American Airlines

American Airlines operates a sub-fleet of A321 aircraft which it has configured especially for a select number of high-profile domestic routes on which there is strong demand for a premium product that's considerably better than what passes for 'First Class' on most domestic routes.

The Airbus A321neo is one of the youngest aircraft models in the American Airlines fleet and if you're traveling between the West Coast and Hawaii with American, this is probably the aircraft you'll find yourself flying.

Just when you thought that American Airlines and British Airways couldn't get any closer to one another - they're both members of the oneworld alliance, they're both members of a transatlantic joint venture, and British Airways will soon be moving into American's home at JFK - American Airlines has announced that this summer season will see it operate a significant number of flights out of BA's terminal at London Heathrow.

Late on Friday, a leaked American Airlines memo delivered the news that over the weekend, the airline was planning to suspend services on three of its international routes, to delay the launch of an international route it had promoted with quite a bit of fanfare, and to halve the number flights on another international route. It's unclear if all these updates have now been processed but these cuts are very real.

Recently, I passed through New York JFK on my way to Europe so as I had a little time to kill and as I needed somewhere comfortable to do some work, I dropped by the American Airlines Flagship Lounge in Terminal 8 to see what it was like now that a lot of the Covid restrictions have been lifted.

Right now, I'm back home in LA and in the middle of a tier point run that I didn't really want to do, but it's only thanks to a stroke of good fortune that I actually got home on my planned date. Thanks to a rather incredible screw-up by American Airlines, my whole trip was nearly cancelled before I had a chance to board a single flight.

American Airlines has announced that it plans to launch a new service between New York JFK and Doha from summer 2022 but despite the fact that I've had a few days to mull over this announcement, I'm still at a loss to explain what the airline is thinking. To me, it makes no sense at all.

In the past 12 months, American Airlines has added an impressive number of routes to its Austin network but with the Austin Admirals Club already short of space before most of the new routes were added, something had to be done about the lounge situation at the airport. Well, something *is* being done and it's something that goes a lot further than the renovation project I was expecting - Austin is getting a brand new Admirals Club.

In February 2020, in the days when most of us still had little idea what lay ahead, rumors began to circulate that American Airlines was considering allowing flyers to pay to access the Flagship Dining facilities that it operates at a number of its US hubs. The pandemic put all those plans on hold but now that the airline is starting to reopen its Flagship Lounges around the country, the airline has confirmed that, in part, those rumors had substance.

Earlier this month, I flew American Airlines Business Class from Los Angeles to London Heathrow and while a full review of this particular flight is probably unnecessary (I've got another AA Business Class review in the pipeline), I thought I'd share a few thoughts and observations now that the number of people flying from the US to Europe is on the rise.