Summer Tier Points - AA164 San Francisco to New York JFK - TRANSCON BUSINESS CLASS

AA164 San Francisco to New York JFK (Transcontinental Business Class) – Summer Tier Points

In this… epic.

AA164 San Francisco International to New York JFK
Airbus A321 T, Seat 6A, Business Class (Transcontinental)
140 Tier Points Earned, 2,572 Base Avios+ 643 Avios Cabin Bonus + 1,286 Avios Tier Bonus.

Down we go again

I was welcomed aboard and turned right down the cabin. Which still feels odd for a Business Class cabin, but there you go. I found my seat, and once again, met my seat of the day – the B/E Aerospace (Rockwell Collins) Diamond Seat.

First Class seat

Hello again old friend.

Legroom

Through the window

Overhead panel – see that? Air outlets.

I think we’re all aware of the seat by now so I won’t go into the details of it.

With me settled in the rest of the flight continued boarding. The crew was friendly that day, which makes a difference when on a segment like this – it normally means that the service should be pretty high quality. Headphones were handing out, which meant playing the contortion game.

Won’t see these much longer…

Pre-departure beverages followed. And those who haven’t been around me for more than 3 minutes will know exactly what I went for.

Pre-departure beverage

With the plane heading close for being buttoned up, I decided to put the gate-to-gate wireless to the test. Can a Viasat2 Ka Satellite-based system deliver for a full flight?

Payment was via PayPal, which was handled easily and quickly.

I also looked the coverage (and pretty much shared it with the entire aviation world – hey. I might as well do some good).

On the ground…

With the plane heading for pushback, the safety video played. Now, we can talk about the deleted cheering from the American Airlines safety video – but in all, it’s a reasonable video – a bit too stylised, but it does the job in passing on the core information.

Although I do wish this thing of doing safety videos outside the plane environment would stop. I don’t think it adds to the video, and it can confuse the safety message

With the video done and dusted, we proceeded to the runway to begin the transcontinental run to New York JFK.

Southwest Boeing 737 heading off

United 737 taxing away to itself

United Express Embraer 170

United Boeing 777

Delta Boeing 737

Thankfully, there was only a short wait for departures

With a roar, AA164 took to the skies.

Now, in boring technical notes, I film one part of this on the Canon EOS (as I normally do), but a copy of it on the iPhone

Why?

Testing my dear reader.

View this post on Instagram

Parallel take off aboard an AA A321T #hyperlapse #travel #takeoff. Uploaded in flight

A post shared by Kevin @ Economy Class & Beyond (@economybeyond) on Aug 27, 2018 at 8:21am PDT

The Viasat service is a Satellite Ka based compared to some services that are ATG or Ku based – this means there should be a higher download and upload speed (which is why Viasat and American Airlines encourage you to use Netflix and other streaming media services.

And speed tests were showing decent performance.

More than reasonable

But a speed test is not the ultimate test. You can optimise your targets and bandwidth. Therefore I did what I normally do … and hammered it with a variety of different tests – be it browser response, feed loads, commenting and such

And I’ll give the Viasat service this – it responded to them both on the phone and the desktop.

One thing people forget sometimes is the technology for onboard Wi-Fi is constantly evolving.

We’ve gone from the day where Air to Ground was the primary method of connectivity and were L Band was the only way to get a message out (and the sooner some carriers – yes I’m looking at you Qatar Airways) shift from L Band to Global Express, the better), to moving to Ku Based solutions and the introduction of Ka and 2Ku connectivity – which will change the game and give you a more “home-like” broadband experience.

As always the problem is that airlines have brought into one solution, and it might take them to tie to switch to another

Time is a great helper.

Whilst the bay may had been cloudy as heck, The Yosemites were as beautiful as they could be.

Drinks and nuts followed. Well. Not nuts. More like drinks and Biscotti.

Wait for a cotton picking second… BISCOTTI??? I’m in shock I tell you. Shock!

Well, it makes a change in the air I suppose. Or they didn’t load the nuts.

Take your pick

At least the views were beautiful.

With biscotti and drink service complete, the hot breakfast items followed

Biscuit

Sausage, hash and Scrambled Eggs

Fresh Fruit

Again – not a bad tray here. Some decent fresh flavours, with the omelette not being too soggy, the fruit being fresh, and the other components being quite edible.

Breakfast done it was time to lie back. Well, it wasn’t – it was time to start desktop testing with the Viasat solution… and write more stuff.

Who says you can’t lie back and work?

The joy of testing

And there was desert.

Also, it gives me something to do.

The flight continues onward, and with an article out and me watching the same section of the Big Bang theory again, I tried to switch over from the laptop to the phone… without success.

Annoying with 1 hour or so on the flight, but there it is. I, therefore, brushed up on my connection and what I needed to do at JFK (because if I screwed it up, dinner time would be *minimal*) and sat back as the plane began to descend.

Cookies were served near to the end of the flight.

… and a hot towel.

Headphones were collected back. Helpfully, however, the crew left pairs of normal earbuds. Useful for watching The Incredibles again. And the map.

The plane continued to descend, and with the cabin tidy, the plane looped out to the Atlantic, before turning back for New York JFK.

Prepare for landing

Decent.

Manhattan in the distance

With grace and power, AA164 landed safely at New York.

With the plane on the ground, it taxied past germinal 5, the terminal 7 complex and finally towards T8, before finally making a turn for the T8 satellite complex.

Air France A380

JetBlue A320

All sorts of tails

sh
British Airways Boeing 747-400

Iberia Airbus A350-900

Qatar Boeing 777-300ER

American Airlines Boeing 777

With the plane at the gate, there was a short delay before disembarkation began – as the jet bridge driver had gone missing

This isn’t like JFK at all.

Everyone off!

Overall: A pretty reasonable service, lead with a happy crew. One of the better segments this trip, with reasonable food and a solid hard product. And I would love to see more of this from American Airlines. Whilst the hot nuts didn’t turn up – the crew made the best of the job – and it’s all you can ask for.

Again – as I’ve said before… crews can make or break a flight. The crew on AA164 made it. With style.

NEXT: A JFK Transfer.

Welcome to Economy Class and Beyond – Your no-nonsense guide to network news, honest reviews, with in-depth coverage, unique research as well as the humour and madness as I only know how to deliver.

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Summer Tier Points – AA164 San Francisco to New York JFK – TRANSCON BUSINESS CLASS

AA164 San Francisco to New York JFK (Transcontinental Business Class) – Summer Tier Points

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AA164 San Francisco to New York JFK (Transcontinental Business Class) – Summer Tier Points

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