I travelled recently on AA’s three class New York, JFK to LAX flight in First Class. The ticket, issued by American, was part of an international itinerary and allowed me to upgrade the business class portion from NY to LA using OnBusiness points. American’s scheme, OnBusiness, is designed to allow small and medium companies to earn points they can use to upgrade their employees or give them free tickets.

It was about a year after the three class A321’s arrived before I was able to travel on one of these flights. I was underwhelmed and indeed wrote a post praising the Business Class product over the First Class offering.

American lets customers book their preferred meal choice between 30 days and 24 hours before travel. I always do this when I can. Last minute changes, delays or re-routing makes this impossible sometimes but when I can I do. (Just open your booking on aa.com and when the window for choosing is open, you can pick from the menu.)

On board the crew reserve you your selected option when they come round and confirm it with you. My experience is that, if you want to change your mind, they will do their best to accommodate it, but cannot make promises. This seems fair.

The crew on my flight were pretty friendly from the start and were offering Lanson Black Label as the pre-departure drink. Woot! It’s the new champagne on AA three class domestic flights it seems and well done AA for offering a proper champagne before and after take-off.

The plane had the new Bose headphones already at our seats and although the screen was cracked it didn’t spoil my enjoyment.

Shortly after take off the crew arranged another round of drinks and laid up the tables for the meal service.

 

There was a choice of three types of bread. Pretty soon the starter arrived – this was the Hummus:

 

My only complaint was that the garlic baguettes were cold. The Hummus however, was delicious.

This was the salad which was interesting and unusual for not being a pile of iceberg.

The main was the risotto:

 

It was wonderful! Tasty, the right consistency and full of flavours – one of the best airline meals I have had in a long time.

The dessert was the standard ice cream sundae which was fine and which I enjoyed.

I have to say, American really is making an effort with its meals.