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American Airlines offers two different Business Class cabins on its Boeing 777-200ER aircraft. If you’re fortunate, you’ll find yourself in the newer cabin fitted with the Collins Aerospace Super Diamond seats. If you’re less fortunate, you’ll find yourself in the older Safran Concept D seats.
This review covers the older Business Class cabin featuring the Safran Concept D seats on an overnight flight from Phoenix to London Heathrow.
A bit of background
I was only in Phoenix on a layover between flights, so I’d didn’t get the chance to find out how good or bad the check-in agents were or how long the security lines were. I did, however, get to spend some time in the Escape Lounge in the B concourse of Terminal 4.
The walk from the Escape Lounge to the gate from which my aircraft was set to depart (in concourse A) was a long one, but given the crowds in the Admirals Club near Gate A20, that was a small price to pay for a bit of comfort.
At the gate, boarding & take-off
Not for the first time on this trip, my American Airlines flight was showing a delay and this one was put down to a late departing aircraft from Charlotte.
The late-arriving aircraft finally pulled up to the gate 50 minutes before my scheduled departure time and 45 minutes later, the crew for my flight was still waiting to board.
50 minutes later they were still waiting. And 60 minutes later they were still waiting. So it wasn’t until ~70 minutes after I had watched the aircraft come to a standstill at the gate, that the crew finally boarded.
I have absolutely no idea what took so long.
Passengers were allowed to board 15 minutes after the crew.
About 15 minutes after boarding had commenced, an announcement told us that there would be a further delay to the flight because a customer’s shoulder harness (a feature of the forward facing Business Class seats) was not functioning correctly and an engineer had to be called.
By the time the seat harness had been fixed we were 65 minutes late. By the time we pushed back we were 80 minutes late, and we took off 10 minutes after we had pushed back.
The American Airlines 777-200ER Business Class cabin
As soon as I boarded and saw the Business Class cabin, my heart sank a little.
As I wasn’t aware that any of the American Airlines 777s still had older Business Class seats fitted, and as the seat map I had used to select my seat very clearly showed all seats facing forward, I had been expecting to see a cabin full of the well-regarded Collins Aerospace Super Diamond seats.
Instead, presumably thanks to a last minute aircraft swap, I found myself looking at a cabin with the Concept D seats laid out like this:
The window seats alternate between forward facing seats angled towards the windows and rearward facing seats angled towards the aisle.
The seats in the center section of the cabin also alternate.
Some pairs face forwards and angle inwards away from the aisle.
And some pairs face rearwards and angle outward towards the aisle.
One thing that all the centre seats have in common, however, is that they all have a privacy screen that can be deployed between them.
For solo travelers, selecting the window seats is the obvious choice to make, but if you’re a solo traveler faced with just the option of center seats, the seats facing backwards and angled towards the aisle will offer you a bit more privacy.
People traveling with someone they’d like to communicate with during the flight will be best off selecting the center seats that face forwards and angle inwards (towards one another).
The Business Class seat
I had chosen seat 1L – a seat on the right/starboard side of the aircraft with two windows – and this is what that seat looks like.
To one side of the Business Class seat is a fixed table/shelf.
A reading light, the entertainment controller, and the electronic seat controls are all housed in a side wall of the seat.
The seat controls are simple to use and can be used to place the seat into a wide variety of angles so it shouldn’t be too hard for a passenger to find at least one position in which they feel comfortable.
The seat’s tray table deploys from the fixed table/shelf …
… and can be partially or fully opened.
Between the seat and the aisle is an armrest that can be raised or lowered.
Above the seat, a passenger has access to two lights and two air nozzles which can be used to help regulate the temperature around the seat.
And a nice feature on offer is the ‘privacy please’ light which can be switched on to let the crew know that you’re fine and that you wish to be left alone.
Of course, one of the most important aspects of this seat is that it can turned into a true lie-flat bed that’s 78″ long.
When in bed more, the seat feels narrow and tight, and compared to the seat you’ll find on American Airlines 777-300s, it can feel more like a coffin than a bed.
As bad as that may sound, however, that’s not the biggest drawback that this seat has. There’s a far bigger one.
Because of the poor way the seats have been designed, whenever the passenger in one seat moves around, the seat next to it moves too and the person in that seat can feel it.
While you may not notice this too much when watching a movie, doing some work, or reading a book, you definitely notice it when you’re trying to get some sleep.
Being woken up multiple times just because the person next to you has shifted in their seat can get aggravating very quickly, and this is the primary reason that these seats are disliked by a lot of frequent flyers and why a lot of flyers will go out of their way, if possible, to avoid them.
