I had a lovely crew and delicious dinner on my American Airlines A321T flight in business class from Los Angeles to Boston, but the cabins are simply falling apart on these soon-to-be-retrofited planes and AA is not even trying any longer…
American Airlines A321T Business Class: A Familiar Problem
2024 ended with an unexpected last-minute business trip to New England, a brief one-day trip. On the way out, I flew American Airlines from LAX to BOS on a redeye, an ideal schedule that gave me all day to work in LA and then a slightly longer overnight flight that I could sleep on.
I had a last-minute gate change at LAX (much like this couple) and even showed up to my gate late…there were only 12 minutes left until departure…but thankfully I got on. The cbain was half-empty the day before, but filled up with upgrades and non-revs. To “protect revenue,” AA does not offer complimentary elite upgrades from business class to first class on premium transcon flights, so even though the first class cabin was empty, I stayed in business class and it filled up with non-revs (I’m not complaining, just noting that it makes sense why AA is getting rid of first class aka “employee class” on this aircraft and on the 777-300ERs).
Like my last flight, my foot cushion was broken.
Like my last flight, my power port did not work.
Two flights in a row…
The “wi-fi was also broken” (thanks AA).
But it wasn’t a horrible flight. Kelly, who worked my side of the cabin, was very gracious, calling passengers my surname and was also very attentive.
I had skipped dinner earlier so I could eat onboard (in order to offer a full review of the flight) and ordered a “black and blue” short rib with bleu cheese on top. It was a very nice meal with carrot and parsnip fries, a nice artichoke caprese appetizer, and a green salad.
Then an ice cream sundae to finish…I just could not help myself:
The bedding is decent in business class and I was able to sleep for the next 3.5 hours: I greatly appreciate that AA does not wake everyone up to prepare for landing at the top of descent, like United does…that extra 15 minutes of sleep made a huge difference.
So as we enter 2025, expect more of the same on AA: improving food, hit or miss service (great service on this flight), but an A321T that is falling apart and no effort to fix it.
I will offer a full review of this flight as soon as I complete the last few flight reviews from my trip around the world.