American Airlines Economy Review

 Guys, if I’m being perfectly honest, I wouldn’t choose to fly American Airlines Economy ever, ever again. It was perhaps the worst experience I have ever had flying, and yes I’m totally including the budget airlines I took in Europe. It was horrible.

Travel Date: October 2014

Travel Itinerary: From Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) to Incheon International Airport (ICN)

Seating

Seating was horrendous. I sat in a middle row, and it had five seats squished together. Yeah, five. And it was tiny. I’m 5’3″ and the leg space was rough on me. I wasn’t directly in the middle, but bless the kind woman who was.

Also this is a minor pet peeve of mine, but is obviously genius on their part: I hate when airplanes make you walk through first class to get to your economy seat. Thank you for that minor cruelty, thanks.

Food

Food was okay. I’m not an overly picky eater, and I was excited to eat bibimbap again, even in tray form. I think I had eggs for breakfast that were pretty good as well. However, it isn’t this aspect that made me so dissatisfied. The man next to me was a vegetarian, and when he asked the stewardess if they had the vegetarian option because he marked it when he ordered his ticket, she told him to just pick the beef off his bibimbap… What?! This leads me to my next issue.

Customer Service 

Subpar at best. I’m pretty sure I even sensed some attitude in the one. There was no apology, no sense of sympathy from the stewardess when she told him how to rectify his situation. And often times the stewardess acted in a similar manner. Now, excuse me if I’m wrong, but part of being a stewardess is that you, you know, have proper customer service capabilities and training. I worked in retail for four years, I get it. You don’t want to be Mary freaking Sunshine every day, but it’s called faking it. You think I cared about the ten millionth woman trying to figure out if she wanted her fiftieth bag? No! But I slapped on a smile, added a sympathetic tone, and I did my job. Yes, if you’re wondering, I am an extra harsh judge on customer service because I’ve been there, done that, and I know what needs to be done.

Temperature

I flew in October, so the weather outside was crisp but not freezing. The airplane was stifling. It was horrible. I took off my socks in attempt to keep from overheating. If I remember correctly, there were little fans, but in the middle row, they barely did anything. By the time I got off the plane at Incheon, I beelined for a bathroom, splashed my face with water (and my armpits, *cough*) and changed my shirt.

Entertainment

It was… not good. The most recent movie they had was 22 Jump Street, which I had already seen. A lot of the movies were older, the quality of the television from the nineties, and you couldn’t even just start a movie or TV show from the beginning. You had to hop in the middle or wait until it finished and started over.

As you can see, there weren’t too many bright spots to my travel with American Airlines, and I’d soon again not fly with them. But, of course, I’m also a believer in second chances when they’re deserved, so maybe if I ever read about AA upgrading their planes or starting something new in customer service, I’ll give them a try once more.

Written by Samantha, Image from Wikipedia

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