American's New 777-200 Premuim Economy Class Review

I don't think I've ever been this okay with missing an upgrade to First before.  Given that I'd rolled out of bed at 3:30 in the morning on a Monday in Dallas to head to the airport, return our rental car to National, take the shuttle to Terminal E to use my CLEAR membership even though I was flying out of Terminal D, and make a fast stop at the Admiral's Club to shower before boarding, being 'okay' was even more impressive.

At the airport, I learned I wasn't going to clear the upgrade.  Not only that, I was #17 on the list.  This, after having been 1 or 2 all year long, and clearing around 90% of the time!  I had a chat with the AAgents at the Club, and they weren't surprised at all.  There were at least 25- yes 25 (!!) Executive Platinums on the upgrade list, which by boarding had almost 60 people total.  Well then.  Monday morning DFW-LAX lives up to its reputation once again.  On top of that, being 17th or 1st didn't even matter.  Nobody cleared.

This is all just set up to say that I was fine, especially once I gave Expert Flyer (a beyond useful tool that I'll give more info on soon) a last check before I turned in the night before and saw the seat map had changed at the last minute since AA saw fit to put a newly outfitted long haul 777-200 on the route, complete with their new Premium Economy cabin!  Since I'd been booked into one of the first rows of the old Main Cabin Extra and was an Executive Platinum, I was automatically kept in the new seats! 

Instead of just having a little more leg room, like Main Cabin Extra, Premium Economy is an entirely different class of service.  Economy on this plane is laid out in a 3-4-3 configuration, while Premium Economy is 2-4-2.  Removing those two seats means that the seat size in PE is closer to what you'd expect in domestic first class on a 737 or 321.  There's a larger arm rest/console between seats, increased leg room and recline, and foot-rests, as well as nice big screens for the IFE. 

Seat 13J, Premium Economy

I was seated in 13J, which is the aisle seat of the front row.  This makes it a bulkhead seat, so the legroom is more than you could ever need.  The footrest comes out from under the seat, and folds at the end.  I'll say it's a little short- and I'm 5'4" so when you use it your legs don't really stretch out, but it does let you put your feet up.  In this row, the IFE folds out from the center console, which makes the seats slightly narrower (though it didn't bother me), and means you can't watch the IFE during taxi/takeoff/landing.

Nice sized IFE screen

The IFE screen was great!  It has way better resolution than the screens on the 777-300, even in business class, and the touch feature was responsive and easy to use.  As a side note, you can see the attachments in the bulkhead where bassinets would go if this was an international flight.  Something to either aim for (if you have a baby with you) or avoid if you're worried about the disruption.  More on bassinets over at Baby Flyer Blog.

If this flight was international, there would be enhanced menu and drink options, as well as headsets.  However, they didn't feel the need to pull out the stops for the 3 hour hop to LAX.  Overall, it's a solid product, especially since I didn't have to pay extra for it.



AA Premium Econ Cabin example- Photo Credit Forbes.com

It will be interesting to see what AA does with this product going forward, and if it will eventually serve as a degradation of elite benefits, which would definitely be the case if AA decides to make main cabin upgrades go to PE instead of Business class.  Luckily this hasn't happened yet, but I wouldn't put it past them, especially under the current management. 

For now though, it's a nice surprise to get to use when you stumble upon the right plane at the right time.

~CruisingAltitude

Adventures in Canyonlands Part 1: Clear, Delays, and Unicorns, oh my!

 

Canyonlands Field Airport- CNY- Adorable.

Greetings friends, are you ready to take a little journey with me?  Now, I usually don't make multi-part trip reports out of domestic travel, but this one just made it necessary.  It has everything: Line jumping, delays, cancellations, upgrades, a tiny flight on a tiny plane, and even some free range rental car antics, which is that thing of when you think you're taking a short cut off the I-70, but end up sitting on the hood of your rented Dodge Charger watching cows wade through a pond.

You see why this gets more than one entry now?

So here's the set-up- I had need to be in Green River, Utah for work.  Now, Green River is about an hour north of Moab, and that puts it 25 mins or so away from the Moab (CNY) airport.  It's also about 4 hours South of Salt Lake, give or take.  So, a bit of a drive.  However, I came to learn that there's an airline that operates a couple flights a day from Salt Lake and Moab.  It's an independent airline called Boutique Air that flies 8 seat PC-12s in the 'executive' configuration.  I was intrigued.



The screengrab I kept proudly showing people about my cute little plane I had booked

However interesting, I couldn't justify it unless it actually made more sense, work-wise.  As it turned out, the ticket prices were extremely reasonable, as was the car rental at Moab.  So, the real question was just whether I wanted to spend up to 8 hours driving to and from Green River.  Spoiler alert- I didn't.

So I booked my ticket with AA to Salt Lake, and then another round trip from Salt Lake to Moab with Boutique Air.  I figured this was either the best idea I ever had, or the worst.  As we'll see, it's a little of both. 

