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American Airlines Reviews :  PAGE | 1 | 2 |

Journey started badly in Admirals lounge - got 1 free drink voucher and had to pay for food. The business class seat is a joke - trapped in when sat next to window. Not a patch on BA club world and will never fly AA again.

Manchester-Chicago on 767-300ER. Possibly the worst Business Class flight I have been on. Seat was incredibly narrow and highly uncomfortable. It didn't recline well and when it was fully reclined, my feet were crushed under the seat in front. When the gentleman in the aisle seat to my left reclined, I was trapped and at one point, I had to sit there for 3 hours until I could go to the toilet. IFE had few options and mine didn't work properly. An airline to avoid at all costs.

LAX-LHR. Decent for a U.S. Carrier, nowhere near as good as a CX, Singapore, Emirates, etc. Good amount of storage and stretch room. Decent seat - found bed was not very comfortable. No sleep suit. Duvet comforter but no padded sheet like CX. Still very narrow when sleeping. Okay selection of movies/tv but very small screen. Bose headsets. Insufficient reading lights. No massage function in chair.

Having flown regularly in BA Club World I was very disappointed with he AA business cabin in which I found myself on a recent involuntary reroute. The seat was very poor. It is not just that angled lie-flat is an oxymoron but that you are completely trapped in the window seat when the passenger next to you is asleep. Also if you place your mp3 or phone where indicated at the side of the seat you stand a good chance of losing it recline as a hole appears and there is no easy way of getting to the item. This is appalling design (and needs to be put right with the fitting of some elastic material) and the steward told me, as he managed to retrieve said item with a pair of serving tongs, that this happens all the time. Be warned. There would have to be a serious price advantage over BA before I would consider again.

Domestic first class BOS-LAX. The seats are the same as international business class. The best word to describe them is horrible. A week after my flight, my knees still hurt. The person who decided on this design must either be very small or must have never flown on a flight of more than two hours length.

I am 5'10" and weigh 150lbs, so the new lie-flat seats are just fine, but it is unfortunate all the same that US airlines have chosen to seat business passengers 2-2-2 in the not so large 767-300 and 767-400 used in transatlantic flights. AA B777 does not help, as they configure it 2-3-2 with exactly the same seats - and having a middle seat in business class is pretty bad! The lie-flat seat is quite comfortable (pitch is only 60" and the seat is quite narrow due to the 2-2-2 setup). The functioning of the seat is a bit annoying - to go from seated/reclined position to lie-flat, it has to do weird contortions that include bringing the seat bottom quite high up - more than high enough to force your knees to tilt the table, so do not go through with it if you have food on your tray! The clamshell setup is good for privacy, but has one unfortunate side-effect - when in sleeping position, you are down in a hole, which is good for privacy, but really bad for air circulation - it can get hot quickly and the air feels stale after a while. I expect that anyone taller than about 190cm (the lie- flat bed measures 195cm overall) would have problems - there is no room beyond the footrest.

The cabin appearance is modern and smart. The seat shells are low so you have good sight lines of the cabin. I found the seat pitch to be ample but not generous. The seats themselves maneuvered well and were comfortable. On the down side, the 767 is too narrow for the six across seating which makes for a rather tight configuration. It is fine if you are traveling with a companion but not much fun if the person next to you is a stranger. There is almost no personal storage in the seating area; most of your personal items have to go in the overhead. The inflight entertainment system is bizarre to say the least. It is an inserted on-demand player that needs to be collected at the end of the flight. It worked fine but there is no remote control so to change channels or adjust volume you have to lean forward and manually make changes. Not very convenient when you are reclined. The head set plugs into the seat shell in front of you (next to the player) so if the person next to you needs to get out, you have to unplug to let them by. Finally, the seat in the sleep position was fine. It is an angled flat bed similar to LH. I was able to sleep on my side. Service was good but AA doesn't offer a self-serve so you have to approach the flight attendants behind the curtain if you want anything throughout the night.

Manchester to SFO round trip and the new business class seats on 3 segments. I cannot express my disappointment enough as these much heralded seats were uncomfortable and extremely narrow. Trying to get out of the window seat with my wife sleeping in the aisle seat was impossible without waking her up. (Actually she couldn't sleep). As I am over 6 feet tall my feet still seemed to hang over the foot rest which was very painful ( or was I just slipping down the seat!) My seat belt got caught under the seat as did my wife's and another passengers and the flight attendants had to extradite them, with great difficulty I might add. All in all a bad move by AA and we shall be looking for alternative carriers in the future for our long haul flights.

Having flown AA business class numerous times, I had thought First Class would be a real step-up. Not so - they use the same Amenities kit, pretty much the same menu, same wines, and same treatment. The seat is average, very uncomfortable for take off in its forward position; reasonably comfortable in 45 degree reclining position. Limited newspaper selection, no magazines, no comforter for the bed, and the IFE is not up to Biz standards. All told, please find another airline, this simply is not good enough for anything claiming to be "first" class.

Flew the Flagship Suite roundtrip JFK-Tokyo Narita. Sat in seat 2D with my girlfriend in 2G (middle seats). The seats are adequately cushioned, though not great. Much better as a bed than as a recliner. Both armrests retract to provide more space as a bed. One of my armrests was broken and retracted when any pressure was put on it. The headrest was broken as well; it would not remain raised. The seats were comfortable, but appeared worn. Great storage space in seat pockets and under footrest/companion seat. The best feature (and most unique) is the seat swivel which allows you to rotate the seat 90 degrees to face a companion (in the middle seats) or to face the window and use the desk table. When flying with someone, there's an enormous unit between the seats and a seat divider that does not fully retract. The entertainment unit is outdated though the omnipresent AA Bose headphones and great movie selection helped. The screen is small and not particularly clear compared to what's available on the market these days. Many lighting options (2 overhead and 1 nightlight), but I would have liked a reading light, perhaps one of the snake like ones you see on most planes. I slept comfortably for large chunks of both flights (along with connecting flights to Beijing and from Shanghai) and they were well worth the 125K miles I redeemed for the flights, but if I were paying in cash, I'd choose one of the far superior Asian airlines for the route, perhaps fly on ANA's newly remodeled business or first class. Overall though, I was comfortable, had good service, pretty decent food, and great wine. If AA is your airline of choice, flying in the Flagship Suite is not bad at all.

The "improved" business class contraptions are truly a horror for anyone over 6'3". I am rather amazed that there hasn't been more criticism of the foot crushing that occurs when the seat is put in the awkwardly angled "flat" position. It's downright painful. Now when I am forced to fly the airline transoceanic I pray they'll have the old seats on my aircraft. No doubt these seats were a good deal for the airline, and without question a way in their shortsighted pen pusher minds to differentiate the first class product.

Flew Chicago to Rome and return in the new American Business Class. The people responsible for these narrow, uncomfortable seats must all be four feet tall and weigh eighty pounds or less. It's hard to believe American thinks they have a competitive product with this new Business class.

SFO-HNL flight on the 767 reconfigured First Class cabin. I have flown this aircraft from DFW-LAX, DFW-HNL and LAX-HNL. I recommend a D,G seat otherwise if you are seated in a window seat good luck getting into the aisle if the seat next to you is occupied. There is no room to get past a fellow passenger if their tray table is down, they are reclined and especially if someone is in the lie-flat position. The older seats had more leg room and space between passengers. The new configuration is very confining and the channel/volume attendant controls are easy to hit in error. I hope there is a change in the seat structure one day soon, although I am sure AA spent a fortune on the product. It's just a bit cramped for personal space and not an over-all improvement from the old seats.