Another downside to these seats is the lack of storage space around them.
Yes, you have an overhead bin where you can stow your carry-on, but there’s nowhere to store a laptop within easy reach of the seat.
A small doorless cubby is to be found built into the seat just above the shelf (this is where you’ll find two universal AC power outlets and two USB-A ports).
There’s a small storage space under the shelf (which is where the seat designers have hidden the headphone input).
And there’s a magazine rack (of sorts) in the footwell.
That’s it. There are no other storage options.
Overall, I really dislike this seat. In fact, I’m pretty sure this is, by a distance, the worst Business Class seat that American Airline offers on its wide-body aircraft.
Sure, it has good access to AC and USB power, in seat mode it’s comfortable enough, and the seat controls are good, but none of that can take away from the fact that it’s terrible seat in which to get some sleep – it’s too tight and unless your neighbor is a statue or you have passed out you’re going to get woken multiple times.
This is a seat to avoid.
Amenities
Upon boarding, I found an amenity kit, headphones and a menu waiting for me next to my seat …
… and Casper branded bedding on the seat itself.
The bedding is decent quality and does a job, but the blanket could do with being a little weightier.
As I found on my previous transatlantic flight, American Airlines is currently handing out oddly designed amenity kits. Thanks to its diamond shape, it doesn’t sit straight (i.e. with the zipper upright) and is always falling to one side … but that’s a very minor gripe.
Within the kit bag you’ll find the following:
- A 5ml lip balm by D.S & Durga
- A 5ml hand & body lotion by D.S & Durga
- Socks
- Eye mask
- Dental kit (toothbrush + mini toothpaste]
- Ear plugs
- A pen
All in all, this is pretty much a standard amenity kit for a transatlantic Business Class flight.
The headphones that American Airlines offers in Business Class are from B&O …
… and as I’ve said in other reviews, I’m not a fan.
Generally speaking, the quality of the sound coming through the headphones is usually fine (although on this flight I had to turn the volume up to max to hear the movie I was watching on the inflight entertainment system), but there are two reasons why I don’t like them.
Firstly, I don’t like over-ear headphones because I find they make my ears get hot.
Secondly, American Airlines insists on using a triple-pin jack with its headphones, and this means that unless you carry a special adapter with you (this is the cheap one I carry), your own personal headphones will only offer mono sound when you use them to watch the airline-provided entertainment.
On this aircraft there was a single input of some description next to the 3-pin headphone input, but if that was meant to serve a purpose, I never found out what that purpose was. Nothing happened when I tried to use it with my earbuds.
Overall, that’s pretty much it for the amenities section.
The kit is fine and is on a par with what you’ll find offered in most transatlantic Business Class cabins, and the headphones offer good quality sound, but their design will polarize opinion, and the 3-pin jack is annoying.
Entertainment
The inflight entertainment screen is small by modern Business Class cabin standards and deploys from the side wall of the seat ahead.
There’s a very good selection of entertainment onboard with dozens of movies, TV shows, and box sets to choose from as well as selection of music.
I continue to maintain that no one should trust and airline to keep them entertained on a flight, but given the number of options offered on American Airlines widebody transatlantic flights, most people should find that they’re well catered for.
I’m not going to list all the movies, TV shows, games, music and other entertainment options that were available on this transatlantic flight as that information will be out of date by the time most people read this review, but if you want to see what’s on offer right now, you can do so via this American Airlines webpage.
Wifi
The wifi on American Airlines transatlantic flights is supplied by Panasonic and costs $29 for 2 hours or $35 for the full flight.
That makes American ‘average’ when it comes to transatlantic wifi pricing.
$35 for a flight pass is less than what United Airlines charges but is noticeably more than what British Airways charges (~$29) and more than what Virgin Atlantic charges (~$27).
I didn’t make the time to test out the quality of the wifi connection on this flight. Usually, however, the Panasonic systems are ok.
The flight experience & dining
Pre-departure beverages were served shortly after boarding started with water, orange juice, and Champagne (Champagne Boizel Brut Réserve) on offer and as usual, the beverages were served in a plastic cup.
For once, I had remembered to pre-select my meal, so I only had to confirm my order with one of the flight attendants as they came through the cabin taking orders shortly before we pushed back.
Hot towels and bottles of water were handed out shortly after we levelled out …
… and drinks and warm nuts were served ~40 minutes after take-off.
The menu (which you’ll see in a moment) suggested that as far as white wines go, there was a Chardonnay and Sauvignon blanc on offer, but the crew said two Chardonnays had been loaded and no Sauvignon Blanc.
