Saturday, June 25, 2016

American't

Let's talk about flying  first class. Generally it means that you, having upgraded or paid extra, would be treated as a special guest. There would be a selection of movies, a goodie bag with sleeping mask, a toothbrush, mouth wash, and slippers. In addition, there would be an ice cream sundae and baked on board chocolate chip cookies. When I saw that my upgrade was first class instead of business I should have been suspect especially since there was no Admirals club, and there is always an Admirals club.  However, they did say that, since they were partners with Alaska, first class passengers would be welcome.  Not so fast you American Airlines passenger. Sure you were welcome if you had a "priority pass card". Does anyone even know what a Priority Pass Card is?  As it happens, the Burnetts have every travel card in existence.So I did have one, but it took me so long to find the club and the card, the plane was loading.  I ran to the gate just in time to make the flight.
(if you wanna see what it was like in 1952 on a TWA Constellation.... check this... go to 5m10s to see the meal!)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_HKnokmpqc
The plane that we were on, not only didn't have a choice of movies, it had one of those drop down screens that maybe two people can see clearly.  Very stylish if you enjoy traveling like it's 1980. That's when the DC-NY shuttle cost $50.  Grateful there was one movie -- that is certainly not a choice.  Usually, when you are seated in first class, there is a menu where the food is crafted by some famous chef.  The famous chef in this case was Bugs Money. The choice was lettuce with mystery meat or lettuce with grapes, green and red.  That was the closest anyone got to a choice about anything.  We were told that the limited selection was because it is was so late. What a lot of Pookey.  If you fly overnight with Jet Blue, you have 100 television stations, blue chips and cookies.


if this isn't First Class, I don't know what is...

Moving on. The steward (I guess that's what they are called), or maybe flight attendant, walked around the cabin with four bottles of wine, 3 red and 1 white and that was it. For the entire cabin and the whole flight. You may recall that there was a trip to Italy we took that was such a disaster we renamed the airline, American't and it took some years to get beyond that.  but we seem to be  right back there again.  We were assured there would be some kind of breakfast but he confessed it would be no better than the pork products with cheese.

It is possible that this whining is unbecoming to someone such as myself.  Ordinarily my complaining is about something more important than a seat, oh yes I forgot about the seat. It did not go back. It was not a seat in front of the exit row.  No, that would make sense (although not in first class") Instead of going back you had to slide it down.  There is no way to explain how you slide a seat down on an airplane.  Just trust me, it is not easy, and anything but comfy.

The good news was that the flight was on time. There were plenty of cabs. The cab driver did not argue when I asked him to take the 59th Street bridge, the weather in NY was gorgeous and my puppy was as excited as he could be to see me. Maybe I'll give American't another chance but not without a thorough investigation about the type plane.  We're just say in'....Iris

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