Dallas / Fort Worth International

The text message which I received indicated that my flight was leaving from the A gates, I took the train to the A terminal and went to the Admirals Club. I checked the monitors again and it was now showing C26. I thought I that I misread my text message, but later discovered that at this time I only read the first text message and the flight was indeed scheduled to leave from A 25, but around two hours prior to the flight there was an equipment change. The scheduled plane was N482AA but this one was substituted with N954U ad I later discovered in the event log of flightaware. This also came along with a gate change. It seems that the originally scheduled flight was not available and thus caused that we received a substitute plane and a new gate.

I decided to stay in this club but to head over to terminal C earlier. I charged my laptop and checked e-mails and got some updates for my schedule for the next day in Chicago and the Schaumburg / Illinois area, where I spend the morning of October 9th. Soon it was time to head over to terminal C.

The train was only running in one direction and therefore it was busier than usual and some passengers in the train were quite annoyed as this means it took much longer to reach the terminals.

I arrived at the gate a few minutes before scheduled boarding time. I was there but not the plane, as the gate was empty. The gate agents informed us that the plane should be towed in from one of the hangars but they could not tell us when this will happen, as they had no information themselves. I received a text message indicating that the flight was now 15 minutes delayed. The gate agents updated us seconds later and also mentioned that the flight which was scheduled after our flight was now departing from a different gate.
The times passed and still no plane. Finally our plane arrived at 16:45 and the monitors changed and now indicated that the flight had departed and I received also a text message that the flight was now active. It seems that the system did not catch the update correctly and the gate agents told us to ignore the screens. They had also asked if passenger wanted to check their luggage free of charge to Chicago as the flight was full and overhead space on board of this MD82 was limited.
Luckily, the flight did not need to be cleaned, which means boarding could start at 16:55. Boarding started with passengers who needed additional times and members of the armed forces in uniform followed by those traveling in First Class and Oneworld Emeralds.

08 October 2013
DFW – ORD
[Dallas / Fort Worth International – Chicago O’Hare International]
AA 2368 (American Airlines); McDonnell Douglas MD82 (N954U)
Gate C 26
16:30 – 18:55 [effective 17:25 – 19:40]
First Class
Seat 4 A

I was greeted by the flight attendant in the front galley as I entered the plane and walked to my seat. The MD 82 is configured 2-3 in Economy. Therefore the overhead bins among the seats above E/F are bigger. Although First Class is configured 2-2, the size of the overhead bin space remains unchanged through the cabin. I put my trolley in the overhead bin above my seat but had to put it there lengthwise.

The first class cabin was full, but there was a few last minute upgrades from coach, as a few other passengers with connections were rebooked on alternative flights as they would not make their connections any longer with the delay.
Nevertheless the flight was fully booked in all classes as other passengers made it on this flight. There were no pre-departure drinks offered on this flight. As boarding was about to be finished, a flight attendant offered to hang my jacket.

The safety demonstration was done while we were still at the gate. We were pushed back at 17:23 and taxied to the runway. On our way to runway 17R the captain came over the microphone and gave us an update of the flight, the estimated time on arrival. He did not expect to be able to safe some time while in the air, as Chicago was experiencing heavy traffic and the only hope he had was that he had not to fly waiting patterns as we already were delayed, but could no guarantee it. We also had to queue at DFW and were not given priority. He promised to update us if he had any news. In the meantime, we “should sit back, relax and enjoy the flight to Chicago”.

While we waited in the line for take off, I share some fact of this “Mad Dog” as the MD is sometimes called among frequent flyers. It was an older plane, which made its first flight on July 30, 1987. It was first registered for Polaris Aircraft Leasing with registration N786JA and went into service with TWA on December 31, 1987. In May 88 it was re-registered with the current registration N954U. On December 02, 2001 it came to the fleet of AA during the take over of TWA by AA – the last flight of TWA was on December 01, 2001. It is powered by two Pratt & Whitney JT8D-217A engines with a thrust of 20000 lbf each.

The plane was equipped with 16 seats in a 2 -2 configuration in First Class offering a seat pitch of 39 inch and a seat width of 19.5 inch. There is only an empower power outlet at each seat in First Class. As mentioned above, the overhead bins on the A,B side of Economy class are very small; standard carry-on bags do not fit when placed wheels first. The overhead bin on the D,E,F side are the regular overhead bins to accommodate standard carry-ons. Nevertheless this limits the available space significantly.

Finally at 17:47 the captain powered the two engines at the rear of the plane and we accelerated on runway 17 R which was used for starts while 17 C and 17 L were used for landings. We climbed into the sky where we made a turn to the left and passed Dallas Love Field Airport, which used the three letter code DAL and is used by smaller private jets but also served by airlines like Delta, Southwest, United Express and AirTran using smaller planes.

Fasten seat belt signs were not turned off, but the crew started the service quickly with a hot towel service. The meal orders of those, who had not preordered their meal, were taken by the flight attendant shortly later. I had pre ordered the Seared Breast of Chicken, stuffed with spinach and cheese, complemented by Emmental potatoes au gratin and buttered haricots verts.

Aperitif

But first it was the usual round of assorted hot nuts with our choice of beverage. I went with tonic water. The main dish was heated and finally served 20 minutes later starting from the first row. The other menu would have been sacchetti pasta with Alfredo sauce and sundried tomato coulis.

Seared Breast of Chicken
Stuffed with spinach and cheese, complemented by Emmental potatoes au gratin and buttered haricots verts

The meal was much better than the one on SJU – DFW. And it seems that the variety on AA is wider than for example on US Airways. On this trip I had never the same food options for longer flights while I did get the same meal on flights using US Airways in the past on transcontinental flights between different cities. But I guess this only a question of how often one is flying American Airlines on the same routes, nevertheless it will be interesting to see, how the merger of US and AA has an impact of the service onboard AA, which I rate as slightly better than US Airways and much better than on United.

I was offered a roll with the meal and also a glass of wine, which I declined, as I had to drive after touch down in ORD. Of course I took the roll.

Trays were cleared individually by the flight attendant who offered also coffee and tea and refills of other beverages for the remaining flight time. Flight time passed quickly and before we began our descend into Chicago’s O’Hare Airport the captain updated us about the expected arrival time. He was not really able to save some time in the air. As usual it was no direct approach as we had to make several turns before we finally touched down on runway 28 R at 19:30.

It took some more time before we made it to our gate, as ORD was busy and we had to wait several times letting other planes pass while on the taxiway. At 19:40 the crew opened the doors and we were on our way into the terminal. We had arrived at the far end of terminal 2 at gate K 19 and it was quite a distance to walk before I had made it to the exit, down to the arrival level and the pick up for the rental car shuttles.

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