Review: American Airlines Boeing 737 First Class Chicago to New York

Background & Booking

For my flight back to New York, I flew on the American Airlines Boeing 737 First Class. I had originally booked a flight to Newark. After experiencing a long delay due to ATC shortages & faulty equipment, which continued days after my inbound flight as well, I decided to call Alaska Airlines, whom I booked this flight with, to see if they could move me to fly into New York JFK or LGA instead. While I find the flight experience with Alaska Airlines to be quite plain, they really do excel with their amazing customer service. I got a very friendly agent who understood my concerns with Newark flights, and she just had to check with her supervisor and then allowed me to switch to a LaGuardia flight for no extra charge. This was before travel waivers started getting issued for Newark flights.

Alaska Mileage Plan at the time of this post has an award chart for flights in the Americas under 700 miles to start from 4.5k miles in the Main Cabin or 9k miles in First Class.  Interestingly, American Airlines flights from New York JFK to ORD (737 miles) or LGA to ORD (731 miles) were 7.5k miles in Main Cabin or 15k miles in First Class. But EWR to ORD (717 miles) was pricing out at just 4.5k miles in the Main Cabin or 9k miles in First Class.

Flight Details

American Airlines 673
Chicago (ORD) to New York (LGA)
Cabin & Seat: First, 4A
Aircraft: Boeing 737-800
Scheduled Duration: 2 Hours 5 Minutes
Status: On-Time

Airport Experience & Boarding

Back in November, when I was in Chicago, I recall having a very draining experience taking an Uber from downtown to ORD. I left around 3:30 pm on a Wednesday, and it took 2 hours to get to the airport when it was only 18 miles away. Google Maps was showing only about an hour and 10 minutes.

This time, my flight was on a Saturday, so I assumed that the traffic would be better, but it was not. When I went to call the Uber, Google Maps was showing the ride to the airport to also be a bit over an hour, with a lot of red and burgundy along the way. That worried me a lot, so I decided to take the Blue Line, as the Renaissance we were staying at was right next to a stop. The Blue Line came in 6 minutes and took about an hour, so honestly, it was a solid choice. It ends right at O’Hare, and you just have perhaps a 5-minute walk to get to the departures area.

There was a dedicated TSA PreCheck section, and the line was very short, so I was through in less than 5 minutes, which was ideal since I was cutting it a bit close. I got to the gate a few minutes before boarding started, and was among the first to board when the First Class Group was called for boarding. Boarding started 40 minutes before our scheduled departure time.

The Aircraft

Our Boeing 737-800 was about seven and a half years old. The plane felt updated, and the overhead bins were nice and large. The seats looked fresh.

There are 16 seats arranged in a 2-2 configuration, with an adjustable headrest, storage pocket in the armrest, and a flip-up tablet holder. The seat pitch is 37″ & seat width 20″.

Also, there was a tray table that came out from the side of the armrest.

On the seat back, there was a USB-A port, and in the cubby under my armrest, there was a universal power adapter. Unfortunately, the universal power adapter was broken on this flight. Thankfully, I had a battery pack to charge my phone.

The Flight

The pilot let us know that our flight would be only 1 hour and 37 minutes in the air. The pilots let us know it would be a choppy ride, and there might not be a beverage service. It was a pretty empty flight, and before boarding, the app was showing 100 available seats, but the First Class cabin was full.

We left the gate a couple of minutes before our scheduled departure time, and our taxi to takeoff was quite quick. We took off just 15 minutes after leaving the gate.

Wi-Fi was available from ViaSat. A flight pass was $20, the one-hour pass was $15, or free for T Mobile Customers. Also, American offers free streaming of movies, TV shows, and music to your Wi-Fi-enabled device. The Wi-Fi worked pretty well during the flight.

Thankfully, the ride wasn’t too bumpy, and the flight attendants were able to do a beverage & snack service.

The snacks offered on this flight were much better than my American Eagle flight to Chicago. So it’s good to note that even on the same route, mainline American flights have better snacks than if they’re operated by American Eagle (which only offered one trail mix). Snacks offered included caulipuffs, crunchy corn, trail mix, chips, and ginger snaps.

The flight went by pretty quickly, and we landed 10 minutes before our scheduled arrival and got to the gate a few minutes early.