For accommodations, I booked the first night at the Holiday Inn Express in town, and the second night I branched out and tried an indepedant place called the "Skyfall Guestrooms."  Skyfall wasn't available for the first night, but it was worth it to make the move to save a little, it was literally across the street.  As a general FYI, everything in Green River could be said to be "just across the street" as it isn't much of a town overall. 

Plans in hand, I set out for the airport bright and early on Monday.  My flight wasn't until 11am, but this is LA, and you have a choice between going painfully early, or just spending the morning on the 405. 

Since the lounge in Terminal 4 is down for updates, I checked in at Terminal 5.  Wow.  Just wow.  It was an absolute zoo.  I'm not exaggerating here- the line for security wrapped down the stairs, across to the other side of the ticketing hall, and down the wall as far as the eye could see.

This is the morning I learned the meaning of CLEAR.  I've posted about this service before, and while it's been 'nice' to have, this was the first time it saved me some serious wait time.  Initially, I didn't know how to even find the CLEAR line, because they wouldn't let me up the stairs to where the kiosks are.  When I asked, I got told "get line and they'll find you." 

Um....

.....What, now?

At this point I was debating walking over to Terminal 4's security to try my luck there when I indeed was 'found' by a CLEAR attendant.  Well not so much found, as I saw him and started a frantic arm flailing and yelping 'clear? clear?' mantra.  In no time flat, I was rescued, and taken right to the front of the pre-check line.  I was through the chaos and into the Club and ordering my custom salmon on toast in 10 minutes or less.



Someone even left a premium drink 'chit' for me.  VERY THOUGHTFUL.

*breathe*

After that, I headed on the bus over to the Gate 52 'Eagle's Next' to catch my flight.  The wonder did not end- I boarded to find I was the only, yes only, elite on the flight.  For the next 2 hours I had 6 first class seats to myself, and when I took a walk to the back to use the restroom, found that all the exit row seats were also empty.  Unicorn.  Absolute unicorn.

This is my face when I know something's too good to be true...and then it isn't and I have 6 seats and a flight attendant to myself.

We touched down on time into Salt Lake, and since there's no lounge there (aside from the Delta SkyClub) I set up shop at a restaurant on the 2nd floor with a great view of the runways and hills behind.  I had a few hours, so I got lunch and did some work. 

Part way through the wait, as I was getting organized to call for the shuttle over to Boutique Air, which they recommend you do about an hour to 30 minutes before your flight time, I got an email from Boutique saying my flight was delayed 50 minutes.  Okay, no big deal, except that the car rental at CNY was going to close on me.  Called them, they amazingly said they'd be waiting since I wasn't the only one.  Called Boutique to check on the reason for the delay- 'rolling delay from earlier issues in Denver.'  Okay, fair enough.



I was here for a long time.  They let me run my computer cord through into the pool room to plug in after awhile.

Let me just fast forward at this point- I didn't actually board the flight until about 10pm.  It was a 6pm departure as scheduled.  More delays, more phone calls, more hours at the SLC restaurant.  This is the issue with 'flying private'- they have exactly one plane available for that flight, and if it's not there, you're not going yet.  Luckily the people were very friendly, and their lounge over at the general aviation side of the airport has very comfortable chairs.

About the flight- unfortunately I couldn't get any good pictures because it was, well, dark by this point.  Here are some things to know- They don't assign seats, so when you board you just pick one.  The 4 in the front are set up in an "executive" configuration, so row 1 faces row 2.  Rows 3 and 4 face forward behind. 



My boarding pass- note the lack of a seat assignment, but they do participate in precheck (though at SLC they're not within a TSA area.

They check your luggage for free, and there's really only room in the passenger area for one small item you're comfortable with on your lap.  They'll weigh your luggage, and ask your weight before boarding for weight and balance purposes.

This plane carries 10 people, including crew.  It is small- you have to lean over to walk to your seat, but the seats themselves are bigger than standard airline seats.

They do have a bathroom, but it was inoperable on my flight.  Go before you board.

That all said, once I actually got onboard, we had a short taxi and then a very smooth flight for a small aircraft.  It was a full moon, and so even though it was dark, it was still a beautiful flight.  These planes fly lower than you're used to flying commercial, so you can see more detail.  There's no separation between the cabin and cockpit, so you can also watch the pilots and the flight controls to see the altitude and such, which is fun if you're an avgeek.

We landed a short 45 minutes later, and waited a few minutes to have our luggage returned.  Here's the long awaited end to the car rental saga- after waiting after hours for far too long, the Enterprise staff amazingly just left everyone's keys in the unlocked rental cars in the parking lot and went home for the night.  Unorthodox, but awesome.  I signed the papers, put them in a drop box, and headed out into the-completely dark, and completely quiet- night, bound for Green River.

Adventure, thy name is Canyonlands. 

