenities

Waiting at my seat was an amenity kit with the standard inclusions: socks, toothbrush/toothpaste, eye mask, ear plugs, some sort of moisturizer, etc.  There was also a pair of slippers.  When I first started flying for business regularly, I collected these for some reason and amassed a large collection.  Now I only take them with me if there is something particularly cool about the bag – I left this one on the plane.

As is customary on AA, there was also a pair of high quality Bang & Olufsen noise cancelling headphones waiting at my seat.  Having flown many airlines, this is pretty much as good as it gets when it comes to complimentary headphones.  As an aside, I appreciate that AA extends their partnership with B&O to the loyalty program and makes a selection of their products available for selection at certain annual LP milestone levels.  I have my own pair of B&O over ear and earbud wireless headphones thanks to that.

In-Flight Entertainment & Connectivity

While I didn’t check the speed the wifi on this flight, it seemed quite fast and made working and surfing the internet very easy.  Moreover, it was free for AAdvantage members which is much appreciated perk that AA has added this year.

The seatback screen was bright and large.  AA continues to offer a very large selection of programming from recent blockbuster hits, to indy films to older favorites.  Plus a ton of TV programming to choose from.  Since I wasn’t sleeping, I got through four movies on this flight.  The new planes also feature Bluetooth connectivity for headphones, so I could have used my own B&O headphones had I preferred those to the wired version included.  My battery was low on mine, but I did test them and it was super easy to connect.

Crew

The flight attendants serving me on this flight were great especially considering the difficult circumstances.  I don’t know where the champagne kept coming from, but it felt like they kept a hidden bottle just for me.  We also chatted about the situation and their frustration with AA management was palpable.  They were the front lines of dealing with guests who had paid a lot of money or burned a lot of points and were now unhappy with the very underwhelming catering.  And AA hadn’t given the crew much in terms of explanation either.  I learned of the caterer infestation situation after the fact and had I known that I would have been much more understanding of the predicament and I imagine the flight attendants would have been also.  They made the best of a difficult situation and should be commended for that.  I think their visible frustration actually probably disarmed a number of angry passengers as it very much felt like “we’re in the same boat as you are here.”  One flight attendant asked if I had been compensated for the issue and when I told her I’d been proactively given 10000 miles she told me I should ask for more!

Arrival Experience

Another plus point on this trip was that we actually arrived early into ORD which was good because it gave me about an hour in the Flagship lounge before my connecting flight since I was starving.  Interestingly, this flight also happened while Global Entry was shut down.  Fortunately, the lines at ORD were short and while it took longer than I was used to with Global Entry, I was still through to baggage claim in under 15 minutes.  Since I didn’t have any bags to collect I headed directly to the ORD train to get from the international arrivals area to Terminal 3.  I was about 45 minutes from when I stepped off the plane to my arrival at the Terminal 3 Flagship lounge and most of that was the long walk to immigration.  All in all a very efficient arrival.