It’s been several years since I’ve flown American Airlines out of London Heathrow, but I’d just taken a trip in their Flagship First Class to Sydney and back – with broken inflight entertainment on the outbound and cabin in disrepair on the return.

Still, the seat gives more space than business class. There are only 8 seats in the cabin, which creates a sense of privacy and tranquility even with seats that aren’t very private. And American’s bedding is quite good, even if the food is the same as in business class. The headphones are good, too.

Since I’ve reviewed American Airlines first class so recently (and so often in the past) I’ll just focus here on what was good and what was bad in this flight experience rather than going into extreme detail about the flight.

Boarding was on time. You turn left and walk through the forward business cabin to reach first class.

It was nice that we’d be half the cabin. I tend to select row 1, yes it is closer to the galley and lavatory, but I also don’t see the passengers in row 2 so it’s like they aren’t there. Plus, if my one year old makes any sounds I can quickly whisk him out of the passenger cabin.

Predeparture beverages were offered – just water, orange juice, champagne and mimosas. That is… not a very international first class first impression.

Pajamas were handed out. They offer two sizes, “S/M” and “L/XL.” On my flight back from Sydney they didn’t have any larges, but I somehow now fit the ‘small/medium’ so I took that size again. (I’d worn an extra pair of American’s first class pajamas on my Dallas – Venice flight over to Europe in business class, American is adding pajamas to ultra-long haul business class but not Europe flights.) I do appreciate the slippers.

The purser was handling these things at the start of the flight. She was noticeably grumpy (already! we’d just started!) and was still wearing her WAR pin. The union distributed or ‘WE ARE READY’ pins during contract negotiations. They didn’t wind up striking, and got a new contract, but this crewmember was ready.

I thought it would actually be a good flight, though, when she was asking passengers prior to takeoff whether they’d like turndown service. Now, it’s better to come around and offer it after the meal, or better still to notice when a passenger may be ready to retire. But it seemed proactive and like it wouldn’t be one of the crews that scoffs at the idea of helping to set up the bedding.

However this was the odd part. People would opt in but nobody ever got any help with their bedding. The flight attendant never returned to do it, never offered again. She wrote down along with meal orders whether or not they wanted turndown service but didn’t do anything with that information.

Meanwhile, I had a look through the amenity kit. I hadn’t seen the first class Brandon Blackwood kit yet. The contents are the same but the bag feels cheaper than the unbranded black first class bag it replaced, which I didn’t think was possible. Is it too much to ask for them just to go back to the ThisIsGround bags they were using before the pandemic?

A return to the contents they used to offer in those bags would be nice, too.

Here’s the menu for the flight. Remember that business and first class meals really aren’t differentiated, and there’s no hot midflight snack on U.S.-Europe.

Once we were up in the air, drink service was offered along with nuts and olives. I do like the green olives.

I connected to the wifi, but had quite a bit of trouble with it. American was getting $35 for internet on this flight, and it’s Panasonic – American’s Panasonic service doesn’t work super well, though it’s at least better than it used to be a couple of years ago.

The problem on this flight was authenticating to it. I bought the service but it wouldn’t recognize I had done so, or logged in. It kept demanding I log in and kicked me out while trying to do so. Finally I managed to log in with my phone. I hoped that switching devices would help, and then I’d be forced to re-authenticate with my laptop. No such luck. The only way I was able to get any work done was finally just staying logged in on my phone and using my phone as a hotspot for my laptop.

My wife wasn’t ever able to get this far – she only managed to spend the $35, not to get any actual wifi, and her charge was refunded on request.

My wife ordered a glass of wine with her meal. I know better. She asked for the chardonnay and actually shuddered as she took her first and only drink of it.

To be clear, this was Flagship First Class – a product marketed like Singapore Airlines Suites, Air France La Premiere, and Etihad’s First Apartment. And they’re serving bottles that fetch $6 at retail.

At the same time, there are certainly wines you can drink at the $6 price point. After I watched her reaction I just had to take a taste and I cn say that the bottle we were served was not one of those wines.

The crab avocado salad starter was pretty good, though, but a bit spicy in a way that didn’t seem to me to make sense for the dish. I enjoyed it, my one year old did not. Also the solid cold butter was unspreadable on the room temperature bread that was served.

The soy glazed beef cheeks, though, were excellent. The rice they sat one were pure mush, but the meat itself was very good. My son agreed, and he ate almost all of it. I only got a couple of bites.

I had the ice cream sundae for dessert. It didn’t come out the way I’d requested it, and the ice cream was hard as a rock (still frozen solid). It doesn’t strike me as the highest grade ice cream but still a good comfort item.

The flight otherwise was fine. I was perfectly comfortable in the first class seat. I love the spaciousness compared to business class and the relatively calm cabin. The crew was indifferent, but I didn’t need much from them.

I did visit the galley midflght to check out the snacks that were put out – the sandwiches were left with the BC (business class) and ‘misc’ labels on them. The one I tried had sweated in the plastic, so the bread was completely moist. It was fairly disgusting. I took just that one bite.

One thing I had been looking forward to trying, though, was American’s announced afternoon tea service. The second service out of London and Paris had been a tea offering. American’s joint venture partner British Airways does a really lovely first class tea. Maybe American had copied it? I hadn’t actually seen reports (though also hadn’t looked closely for them).

Unfortunately our second service wasn’t the tea. Instead it was a choice of pork buns or pasta salad. I chose the pork buns, which came out like they’d been reheated in a toaster over for about twice the recommended time. So while I enjoy good dim sum, that was… not this.

It’s sad the depths to which American’s Flagship First Class product has fallen. They are eliminating the product, but the truth is going the other direction wouldn’t have been hard. Without even spending money on better seats they could have included their Five Star ground service program for first class passengers, invested just a small amount more (and a small amount of effort) in catering, and worked through better service standards in the cabin.

My flight attendants in first class on Sydney runs have been much better, and of course perhaps the real lost opportunity at this airline was doing a new flight attendant contract with big raises without asking anything service-wise in return.