AA99 London Heathrow Terminal 3 to Chicago O’Hare Terminal 5 (MAIN CABIN)
There and Back Again
What’s this elbow in my side? Oh. Eight hours of this ahead? Wonderful. Nothing like a long-haul economy-class flight.
In this adventure
- Let’s have a Melancholy Introduction
- To the 2:40 Coach and Heathrow Terminal 3
- Lounging in Terminal 3 with Cathay Pacific and American Airlines
- AA99 London Heathrow to Chicago O’Hare (Main Cabin)
- Into the USA and The Holiday Inn/Staybridge Suites, Rosemont
- Airplane Art Extra from the Holiday Inn/Staybridge Suites, Rosemont
- Hyatt Regency O’Hare
- Airplane Art Extra from the Hyatt Regency O’Hare
- An Unveiled Bean – Seeing Cloud Gate after works at the Plaza
- Did I mention I hate suitcases? The Hunt for a Replacement
- Exploring The Loop from Above with the Chicago L
- Random Food Adventures in Chicago
- Off to O’Hare Terminal 3. Wait. T3? With the American Airlines Flagship Lounge
- BA296 Chicago O’Hare to London Heathrow (World Traveller)
- Coffee and the Coach
- One step forward
AA99 London Heathrow Terminal 3 to Chicago O’Hare Terminal 5
American Airlines
16L, Main Cabin
3914 miles flown
20 Tier Points Earned, £195.50 revenue spent, 1,564 Avios Earned.
Heading down the jetway, I knew timing was going to be important today – the earlier I got on, the better chance I could hold my luggage where I wanted, and get settled in in a reasonable amount of time.
I was headed to Main Cabin – simply as the more desirable Main Cabin Extra seats had been all pre-assigned when I got around to booking my ticket to Chicago.
And I’m sorry – A middle seat is not desirable in any cabin. Even in business class.
I was welcomed aboard the Boeing 787-9 and turned right into the second aisle. This took me past the Premium Economy cabin and into the Main Cabin.
Premium Economy Seats with Collins Aerospace MiQ seats
I passed wistfully at the Main Cabin Extra seats and arrived at my seat in Row 16, with L being my home for the flight.
I wasted no time chucking bags in the overhead compartment and sitting down.
The seat on this aircraft remains the older Safran 5751 seat. It’s a generation-old seat at this point, so it’s still got some comfort to it – even with a 17” seat width that has been installed.
Damn accountants, getting into a lovely aircraft and cramming more seats in.
Passable leg room I guess.
Although the rows in front had more.
For context, the 787 was originally meant to be designed for 2-4-2 seating (akin to the A330 family). That applied for the first two carriers (ANA and JAL)…. before everyone else thought they could cram an extra seat in economy class.
Why do I mention this at this point? Because I was about to enjoy an elbow in the side of me from London to Chicago.
Don’t get me wrong – sitting in economy class, this is par for the course. And I strongly believe in the rule of three.
- Window seat gets control of the window and the bulkhead
- Middle Seat get the armrests
- The aisle seat gets easy access to the aisle.
At least American hasn’t cut back on pillows or blankets, thin as they are.
However, sticking thy elbow into the side of my body isn’t in that contract. Or Manspreading across seats.
That was put to a stop, quickly.
It’s amazing how an aircraft fills up quickly – with about 10 minutes between these two photos of the cabin.
Window view. A grey Heathrow day.
All wing. No Treble.
Soon enough, the cabin was buckled down as the aircraft was prepared for departure. At this time, a couple of cabin crew members started to walk around the cabin offering headphones. I took a pair of cheap earbuds… least of all I was having trouble finding my Bluetooth ones to listen to my own content with.
Although who else would love to see DankPods blow these up? I doubt they’d survive a normal playing of Scarlet Fire…
With pre-departures complete, the doors were set to automatic – and pushback began. Thus spools up the American Airlines safety video. It’s non-offensive and direct to the point.
Interestingly an announcement that we would be on the ground before 10 am at O’Hare. That would make it one of the quickest trips across the pond to the windy city I’ve ever done.
With the video complete and the crew completing the crotch checks, I looked out of the window as the 787-9 began its taxi around London Heathrow.
American Airlines 777-300ER
Sister Boeing 787-9
Virgin Atlantic Airbus A350-1000 coming home.
British Airways Boeing 777
Turning out of the terminals and to the main taxiway.
Virgin Atlantic Airbus A330-300
Where once 747 tails lived, now the single-deck aircraft primarily lives… with some A380 for size queens.
That day, we would be departing from the South runway, heading towards London.
With a roar, the GEnx engines spooled up, propelling the 787 into the sky.
With the aircraft turning to face the Atlantic, the aircraft continued its climb out of Heathrow. Soon, the skies of blue and clouds of white were among us.
Let’s move on to the IFE system. The good news is that the system has had a content refresh or two since I was onboard last – this system being a Panasonic eX3.
In the seat back, there’s a headphone jack, USB-A (low power output and a mains socket to the right, that has been so badly implemented, that trying to insert a standard BSI1363 three-pin plug (or adaptor), causes it to fall out.
Did I bring my EU/US socket adaptor with me in my hand luggage? Of course… in my backpack of curse.
Maps are the classic Panasonic Voyager3D – a reasonable enough product, but it’s been overtaken by Pananoic’s own ARC Maps and products like FlightPath3D.
TV programming was a little.., barren to my tastes. Checking the films, however, I found a nugget or three. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.
Granted – they’re not the extended versions – but they’ll do. Two are easily doable – a third… eh…
I settled into “Return of the King” to start with. And yes, I’m doing it in the order I enjoy the films. With at least my eyes entertained one way, it was time to entertain them with another – with internet connectivity.
