American Airlines FCO–JFK 787-9 Flagship Business Review: AA 235

Closing out the Malta With Love trip with a flight back home from Rome to New York on AA’s 787-9. Great Italian catering, scenic routing, and a solid Super Diamond business class seat — undermined somewhat by inconsistent crew service.

Detail	Info
Flight	American Airlines AA 235
Route	Rome Fiumicino (FCO) to New York JFK
Aircraft	Boeing 787-9 (N828AA)
Vintage	Nearly 10 years old — delivered June 2017
Cabin	Flagship Business
Seat	1A
Flight Time	~8 hours 46 minutes
Booking	Malta With Love trip

Getting to the Gate

Rome Fiumicino was relatively quiet, with a quick security experience despite a random secondary check at the gate (not so random as they just took the first 5 passengers to fill their quota and get it over with…).

Boarding ran 15 minutes late due to a delayed inbound aircraft. Nothing out of the ordinary for international operations.

The Aircraft

Today’s aircraft was N828AA, a nearly 10-year-old 787-9 delivered in June 2017. For the flight I was seated in 1A - the bulkhead window of Flagship Business.

The aircraft is equipped with 30 Super Diamond business class seats in a 1-2-1 reverse herringbone configuration. This was AA’s “newest” business class product before the recent release of Flagship Suites on the A321XLR and 787-9P aircraft. While it wasn’t the latest product, I did get two of AA’s new trading cards for the 787P.

The seat features multiple storage compartments, a separate touchscreen remote for the IFE, and another for seat controls. The design is a little dated by current standards but functions. Each seat offers direct aisle access for every seat, proper lie-flat beds, and reasonable privacy for a non-suite seat.

At the Seat

At each seat was:

• A menu
• Water bottle
• Nest bedding including a duvet
• Slippers
• Centennial edition amenity kit
• Bang & Olufsen noise cancelling headphones - definitely among the better in-flight headphones available

  

Including slippers and a mattress pad on flights to Europe is a newer aspect of AA’s service and previously these were restricted to longer routes. One thing this flight didn’t get that routes like Tokyo, Seoul, Brisbane, and Sydney do get: pajamas. Of course exceptions apply, like front-row Flagship Preferred Suites on AA’s newer 787-9P aircraft.

Departure

Pre-departure beverage service began with a choice of orange juice, water with lemon, or champagne.

We pushed back 30 minutes late with wheels up at 11:59 AM Rome time. We took a more southerly route due to turbulence which added some flight time. We did push back past a cool Sichuan Airlines Panda Route special livery to our left during taxi, and later passed Alaska’s 787 on their new SEA to FCO route at a remote stand. The AS 787 looked sharped in it’s northern lights livery.

After taxing to Runway 25, we took off over the Mediterranean before making landfall over the south of France and beginning our journey across the Atlantic.

In-Flight Service

Service began with a hot towel followed by a choice of beverage paired with warm nuts and olives. Meal orders were also taken.

The Food

For today’s service I pre-ordered the beef brisket.

Menu options:

Small Plate

• Maple Butternut Squash — barley salad, feta cheese and cranberry gel

Salad

• Spinach and Rocket Salad — shaved cucumber, sweet drop peppers, balsamic vinaigrette Both served with an assorted warm bread selection.

Main Courses

• Beef Brisket — potato cheddar mash, sautéed haricot vert, carrots with shallot jus sauce (what I ordered)
• Corn Fed Chicken Breast — cauliflower mash, roasted broccoli with rosemary tomato sauce
• Honey and Soy Salmon — edamame grits, sautéed Asian vegetable mix with teriyaki sauce
• Pasta Giganti Radicchio — sautéed savoy cabbage, walnuts, parmesan cheese with rocket cream sauce

  

Dessert

• Traditional Ice Cream Sundae — vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, butterscotch, seasonal berry topping, whipped cream, chopped pecans (what I ordered — build-your-own with caramel chopped nuts and hot fudge)
• Gourmet Cheese Plate
• Lemon Tart

  

The barley salad was phenomenal, and the beef brisket was pretty solid. FCO catering felt notably higher quality than what AA typically serves on US-origin flights. It’s a theme we’ve seen in the past where European-origin catering tends to be more refined.

