American Airlines to Australia

[Joe Frampton]

Living in the US right now. Some recent US flight experiences:

- Almost NO checking of boarding passes onboard, very rare indeed
- Captain standing in the aisles during loading and help to load luggage in overhead bins
- Captain making flight data announcement standing at the PA at the front of the cabin, visible to all
- Captain sounded very excited and saying we were about to 'blast off' like the cabin announcements you used to get on Virgin Blue in their early days, that was a half empty flight from Orange County to San Francisco
- Have flown lots of Alaska sectors in brand new 737-900's - nice plane, and also some nice new United A319/320's.

I've been coming over here for 25 years now, and I have to say, compared to the old days, the domestic planes are looking a LOT LOT nicer... they used to look dirty and old compared to Australian fleets, but now I would say the reverse. Yes, the AA MD80's are not good, but they are fast becoming somewhat of an exception, well in the west/northwest anyway. And I don't think I've had a widebody sector over here in 2 years, compared to the old days of half empty sectors on DC-10's with Northwest Airlines in the 90's! I feel pretty safe now on US airlines on the whole.

[Steve Crook]

I remember loving the sight and sound of American Airlines 707s flying in and out of Sydney in the 70s.

[Michael Morrison]

It's not just in the US they are not checking boarding passes.

In Europe I know of at least British Airways (shorthaul, not sure about longhaul), Virgin Atlantic and KLM who no longer require a boarding pass check at the aircraft door.

[James S.]

AA don't need to fly to Australia. QF does all of it for them through codesharing. If anything you can probably expect AA to start LAX-AKL, but nothing to Australia. There's just no need, it's a crowded market as is.