American Airlines have constantly impressed me this year, and after my outbound flight I was quite looking forward to the return. AA use the Boeing 787-8 on the route from Philadelphia to Dublin, which is quite comfortable.
You can pre-order your meal up to 30 days in advance of flying and this time I elected to try the Asian Vegetarian special meal. The standard choices were beef or pasta and while I really like the beef, I’ve had it a number of times this year and wanted something different.
Philadelphia Airport
I arrived from Cleveland into Terminal F, and took the handy bus over to Terminal A. After some wandering (read: I got lost) I found the lounge, which was quite underwhelming. It will be nice when the new Flagship Lounge is finished, that’s for sure.
AA722 – Philadelphia to Dublin (PHL-DUB)
10 December 2022
Boeing 787-8 – N814AA
Seat: Premium Economy 9A
Departure: 21:23 Arrival: 08:40
Once my boarding pass had been scanned and my Passport scrutinised, I sauntered down the aerobridge and onto the aircraft. The crew greeted me on arrival and I turned right into the Premium Economy class cabin.
Premium Economy Seating
There are 28 seats in Premium Economy, arranged over five rows as you can see on the seat map. I’d selected row 9 and noticed before flight that the cabin was fully booked for this sector from Philadelphia to Dublin.
What About The Main Cabin?
Since I was quick, I managed to get some views of the Main Cabin, or Economy Class to you and me. It is also comfortable and I have flown in it before.
Dinner Time!
It is not a long flight across the Atlantic from the east coast to Eire, so I appreciated the fact the dinner service commenced very swiftly. I was grudgingly handed my special meal, without any cutlery. As it was Asian Vegetarian, it was bound to be a curry and it was!
After everyone else was served, my cutlery came from across the aisle. At the same time I was handed a salad saying, “this must be for you?” – who knows, I took it anyway, but I didn’t eat it as I quite frankly had tons of food.
The curry was quite tasty, and I really enjoyed the dessert. Such a nice mixture of tastes! All round, I was quite happy with the food. Soon after, everything was cleared away and the lights went down so people could sleep.
Flying from Dublin to Philadelphia
I really need to remember that I hate sitting in the window seat on overnight flights. I’m rather loathe to wake up people sitting next to me to get up, so I put the blanket over me (it was a bit chilly, but I’ll take that over a hot cabin any day of the week) and tried to sleep.
Let’s Have Breakfast!
When ordering my Asian Vegetarian meal, I had forgotten this would also include breakfast. What would I get? Well, it was certainly something. I was still pretty full from dinner only a few hours earlier.
Overall Thoughts
American Airlines Premium Economy is a perfectly comfortable way to cross the Atlantic from the USA to Europe. There is plenty of good quality food served and apart from the minor quibble in the beginning with some attitude (which really came across as “you’re putting us out by having a special meal”), the service was otherwise fine.
I probably wouldn’t order the Asian Vegetarian meal again. While the main was quite nice, the breakfast was not really to my taste. That said, it wasn’t some variant of egg, which I generally like to avoid when flying at breakfast time as it’s usually so crappy. Only poached egg is nice reheated on a plane. I’d certainly fly again in Premium Economy on AA with no quibbles.
What do you think of American Airlines’ Premium Economy class? Have you flown it? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Looks like there are 28 seats in PE, not 20. 4 rows of 2-3-2.
Well spotted, I’ll amend that now 🙂 Thank you!
The “doughnut” like things are a very typical, traditional South Indian dish called Vada. It is made out of lentils, typically served with coconut chutney and the spicy yellow lentil/veggie stew, called Sambar. I was quite fascinated that AA serves this as an AVML option on PHL-DUB route! We just flew Iberia BOS- Madrid and got a surprisingly nice AVML with Indian dishes. The “normal” vegetarian option was an absolutely ghastly dried out tortellini pasta in a very weird sauce studded with sickly green mushy peas.
(Our family including 2 kids have travelled to well over 30 countries, on just as many airlines in F, J, Prem Econ and Econ … we are picky about airline food,)
Thank you so much for explaining what it’s called – I really had no idea. That’s pretty good information to know. I think AA do special meals on all routes internationally, and on some domestics. It’s a common choice that all airlines allow, to cater for all the different passengers. I think everyone acknowledges that the AVML is a lot nicer than a standard vegetarian dish, which really do seem to be an afterthought. I’m also picky about airline food, so I hear you! Thanks so much for taking the time to explain – really appreciate it! 🙂
Those breakfast round things have me stumped as well. Thought they were doughnuts at first but not with a spicy sauce. Better call Sherlock Holmes or Batman to solve that mystery. At least you said they were tasty…
Hahaha yeah, I thought “doughnuts? definitely not” – they have a name, I’m sure 🙂 Hit the spot anyway!
If I may add to the “mysterious donuts”. The precise name is Medu Vada always accompanied by cocnut chutney and sambar ( looks like the sambar (brown with some lintils). Traditionally is is the consistency of thick soup.
Thank you for that! I really appreciate you telling me – it’s an education for me and the readers and I’ll know what I am eating in future! 🙂 Looking forward to trying them again, knowing what they are.