Up next- Off-roading by mistake in a Dodge Charger, more adventures with Boutique Air, road trips with perfect strangers, and dinosaurs in a deposition.  Yes, dinosaurs.

~CruisingAlitude

All CLEAR!



Baby Flyer enjoys her upgrade on the flight up.  AA has put some updated 737s on the LAX-SEA route with IFE.

After another beautiful and peaceful weekend visiting our family on Whidbey Island enjoying the big trees, tidal flats, and starry nights, I once again find myself in the SEA Centurion Lounge.  It's not a bad place to be.  The staff is friendly, food is more than adequate for a domestic lounge, and the drinks are top shelf (plus the services of a bartender who makes a killer margarita, along with just about everything else).  I'll even give them a pass on having 'sexual healing' on the lounge playlist.

Checking out the sand and shells.

I've also cleared my upgrades both up and back this weekend, and made it to the airport in decent time despite having some serious traffic on the 405 while taking the Whidbey-Sea Tac shuttle service.  On the upside, it gave me time to finish my excellent Puget Sound Kombucha I grabbed on the ferry.

Love the Earl Grey!

However, I've reviewed this place several times, so today I'm up to something different.  I think I've come far enough along to review the "CEAR" program showing up at more and more TSA checkpoints.  Note that this is an honest review, I've paid for my family's memberships the old fashioned way. 

The basic idea with Clear is that you go through some additional screening, both online, and in person to verify your identity and do some biometrics.  Then, you get two main benefits when you show up to a Clear airport- you don't have to pull out your ID at the screening checkpoint, and you get to cut the pre-check line.  So really, you cut the line that's cutting the line already.  Once you get to the actual screening, it's the same as precheck. 

How it works is that instead of going to pre-check, you walk up to the designated Clear lane, give your boarding pass to the staff member there, and put your fingers on the kiosk to read your fingerprints, or look into the scanner to have your irises scanned.  Then the staff member verifies it, stamps your boarding pass, and leads you to the front of the line. 

I grabbed it too early- the rest of the stamp is on my hand.

I had some early hiccups with the service, mainly at Houston when I was going through there a fair amount for work earlier this year. Right off, my ID didn't match up correctly with my AA account and therefore my tickets, so it had to be manually done, and then I got a chance to get it corrected and it's worked well since.  Second, it may just be a Houston thing, but the Clear lane didn't match up with the precheck lane, so you could in essence only use one or the other.  So you could use Clear, but then have regular screening (shoes off, laptop out) or vice versa.  A bit of a fail, but localized to IAH A gates as far as I can tell.

So, that's my critique, and now for the neutral part of the review.  In general, to decide if it's worth it to you (the cost is $99 with a Delta FFN, $179 without, family is an additional $50, and minors flying with you under 18 are free) you first need to note if your most common airports have Clear at all.  Now that LAX has it, as does SEA and DFW, some of our most traveled places, it weighs in favor of keeping it up.  Also, there's the simple fact of if you generally feel like precheck at your airports and times is a wait.  Honestly, LAX T4 really isn't most of the time, but other places, like today at SEA were a significant delay, so I definitely saved some time.

Now for the positives.  Because I like to think of myself as a people person, I'll start with the staff.  Every single one I've met have been fantastic, cheerful, and patient.  I don't want to paint a broad brush about TSA, some honestly are great, but having at least part of your experience with screening being consistently pleasant is a plus.  I hope they're being paid and treated as well as they seem like they are. 

Next- on average, it does save you time.  It's either as fast, or significantly faster than pre-check depending on the lines.  I also find just the act of not having to take your ID out twice a good thing, since it's been more than one occasion where I've forgotten to put it right back, and it's taken several days and going through my travel stuff to find my drivers license again. 

Another plus is that they make using the service as a family fantastic.  The fact that all minors flying with you are free and you don't have to do anything to sign them up is wonderful.  This is a stark contrast (for obvious reasons) with Global Entry where we've been stuck in the regular lines to get our kiddo through even though me and Mrs. CurisingAltitude are long time GE members.  Also, being able to tack a spouse onto a membership for $50 makes it less daunting to get everyone onboard.

Lastly, the bit of the review that's either a benefit or a drawback, depending on how you feel about it- Clear has it's own lane by pre-check, and as you're escorted through by the Clear staff member there's an air of "VIP" to it.  Like I said, you either love this, or feel a little silly.  Either's fine, just a sidenote, really.

Score!!

Overall, my personal feeling is that it's worth it for our family at the moment.  We're flying to places where we use it, and our Baby Flyer gets through with us for free.  The less fiddling around with IDs and bags with a 20 month old in tow, the better.  Plus, because we signed Mrs CruisingAltitude up at LAX, they were giving out free power sticks for new members, and gave me one too!  It's the little things. 

Clear may be right for you, or it may not.  I hope my thoughts help you make the decision.

Fly well,

~CruisingAltitude