I set out to kill time with a lounge crawl across the Philadelphia airport and wound up with a snapshot of American Airlines today: Bollinger and cheesesteaks in the Flagship Lounge, buses from a barren concourse, and a startling $1,125 offer at my gate for someone to give up a seat.
The trip ended with one of aviation’s great views, and a reminder of how much customer service has disappeared from airports.
It was Sunday and I had a long time to kill in the Philadelphia airport before my American Airlines flight down to D.C. So I pulled up my Royal Jordianian oneworld sapphire status, which gives me access to American’s business class Flagship lounges even on domestic flights. That status match offer was a winner.
At Philadephia, that’s in the international terminal A West. It was several hours before the afternoon bank of transatlantic departures, so the A West lounge complex was quiet. Nonetheless, they still have their sign out that says No Day Passes, which is problematic because Citibank promotes credit cards now that come with lounge passes (not just the Executive card’s club membership).
I do have to say, though, that it’s nice to be offered a glass of Bollinger as you walk in.
The lounge is lovely during the day when it’s empty. It’s not a great place to spend time before flying business class to Europe because it’s too small. I maintain that American should re-take the space from their old A East Admiral’s Club, make that the Admiral’s Club in the terminal, and use the Admiral’s Club space next door as part of the Flagship lounge. The spaces are even already connected easily by the ‘swing space’ behind the check-in area.
The soda machine was out of service, but the new Lavazza coffee machines worked.
American has leaned into charcuterie boards, which in other lounges is self-service, but here the space on the buffet that’s for the chef action station was replaced by meat and cheese – so you have them make your plate.
This was the first Flagship lounge that offered QR-code a la carte dining. Honestly, though, the only thing worth ordering to your table is the cheesesteak.
I really just wanted to see the current state of the Flagship lounge, because I hadn’t been in awhile. My flight was actually going to be leaving out of the opposite end of the airport, so I started heading out from A West over to F.
I passed by the Centurion lounge, but there’s really not a reason to go in. The good news is that they’ll be doubling the size of the lounge by taking over the British Airways space below it
I stopped by the Chase Sapphire lounge before my flight. It’s in the D-E connector, so not terribly far from the F concourse where I’d be flying from, though still a good 10 minute walk at least from my gate. It was a Sunday afternoon, and while there were plenty of passengers in the lounge, there was no line or wait to get in.
I’ve reviewed the lounge before. I like the space, but I don’t love the food and beverage program and I maintain that the grind of meat they use for the Sapphire Burger just isn’t as good as it was four years ago. Notably, Sapphire Noodles were not an option.
The F gates in Philadelpha are a sad place. You know this not just because of the long walk, and how barren it seems, but because if you’re hungry they have a Sbarro, and because many of the flights that depart from there are actually buses.
When I walked up to my gate the previous flight was still deplaning. Then the gate agent started making announcements looking for volunteers to take a later flight. They were offering $1,125. I’ve been seeing American Airlines offering more money for denied boarding compensation lately. This wasn’t a bidding situation: $1,125 was the first public offer they announced!
The gate had been empty of passengers. That changed quickly. On passenger near me thought surely they were offering $11.25, which she thought seemed low.
Our plane was somewhat late coming in, but mostly suffered from an air traffic control delay. We taxied out and parked and out release time kept getting pushed back. There’s a reason the flight is blocked at about an hour and 15 minutes, even though we were in the air for about 20.
Landing at National airport is always special. There’s nothing like the ‘river visual’ approach.
On arrival at National airport, I caught a rideshare to my hotel. I passed by the concourse D customer service counter. It was unstaffed. It’s bad enough that American Airlines no longer provides live customer service help in the terminals – these empty areas, abandoned except during major irregular operations events, just become a symbol of malaise. It’s sad.
I’ve run across the no day pass issue before (empty lounge, sign pit out at opening).
Time for a CFPB complaint for not providing advertised benefit.
I have membership so not affected but get upset to see the signs up ALLLL the time even when the clubs are dead. Odd and unfair.
Gary, you know that ever since Dr. Dao, Involuntary Denied Boarding can go up to $10,000 per passenger. It pays to wait it out, if you want it.
@Beachfan — Not sure that’ll work out, but, yes, another reason we need CFPB, and other regulators, to have teeth and actually protect consumers. An EU261-equivalent in the US would be huge.
One must remember,,,they are American in name only and underneath the surface they are USAir to their core. The ‘swoosh’ of paint towards the front of every plane is also a poor imitation of an old Greyhound bus logo.
Picard
@Jean luc Picard — Make it so…
@1990 – Delta adopted $9,999. United did too, but then scaled it back. American was never officially $10k and needs management approval for even this amount
Any way we can easily renew or get status again on our Royal Jordanian.one just ran out.
@Gary – What Nathan said. I didn’t jump on that one in time back when it was on offer. Are there any other pathways to OW Sapphire that are relatively fast?
Best I can figure so far is that Royal Club awards Gold Sparrow at 26 OW segments in 12 months, and partner flights alone qualify. Cheap intra-Spain IB segments in eligible fare codes can be found for as little as €15 per segment, sometimes €65 for 4 segments in fare class A. So realistically you’re looking at roughly $500–900 in airfare plus getting to Spain. In theory you could knock out a large chunk of the 26 in 3-4 intensive days hopping MAD–BCN–SVQ-type routings. But this seams like awful lot to have to go through. Plus at $150 a pop to get FL access ad hock, you’d had better be doing it a LOT to make all of that trouble worthwhile.
And don’t forget to order the cheesesteak minus mayo. Many years ago, I was connecting in STL for a flight to MCO for a conference. Two colleagues out of STL were on my STL-MCO flight. Except, they weren’t. They were compensated nicely (for that time period) by TWA to take the next flight. So this bozo flew in his coach seat to MCO, picked up the rental, drove to the hotel, and returned to MCO to pick up the colleagues who were buzzed, as they had been enjoying free drinks in F on the flight down. Only ever went to MCO for conferences, never seemed like a good place to visit (unless you love mieces to pieces). But, to be fair, I never gave it much of a chance.
@This comes to mind — Yup, Orlando ain’t great (but, it’s still better than Ohio…)
In the time you spent at the airport, Amtrak would have had you in D.C.
@Jean-Luc – years ago when Allegheny changed it’s name to USAir the mantra was “You’re still Allegheny in Reality”.
@Gary – You didn’t take the money? If it started at $1125 I imagine it could easily have surpassed $2000. I’m surprised you didn’t take that for a couple of hours delay.
Carletonm says:
July 14, 2026 at 4:12 pm
In the time you spent at the airport, Amtrak would have had you in D.C.
I guess Gary just wanted the cheese steak.
Why not take the $1125 and amtrak down? no brainer
Gary may not have taken the $1125 offer, especially if it was an AA credit, since he probably still has several million AA miles banked. What was that AA Charity offer where folks racked up a million miles?