The newcomer was a Californian Chardonnay which, sadly, was disappointing in two ways – it wasn’t properly chilled (not really the winemakers fault) and it was far too heavily oaked (definitely the winemakers fault).
It was about as subtle as a mallet to the head.
Then, suddenly, the Sauvignon Blanc made an unexpected appearance, and I quickly swapped out the disappointing Chardonnay for what I was hoping would be Marlborough’s finest.
It was not Marlborough’s finest.
It was a clear improvement on the Californian Chardonnay, but it also hadn’t been chilled properly and a warm Sauvignon Blanc has no place in a civilized society 🙂
Still… those were the very definition of ‘first world problems’.
Dinner and more drinks were served around 70 minutes after take-off (I had learned my lesson from earlier and settled for water).
This was the food menu for this flight:
And this was the drinks menu:
The choice from the bread basket was ‘combo’ (no, me neither), pretzel roll or multigrain, and the meal kicked off with a ‘small plate’ of Caprese salad – pesto marinated mozzarella with grilled artichoke, blistered cherry tomato and a balsamic glaze – as well as a side salad of baby spinach, pecans, feta cheese, and mixed berries.
Leaving aside the fact that the Caprese salad didn’t look like any Caprese salad I’ve ever had before (what’s artichoke doing in there?), it was actually very nice …
… and the spinach salad was also winner with me despite a pitiful amount of walnut and feta (the fact that this salad didn’t contain any of that hateful arugula that keeps appearing in airline meals went a long way to keeping me happy).
At this point the biggest surprise for me was that American Airlines actually served proper butter with the bread roll.
No Californian or Pennsylvanian rubbish here, no spreadable rubbish either. Just Ireland’s finest Kerrygold in a proper (small) block (Note: Don’t write in to complain, I’m Californian).
For the main course I had chosen what the menu called ‘golden roasted chicken’ which came with ‘yukon smashed potatoes, haricot vert with tomato chutney sauce’.
The chicken was cooked well – it was still nicely moist and not horribly dried out – but from there things went downhill.
The beans lacked any kind of flavor and the “smashed potatoes” were not smashed at all. They were boiled and very bland.
The tomato “chutney” helped add some flavour to the meal but overall, this was very mediocre fare.
For dessert, I decided to forgo the ice cream sundae and went for the lemon tart which could be served plain, with whipped cream or with berries.
I chose the berries, and they came in a color that I’m not sure is found in nature. The red was almost luminous and had I had a Geiger counter handy, I would have checked it for radiation.
Still, the lemon tart/Chernobyl waste combo turned out to be ok. I wouldn’t go out of my way to order it again, but it was fine and a step up from the disappointing main course.
Unlike on my last American Airlines long-haul flight, this time the cabin crew weren’t particularly speedy in collecting the remnants of dinner, and my lemon tart dish was collected with just under 6.5 hours of flight time left.
All the crew I interacted with were smiley, polite and seemed very nice (and that’s really 80% of the battle won), but it would have been nice if the clearing up had been more efficient.
Aside: I never know if once I’ve finished my meal and there’s no sign of the plates being collected, if I should take them to the galley myself. On the one hand that may seem rude, and I could get in the way of the crew. On the other hand, it may be seen as helpful. It’s a dilemma I have yet to solve.
After the dinner service was completed, the cabin lights were dimmed so that passengers could get some sleep, and so began a period in which just as I got to sleep, I would feel my seat move and I was suddenly awake again. I had this on repeat for most of what was left of the flight.
Breakfast was served as we entered the final hour of the flight and as I’m a firm believer that 95% of all egg dishes served for airline transatlantic breakfasts are either poor, very bad, or truly horrific, I opted for the fresh fruit bowl, with Greek yoghurt and salted caramel granola.
I chose the cinnamon roll as my ‘bread’ option.
This was good ordering as I saw the ‘American breakfast’ that someone else had ordered and it didn’t look good.
The fruit, however, tasted fresh, the yoghurt and granola combo worked well (even if it was horrifically calorific) and the cinnamon roll was nice and had the effect of topping up my blood sugar levels to a point that made my lack of sleep a non-issue.
Overall, the two meals on this flight were a mixed story.
The dinner started off well but the main course was not at all good, while the breakfast was quite nice.
Once again, I thought the crew members were very friendly and for my fourth flight running (yes, you read that number correctly) the service-with-a-smile was great to see and not at all what I has been expecting before this trip started.
Yes, a little bit more efficiency in clearing up after the dinner service would have been nice, but I’ll take a slightly inefficient but very nice crew over an efficient but angry and sullen crew any day.
