American Airlines Boeing 737-800 Main Cabin From San Jose, Costa Rica To Miami

Earlier this week, I returned from Costa Rica to the United States on American Airlines
. Though I was able to check in online, things did not start off well. Check-in was available 24 hours before my trip began, and thanks to the Flighty app, I got a notification saying it was time to check in.

The check-in process was easy, and my passport information was already saved in American Airlines’ system, which made it even easier. For some reason, I was still required to fill out a contact tracing form for the CDC. I was given the option to upgrade to business class (which really is domestic first class) for $160, which I denied, and then I was unable to get my boarding passes through the app.

I thought that maybe the reason I could not get my digital boarding passes was that my documents needed to be verified in person at the airport. It turned out that was not the case.

On the ground

I arrived at Juan Santamaría International Airport (SJO) in San Jose at 08:44, nearly four hours before my flight. I typically do not arrive so early, especially as I never travel with checked baggage, but I had nothing else to do and decided I would rather work from an airport lounge with a runway view.

Finding the American Airlines check-in desk was easy, and there was no one in line. As my flight was the first one of the day, I was not even sure that the check-in counters had opened as one of the airline staff members directed me to use the kiosk to get my boarding pass.

The kiosk was very simple to use. I simply entered my confirmation number and printed out my boarding passes. It turned out that the reason I could not get my boarding passes through the app was because I had been selected for secondary inspection. My pass for the first flight of my itinerary was printed out with the SSSS, which was a pain. If you have ever gotten this on a boarding pass, you know why.

By 08:49, I had my boarding passes in hand and headed toward immigration and security. Here, just like in Nicaragua a few days prior, I went through immigration before going through security. One minute later, I cleared immigration, and it took just two minutes to go through security.

Shortly after checking in online, the AA said it was looking for volunteers to take a later flight, and I had the option to make an offer. I chose to ask for $300 in return for taking another flight. Unfortunately, I was not selected, or so I thought.

Because I spent so much time at the lounge, I arrived at the gate about 10 minutes before boarding began. As I approached the gate agent and asked, she told me they had all of the volunteers they needed. Later, after boarding, the passenger told me they had offered $500, a hotel for the night, transportation to and from the airport, and maybe food (I cannot remember).

On the plane

Boarding began at 11:55, a few minutes after the gate agents had triggered the boarding notification through the airline app. Surprisingly, not many people crowded the gate before their groups were called, and things went pretty smoothly. I was in group five and noticed that in groups 1-4, there were several people who had been selected for random inspection.

Despite being an older aircraft, this 737 had the new bins American has installed on its narrowbodies, able to fit bags on their sides. This means there is room for more bags. Despite being in group five of nine, a lot of the overhead space had already been taken. But I still found space for mine just a couple of rows ahead of mine.

I had seat 33C, the very last row of the aircraft. Being in the aisle, I hoped that no one would come and sit next to me, but one of the very last passengers on the aircraft has seat 33B. Like most of American’s domestic fleet (except a few Airbus A319s), this 737-800 did not have inflight entertainment (IFE) screens, but had device holders.

In the air

We pushed back from the gate at 12:44, five minutes late, and took off at 13:09. Service began a short while after takeoff, and the very back of the aircraft was served just as quickly as the front, as one of the flight attendants began service from the back while the other started from the front. We were offered pretzels and Biscoff cookies, and the flight attendant gave me both. Additionally, there was a selection of soft drinks from the Coca-Cola brand, as well as coffee and water.

Photo: Lukas Souza | Simple Flying

The flight was mostly uneventful, except for a few times when we encountered a few seconds of rough turbulence, some of the roughest I felt in a long time. After we began our descent into Miami, a woman had gone to the rear lavatory right before we hit turbulence. As she was exiting the lavatory, we hit some rough bumps and one of the flight attendants yelled from her jumpseat and told her to stay in the lav until things were clear. A couple of minutes later, she returned to her seat.

Our wheels touched down at Miami International Airport (MIA) at 17:38, one minute before our scheduled arrival time. After seven minutes of taxiing, we pulled in to gate D45.