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By: - 11th June 2007 at 14:34 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Anyway it was all over too soon and Tuesday evening it was time to come home :(, I personally have never been so overwhelmed by one place and it literally did take my breath away and I felt like I could live there after being there the first day, the whole atmosphere of the place, even small things like taking a walk around the block and reading the car numberplates to see what state they were from came from are enjoyable and individual things you miss about the place and Ben would be the first to agree as this wouldn't be his first trip to NYC with the last being on the dreadful day that was September 11th 2001.
On the last day the checkout time was 11am but the hostel has this great facillity of lockers downstairs where you can leave your suitcases for $5 so you dont have to haul them around all day which we weren't massively keen on. Anyway we spent the last day hauling ourselves round NYC again buying gifts for family etc but also ourselves...
ask Ben how much money he had left...:diablo:...
Later on in the day we made our way back to the hotel with another suitcase for all the stuff! in hand, we had to hang around for abit in the lobby before we could head off the airport so Ben ran up to Maccies to get us our final NYC milkshakes. Soon enough we had the hotel staff call us a cab company which only drives jetback Lincolns and costs about $10 extra but it was all worth it for the extra comfort, air-con and silent as hell car!
We eventually reached Terminal 9 again at JFK and entered and it was bloody big, big enought to hold 3 B747s actually ;-) (according to the sign on the wall :D), we were told to use the self-service check in machines which neither of us are all too familiar with but all we had to do was scan my passport and it asks you to find which flight your on and when you do it has all the booking info etc and an option to change your seat if you wish, you also have to say how many bags you are carrying each and that was that and out of it came the boarding cards and we left our cases with this women at the desk.
We went briskly through security and noticed that the first flight to LHR that evening had been cancelled, Ben eventually found out this was due to the aircraft having a birdstrike on landing. This flight was later reinstated so funnily enough you had two AA T7s right behind one another heading off to LHR, our flight wasnt untill 11:35pm. Terminal 9 really is massive but there isnt't an amazing amount of shops etc located where all the gates are but we were really more preoccupied with the views out of the windows.
We killed time untill it was near enough departure time and we sat down by our gate just talking and whatever, we soon noticed a First Officer stroll by the gate on his mobile talking away as you do..."Oh yeh I'm at JFK now about to head to London" jealously was not the word :D. Eventually Ben decided to ask him about his pilot training and everything and Jon (surname I forget) told us how he's been flying for AA for 20 years now starting his career on the B727 before heading onto the MD-80, the B767, the Fokker 100 and now the B777!
I also asked Ben to ask about the possibility of getting a flightdeck visit at the end of the flight and much to our surprise he said we could come in at the start of the flight! preety hyped up now we could see this flight would be near enough full and we started boarding and headed off down the walkway where First Officer Jon was waiting for us! and invited us into the flightdeck where we met Captain Don and the main man of the evening First Officer Tracy Miller. We spent a near half hour in the flightdeck of N791AN talking to Tracy while Jon and Don did various other things like the walk-around and Ben even got to turn on the 'Seatbelt' sign on the ceiling panel!
We had Tracy explaining literally everything to us, showing what screens do what, showing cabin temperature etc, how fully loaded we were, rotation speeds, how much engine power we'd be using etc. We were even allowed to take pictures a plenty and sit in the Captains seat each and apparently according to all 3 of them I look incredibly familiar to a character off 'The Sopranos' haha. This experiance has really put AA in our good books just because of how friendly they are and removing the sterotype that all America is totally high on security issues.
Eventually though we had to leave and take our seats in 39A/39B at the back and this flight really was full, the legroom seemed a tiny amount smaller than on the way but it was nothing too noticeable. We had a delay of roughly 35 minutes due to the wrong baggage being loaded onto our flight so we had to wait for that to be sorted but soon enough we pushed back and took off into the dark skies. We knew the flight was due to take longer at just over 7 hours and we had Tracy telling us earlier that we had some bad weather 4 hours of of Heathrow.
The ultimate good thing about flying out in May and back in June is you have the movie selection etc changing on the IFE and so after watching 'Wild Hogs' on the PTVs and having our evenin meal I think I eventually dropped off, me and Ben swapped seats at the cruise of FL370 just so we'd both have a window seat for abit. We both kept dropping off but for some reason it seemed alot harder than doing it on the inbound, maybe because we'd had a long day or what not but it was nothing too severe, as was the turbulance we encountered.
Soon enough we were desending into the UK where Captain Don told us we'd be in the hold at LHR for about 5 minutes but we eventually made our approach to 9L at Heathrow passing over the M25 where it was rather bumpy and the touchdown did have a bang but nothing worse than usual and we exited quickly to head over to Terminal 3.
After pulling up to the gate and what seemed an age to attach the airbridge we got off the aircraft and headed for immigration and funnily enough passed the awful flight connections queue which we were in 6 days earlier.