Good to know
There are a few things that you should know when you fly in Business Class on an American Airlines transatlantic wide-body flight that may not be entirely obvious when you’re onboard.
Firstly, and as I briefly touched upon earlier, the location of the headphone input is not in an obvious place and while it’s not quite as well concealed as the headphone input on the 777-300ERs, it’s probably worth reminding you to look under the fixed table/shelf.
Secondly, your device may connect to the inflight wi-fi but may not open the portal where you can choose what package to purchase.
If this happens, you need to enter AAinflight.com into your browser which will then open the options page.
Thirdly, between the meal services, you’ll find snacks and water bottles set out in an area next to the galley.
This is mentioned on the inflight menu, but it’s easily missed.
Fourthly, on this aircraft type, the lavatory on the left of the aircraft and by door #2 (the door through which you board) is the biggest lavatory in the cabin (by far) so that’s a good place to get changed.
TFM Tip: If you’re going to get changed into something to sleep in, do so before your fellow passengers have a chance to make a mess of the toilets.
Finally, on transatlantic flights to London Heathrow, American Airlines gives its Business Class passengers access to its Arrivals Lounge in Terminal 3.
The crew should hand out invitations to this lounge so don’t disembark without one (unless you don’t need to access the lounge).
Final thoughts
Let me get right to the point. The main reason for purchasing a Business Class fare is not for the food, drinks, or the service, it’s to have somewhere comfortable to sit and somewhere comfortable to sleep, and the Concept D seat lets the airline down here.
Yes, as somewhere to sit, it’s mostly fine (you can probably live with some seat movement when working, reading, or watching a show), but it’s a horrible, horrible, seat in which to try to get some sleep.
The way I kept being woken up every time I was just about to fall asleep could have been a play taken straight out of a CIA interrogation manual, and had the flight been any longer, I may have started to wonder if it was.
Sure, that’s a wild overreaction to a very bad night of no sleep, but my main point stands.
This is a truly abysmal seat in which to ‘sleep’ and why American Airlines hasn’t yet eliminated it from its fleet is a mystery.
Everything else here was just a side-show.
The food and drinks were, on the whole, mediocre, but I really liked having yet another smiley and friendly crew and that always goes a long way to keeping me happy.
Summary
After not flying with American Airlines for a surprisingly long time, I found myself with four American Airlines flights in a relatively short period of time, and I have to admit that I was surprised (stunned) that four out of four crews were as nice as they were.
A big thank you to all of them, and they have made sure that I probably won’t be quite as wary of booking American Airlines flights going forward.
What I will definitely not be doing going forward is going anywhere near a route on which American Airlines operates its 777-200ER aircraft while there’s a risk that I’ll end up with a Concept D Business Class seat on an overnight flight. The seat is an abomination and should have been consigned to history years ago.
All reviews in this series:
Review: American Airlines 777-300ER Business Class (transatlantic)
Review: American Airlines Flagship Lounge at Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW)
Review: American Airlines A321 domestic First Class (DFW-PSP)
Review: Marriott Desert Springs Villas I (a Marriott Vacation Club property)
Review: American Eagle CRJ-700ER First Class (PSP-PHX)
Review: Escape Lounge Phoenix (PHX) Terminal 4
Review: American Airlines 777-200ER Business Class (transatlantic)
Review: Iberia short-haul Business Class A320neo (LHR-MAD)
Review: Iberia Premium Lounge Velazquez Madrid Terminal 4S
Review: Iberia short-haul Economy Class A320neo (MAD-LHR)
AA’s worst business class seats are still better than most European carrier’s business class seats. Herringbone/Reverse seats beat staggered types any day of the week.
If it’s an overnight (usually eastward) flight, privacy is my top priority; I may not even eat the food on offer. If it’s a daytime (usually westward) flight; I care more about the soft product and the seat becomes secondary.
My rule of thumb is to fly a USA-based carrier to Europe, and a European carrier on the way back. There’s obviously exceptions, but I would be perfectly content flying eastward on the plan being reviewed.
Each to their own. I dislike this Business Class cabin so much I’d prefer to fly BA’s old Club world seats or even Lufthansa’s terrible Business Class seat over this one.
Also, based on my experiences, AA’s worst Business Class seat (this one) is definitely not better than BA Club Suite, Virgin Atlantic A350/A330-900neo Business Class, Lufthansa’s very new Business Class, Air France Business Class, ITA Business Class, Iberia Business Class or even LOT Business Class (which doesn’t even offer all-aisle access). If you can’t get any sleep, a lie-flat bed is no better than an upright seat.