Tiers and Dreams – DFW and AAn CEO encounter…

Chicago XV – Tiers and Dreams
DFW and AAn CEO encounter…

Contents:

• Tiers? And Dreams? Huh?
• Off to Heathrow, American Airlines FlAAgship Lounge
• American Airlines AA99 London – Chicago
• Crowne Plaza O’Hare
• Back to O’Hare, AA AAdmrials Club
• American Airlines AA1380 Chicago to St Louis, St Louis AAdmirals Club, AA1685 St Louis to Dallas Fort Worth
  
• DFW and AAn CEO encounter… – THIS SECTION
• American Airlines AA1180 – Dallas Fort Worth to San Juan
• The Intercontinental San Juan and #Rucksackgate
• San Juan International Airport
• American Airlines AA1591 San Juan to Dallas Forth Worth
• More messing around DFW
• American Airlines AA1618 Dallas Fort Worth to St Louis International, A quick STL Stop, American Airlines AA1186 St Louis to Chicago
• The Hyatt Regency O’Hare with a Rucksack gate update
• One Time Exception: A Chicago Photographic Interlude
• O’Hare Take 3, AA AAdmirals Club
• AA3360 Chicago O’Hare to Toronto Pearson
• Toronto Airport Omnishambles – The Long Wait, BA Toronto Lounge
• BA96 Toronto to London Heathrow featuring the British Airways Boeing 787 Dreamliner
• Homeward bound
• The long and winding road

At Dallas Fort Worth

The Pictures: http://www.photoblog.com/kevincm/2013/10/19/

After disembarking the plane, I was in the “International” D Terminal at Dallas Fort Worth. And very pretty it looked too. All bright and airy, with natural light streaming in.

Floor Art

Whilst I had an hour to my next flight, I decided to continue a hunt for a cable (don’t ask… actually, I’ll talk about it another time), and headed to the lounge to catch up with the world.

American Airlines Lounge – D Gates

I was welcomed to the lounge, and my boarding pass was inspected. In addition I was queried how I would be accessing the lounge. A quick wave of my BA credentials (and pointing out the oneworld emerald on the boarding pass) allowed me to enter the lounge.

Art.

From there it was a quick elevator up, and into the main lounge… where a large Chinese delegation were waiting to go downstairs. Now, I dismissed this initially… however, they were wearing ribbons and such.

Something had happened here… but what?

I like this photo for no explainable reason.

A quick walk around the corner, and there was the signs of a press conference dissipating.

Hang on… is that Thomas Horton – AA CEO there?

Hmm. What’s going here? Chinese delegation, shiny 777-300ER parked up front, big AA branding everywhere?

Shiny Boeing 777-300ER in new house colours, with a 737 behind it.

In the background, the senior management team were chatting away, briefing media (and in the end… yours truly who finally got them to tell me what was going on, and that is was big for the area).

It was the route launch of the Dallas to Hong Kong and Dallas to Shanghai routes http://economyclassandbeyond.boardingarea.com/2013/10/16/american-to-launch-dfw-hong-kongshanghai-route /, and after asking the PR people what was going on, I gave up my chasing of another bottle of water that would probably get forgotten about and got to work writing about the route launch.

Yup. That was him!

Well that was unintentional and completely unplanned in my travels…

What was even more unintentional was when I saw it was time to head back to the gate… and I met Thomas Horton in the lift heading down from the Admirals Club. He was warm and welcoming (and I congratulated him on the launch of the routes). I also met the people who were organising the route; with both gentlemen in full PR mode that this is big for the DFW region, as it would open up a direct route to China.

With a bing, the elevator opened, and I thanked the two gentlemen for their time, and exited the club, and back to the gate – where reality had set in with a 20 minute delay to boarding.

The Boeing 757… with Winglets!

Information board

It seemed that this Wednesday afternoon flight to San Juan was going to be packed, as everyone was queuing up.

I just took advantage of the free wi-fi to update the phone. With that done, boarding was announced for First Class – and wanting to make sure I actually got overhead bin (especially with the crowd building, I headed to Priority AAccess (which had just made the boarding call), and headed aboard the 757 for a short Caribbean Adventure…

Next: AA1180 Dallas Fort Worth – San Juan

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