Kind words. Thanks!

Thank you for all these details! You should start a blog & write reviews yourself! I am sure AA is reading this as well :). Kind regards

I recently used SWU’s to upgrade a business class ticket from LAX-SYD (14 hour flight). Here are my impressions of the First Class product on a 777-300ER. By way of background I’m a multi year EP / million-miler with over 200 EQM’s a year.

Overall, I continue to be impressed by the effort put forth by the AA staff both in the air and on the ground. Although the Flagship check-in is very nice, even the regular Priority desk does a fine job. I have flown the First Class cabin in the 3 Class transcon A321T and the overall observation applies to that product too.

Bottom line, in many ways the Business Class seat is better than than the First Class one. I don’t believe it’s worthwhile using an SWU for a Business to First upgrade, let alone actually paying for it. Other than trivial items like free PJ’s, type of Champagne and an extra course in the meal, the experience is governed by the design of the seat itself. This is where the First Class product at AA is poorly thought out. I struggle to think how/why some of the design choices were made for the First Class product (“Class 3 Rest Facility”). Here are my observations in no particular order:

– My biggest gripe is that the seat is locked in a forward position and needs to be unlocked and rotated for any of the seat adjustment functions to work. This is particularly annoying as the forward orientation has the seat back almost upright. In that position the headrest pushes your head and neck forward of the vertical causing a neck and back ache in short order. Looking around the cabin, I could see everyone sitting sideways in their chairs to try and avoid this. In the business class seat, the orientation does change and the takeoff/landing seat position is far more comfortable. On a flight with a period of prolonged hard turbulence, I found that the seat rattled about the rotation hinge the whole time making the experience even more unpleasant.
– When you do reach altitude and can unlock and rotate the seat, the controls are in a smart phone sized screen on the side table. Having to dial into a screen and sub menus every time you want to adjust the seat is tedious. That is more so because the brightness on that screen doesn’t seem to be adjustable and the ‘auto off’ on that screen seems to happen only on the home screen. As a result you get a stunningly bright light in your face that you can’t turn down or off.
– There is no convenient storage on this seat. None! There is a slight depression on the side desk adjacent to the USB outlet where you can fit in a phone. But that won’t hold it in place in even mild turbulence. There is a net sling under the table to hold the free slippers. But there is no place to keep any of your possessions. What is worse is that there is a cavernous space under the side table where items can easily fall and get lost under the seat mechanism. Then there’s the small cave that looks like a cat door near the aisle. There is a mail slot like space under the side table where you can fit you menu. Not sure what purpose either of those spaces serve. There are so many places where closed storage could be provided (like that large curved section up front) but none is provided.
– The TV screen is larger than in business, but it is installed in a way where it is perpendicular to the aisle. As a result, it needs to pop out and rotate a bit to make it perpendicular to the bed. That’s not a big deal until you think of the extra weight of the mechanisms needed to accomplish the pop out. They could have just angled it to suit the bed as that would have worked fine from the offset location for the seat forward position. Interestingly the seat has very poor angular performance. Even the slight downward angle from someone viewing from the bed results in the image looking like blurry ghosts. The screen doesn’t tilt downwards. So you are stuck with a bad picture or having to sit upright.
– The key outlets are in a box behind your shoulder. Yes, the inside of the door is mirrored to make it easier to see what is inside, but it still takes some contorting to access them. This is practically impossible if you have your seatbelt on.
– Even though the seat is very slightly bigger than the business class one, the privacy seems to be less. You feel far more exposed to the aisle than in the business class seat.
– The magazine pocket is at your feet. Yep, if you forgot to take one out before taxi, you are out of luck until you reach altitude.
– When seated, the tray table is arms-length away. This is ridiculous. You can’t slide the table closer to you when the seat is reclined. This results in a big air gap between your plate and mouth. This is one of those ‘what were they thinking!’ items. Furthermore, the dinner tray is hidden under a panel that is controlled by one of three buttons mid seat. Not sure why they couldn’t just have a spring loaded flap rather than the weight and complexity of a switch activated mechanism. It’s not like the switch pops out the table. It just loosens the flap over the receptacle. They do have a 6” wide fold out flap that is supposed to be a table near your shoulder. However when folded out the flap/hinge is feeble and the flap tilts downward. As a result you can’t lay anything on it without it slipping off.
– One of the three mid seat switches turns on what I presume to be a night light. This is a dim glow at the foot level that shows up in the cavern beside the seat and along the foot well. Why? This serves no functional purpose and would be noticeable only if every other light in the cabin were off.
– The reading light has a set of brightness levels. If you turn it on you get a dim setting, if you press the light switch again it gets progressively brighter before turning off again. So if you are trying to read at night, you and your fellow passengers are subject to the brightest setting before getting darkness again. No simple on and off to find your possessions.
– The cushion on the seat is hard and uncomfortable. Not quite a park bench, but not that different either.
– There is a seat belt on the foot rest. Presumably this was for the important two person meetings that they imagine happen all the time in this cabin. The actual result is that you have two uncomfortable chunks of metal banging against your feet all night.

Is anyone from AA listening? Take a look at the First Class seats in the BA A380 or the products in Singapore Airlines or Emirates, there’s much catching up to do.

Comment (not on your video which is fine)on AA.

Compared even to BA – AA First is pretty much second rate.

Compare to Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific or Thai – it looks less good than their Business Class.

Come on AA – buck up.