IFE

Plenty of options available on the IFE screen. This included new releases and previous award winners. The system was smooth and responsive, though not as feature-rich as the systems on AA’s newest 787-9P and A321XLR deliveries. Of course being an older system, it didn’t offer bells and whistles like 4K resolution of bluetooth headphone pairing.

Wi-Fi

Here’s where this flight falls short compared to AA’s newer aircraft. This 787-9 isn’t equipped with AA’s free Wi-Fi for AAdvantage members that recently launched across much of the fleet.

To AA’s credit, they did send an email notification before the flight explaining this. Still, the opportunity to provide some sort of complimentary access to business class passengers feels like a missed opportunity - even if it were only for one hour like Finnair offers on their long-haul business class.

Paid access was available at $29 for 2 hours or $35 for the full flight.

Cabin Experience

Two hours into the flight the Dreamliner’s windows were dimmed as well as the cabin lights. A bit controversial to some but I didn’t hate it after an early start that morning.

Light snacks were available throughout the flight in the galley.

Pre-Landing Meal

The next service offered (and second time we saw our Flight Attendant) was for the Pre-landing meal. Lights were kept off in the cabin for some reason, so forgive the blurry picture.

Options:

• Chicken and Vegetable Gyoza - served with Szechuan sauce
• Crispy Falafel and Couscous Tabouleh Salad I opted for the crispy falafel. The flight attendant’s response was “really - you’re having that?”

It was an odd comment that I didn’t really know what to make of. The dish itself was fine - not the best I’ve had but perfectly reasonable. Comments like that unfortunately summed up the service quality of this flight.

Service

The service on this flight was very uneven. The flight attendant assigned to our section was clearly checked out - forgetting service items, accidentally skipping rows during service, not collecting used service items throughout the flight. The tone was somewhat curt throughout.

Based on how many passengers on my side of the aircraft had to go to the galley themselves to grab drinks or return trash, this seemed to be a broader issue rather than just a one-off.

It stood in contrast to the recent Finnair flights earlier in the trip where service was consistently excellent. I think all of us were kicking ourselves for not booking our return via Finnair.

Cabin Cleanliness

My seat was okay, but one of my travel companion’s seats was notably dirty - full of crumbs and even food wrappers from previous passengers. The turnaround cleaning on this aircraft had clearly missed some rows.

Arrival

Hot towels were offered prior to descent. We arrived at JFK at 2:46 PM New York time after an approximately 8 hour 46 minute flight, pulling into Terminal 8.

Final Thoughts

This flight was a good reminder that even with AA’s continuing investment in the soft product - better amenity kits, upgraded catering, refined service standards - the people operating the flight still make or break the experience. The food was legitimately solid. The seat delivered what it should (although it could have used a better cleaning.) The IFE worked well. The hard product and the ground elements were solid, while not best-in-class.

But a disengaged crew member can undo a lot of that in a single flight. On a nearly 9-hour transatlantic flight where you’re sleeping, eating, and otherwise relying on cabin service, service quality matters more than it does on a shorter domestic hop.

That said, the overall trip was fantastic, and this closed out the Malta With Love journey perfectly. And at the end of a great trip, arriving home comfortably in a lie-flat seat remains a privilege regardless of a few bumps along the way.

Part of the Malta With Love Series

Post	Status
Malta With Love: Trip Preview	✓ Published
The Bridge (Greenwich Lounge) JFK	✓ Published
Finnair JFK–HEL AirLounge Business Class	✓ Published
Finnair Schengen Lounge Helsinki	✓ Published
Finnair HEL–FCO Intra-European Business	✓ Published
Wizz Air FCO–MLA snapshot	✓ Published
Malta at War Museum	✓ Published
La Valette Club Lounge (MLA)	✓ Published
Art’otel Rome review	✓ Published
AA FCO–JFK 787-9 Business	You are here

Related: Art’otel Rome Review · Finnair JFK–HEL AirLounge Business Class Review