In this fight, it seemed that with Panasonic IFE equipment, they also went for the Panasonic Inflight Wireless Solution. That’s not a bad solution, with it being a Ku solution over the pond.
What’s annoying is that, unlike Delta, JetBlue has been offering free connectivity over the pond for some time now. What’s even more annoying is that American’s partners – British Airways and Finnair (at least on short haul) have been offering free text messaging to its loyalty members – and it’s increasingly hard to justify not offering a carrot t
This isn’t rocket science any more – where InFlight Connectivity is a cost/profit centre – it needs to be a requirement for people to connect. And offering only two-hour or full flight packages isn’t the answer. Not even budding up with T-Mobile is an answer so their customers get free connectivity.
And I doubt a full fleet switch to Viasat will make them change their mind – even if American Airlines is a big user of the “15 minutes of wifi free”.
However, the cost has dropped a little to $29.95 – a little better than it has been in the past (I’ve seen it as high as $35 for this segment length).
Small things, I suppose.
The service on board shortly began with a combined food and drinks beverage service. Breakfast today was either an Omelette or Pancakes.
Either way, you got a lot of plastic and plastic wrap – even if the utensils were wooden.
There has got to be a better way of doing inflight food prep, without going to plastic. Heck, even BA does foil over its main dish. Even though everything else is… plastic.
As for the food – the omelettes were soft and fluffy, whilst the rest of it was passable. The fruit was fresh, whilst the roll could have been used as a projectile to knock someone out.
As for a beverage, I went for a Gin and Tonic. Yes, at 9:05 in the morning. I was hoping it would dull the constant poking of an elbow in my ribs.
Or at least knock me out further into flight. I was easy on either at this point.
Trays were cleared away quickly, so that was good to see – however, a follow-up drinks service didn’t follow.
Hmm. So that’s another cost-saving measure, I guess.
With breakfast done and dusted, I noticed people were manually dimming their viewports. Normally, I’d let it happen automatically. Today – I dimmed the thing down and tried to fall asleep as The Return of the King played in the background.
I think I got the best part of 2 hours of sleep – about average for these transatlantic runs these days – especially when sleep patterns are all over the shop.
Then again – some days, the line “What is sleep” comes to mind. Not so easy over the past month or so.
I must have woken up in time for the next service as the crew were handing out ice cream in the cabin. At least this hasn’t been scrapped for the service level on these flights.
And it was salted caramel ice cream. That would do nicely – even if it needed a little time to melt before I dived into it.
It was also the perfect time to switch Lord of the Rings film to “The Fellowship of the Ring”.
I can hear those fans of Gondor groan in the background. What’s the term, my IFE Screen, my rules.
As usual, it got a little bumpy as we made landfall over Newfoundland, and the aircraft continued to progress quickly to O’Hare.
I’m not sure what the conditions were that day – but we were making more than good time over the Atlantic and North America – as we delved into the story of the One Ring, and Frodo offering to anyone of power in a five-mile radius.
With Frodo and Sam taking their own path with the ring, the pre-arrivals service kicked off. For my neighbours, they had a little bit of a feast with their Kosher Meals.
For the rest of us, we had a choice of a vegetarian or beef Monty’s Hot Pockets.
It’s a passable pre-arrival snack. Although you do start to wistfully remember the days when a mini pizza was offered on this sort of leg.
With the clock running down on the flight, it looked more and more likely we would be on the ground by 9:45. Even in the dim and distant past, I’ve never landed that early in Chicago.
Eventually, the aircraft began its descent over Michigan, before commencing its crossing across the Great Lakes.
As the plane neared the city of Chicago, the aircraft made a course correction and turn, bringing the city into view – a rarity for those of us who sit on the right-hand side of the aircraft (as the left gets warmer, due to the sun in that direction.
With the correction made and aligned with one of the many runways at O’Hare, the 787-9 made its final descent over North Chicago, with a gentle touchdown at its home hub of O’Hare.
One more turn
The grid of Chicago.
Pulling off the runway, it was obvious that whilst we had landed early, we had a good 15-minute taxi ahead to the international terminal.
Landed.
What a flight gives, Chicago O’Hare will happily taketh away. It gave me a chance to settle back and watch the different tails of aircraft that I don’t see too often.
Various narrowbodies lining up and waiting.
Which is the more low-cost these days?
Resting American tails
Eventually, our taxi took us towards the wonder that is Terminal 5 and towards Gate M24, parking next to a Frontier Airbus A321.
Terminal 5 in the distance… and the gate too
The distant Windy City
Parked next to a Frontier Owl.
After a short 7-hour and 44 flight, the engines powered down.
Of course, this is the opportunity for the disembarkation bun fight. Something I never look forward to. Thankfully the couple who were sitting next to me made good on getting up and getting their luggage.
Good enough for me as I grabbed the shoulder bag, waiting patiently for the moment for the aisle to clear.
With them moved, I reached to grab the rucksack and made my way off the aircraft.
Overall
Whilst I did miss the extra space in Main Cabin Extra, the seat itself was fine – if constrained by American Airlines’ desire to shove nine seats across in Main Cabin and make the experience as “just about manageable” as possible.
There are little cuts in the service – with the second drinks service after breakfast not being done, but all the core elements are intact thankfully – including the mid-flight ice cream, which is always good to see.
The most surprising and welcoming thing of all? The flight length. I can’t remember completing a London Heathrow to Chicago flight this quickly, with wheels up to wheels down taking 7 hours 44 in total. That’s some of a good time, considering it’s normally 8 hours of fun.
And 15 minutes less with an elbow buried in my side is a thing to be welcomed.
Next
Good morning USA. Yes. This, it is this early in the morning.
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Great report, nice to see how AA do TA in Y