Immigration wasn't too bad and we had to wait a while for our luggage before meeting Ben's grandad reading his book :D and then his nan before heading back to the car and Guildford passing under the 9L approach path on the M25 on the way. Well that's it! I hope you enjoyed this report and I didn't get too carried away ;). If any of you ever get the chance to go to New York grab it with both hands!
We both want to say thanks again to the AA flightdeck crew of First Officers Jon & Tracy and Captain Don, hope you may end up reading this at some point! and I'll certainly have no problems flying American again. Thanks again to ma mate Ben for an awesome holiday! here's to another off somewhere else.
Tom
By: - 11th June 2007 at 14:51 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Great report, Tom - Love the shots, specially the one in the park :diablo:
By: - 11th June 2007 at 15:11 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
As I've said to you on MSN Tom, great report!
AA gets a really bad rap at the moment, especially in the states, but overall they run a decent operation, and some of the staff there really make a great difference!
I hope you got your AAdvantage miles out of these flights!
By: - 11th June 2007 at 16:00 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Superb report! I'll be back in NYC for the 1st time since 1997 in Sept, tho won't be touching an aircraft within the U.S, its by train i'm doing my 3 week trek!
AA are a great airline and they used to be our 1st choice during the 1990's, but it seems that its UA I always fly now in the U.S due to their alliance with bmi!
By: - 11th June 2007 at 16:06 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Great report buddy. Great shots. Was a brilliant holiday though. :D I really miss the place now :(
By: - 11th June 2007 at 16:14 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Great report tom.
I must agree with sam too. That perticular park shot is great;)
Josh
By: - 11th June 2007 at 16:35 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Tom
Great trip report and I’m glad you had a great time in New York.
I managed to visit that wonderful place back in 2006 and as you said it really is an amazing city.
You have some great shots there, especially your flight deck pictures. Im sure there are some very jealous aviation enthusiasts out there as a result of your flight deck visit – me included.
It is good to hear of some friendly flight deck crews out there. I was lucky enough to visit the flight deck of an A319 of easyJet but the First Officer wasn’t all that friendly. So its great to hear that you well looked after.
Thanks for sharing. Keep up the great work
Adam
By: - 11th June 2007 at 16:52 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Thank's for all the great comments people :cool: and yes I agree Adam, as I say it has totally changed my view and American certainly have alot of respect from me now.
By: - 11th June 2007 at 17:21 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
That is the best trip report, I have ever read.
Really really really really enjoyed it,
I think I can speak for everyone when I say, I hope it's not long till your next flight!! :)
By: - 11th June 2007 at 18:18 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
That is the best trip report, I have ever read
I must agree.
Excellent report and pics - I think NYC is great too. :)
By: - 11th June 2007 at 18:34 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Excellent report Tom. Glad you's had a good time. :)
By: - 11th June 2007 at 20:27 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Great report. I last went to New York in November 2002 and really enjoyed the place, so I can't wait to get back there this November, after first visiting Los Angeles. I'll also be flying with American Airlines.
By: - 12th June 2007 at 04:41 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Great tour of New York lads good quality photos
By: - 12th June 2007 at 21:57 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
That is the best trip report, I have ever read.Really really really really enjoyed it,
I think I can speak for everyone when I say, I hope it's not long till your next flight!!
Wow thank's alot :D, really appreicate all the comments :).
By: - 13th June 2007 at 14:11 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
An excellent, in depth trip report, Tom. Glad you guys had a good time!
Paul
By: - 13th June 2007 at 14:17 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
wow! looks like you both had a cool time! :) very cool shots from the flight deck! :)
By: - 13th June 2007 at 14:29 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Fab report Tom and nice pictures aswel :D and glad you both had a great time in NY.
James
By: - 14th June 2007 at 19:24 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Thanks once again for the comments all :cool:.
By: - 5th July 2007 at 19:44 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
10 years late.... but great report, son. Loved it. :)
By: - 19th July 2007 at 23:15 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Marvellous....:D
Posts: 3,394
By: Future Pilot - 11th June 2007 at 14:33
Afternoon alll! firstly this is one long report with alot of pics so yanno, sorry to any dial-uppers out there, total lack of smilies and all to meet this annoying forum limit per post!
As you may or may not know, me and Ben (Airline owner) took a trip to one of the greatest cities in the world - New York, after Ben bringing the idea up back in December to general problems with passports and having to rearrange dates we finally booked it through Expedia!
The holiday being from 31st May - 5th June for an amazing £998 for the both of us, our hotel being located roughly 5 blocks from Central Park and great flight times! ie - an early morning departure from LHR and a late evening departure from JFK. Anyway on with the report....
We knew we had a long day ahead when the alarm went off at 3am, we were soon up and on our way to Heathrow's Terminal 3 with me checking every 5 minutes if I had everything! like itenary, passport etc. We got to Terminal 3 which has a load of construction work in front of it going on, the screen showed our flight as not open yet but we could see a general area for all American flights which someone would told us would be open in about 30/60 mins so we became number 8 in the queue and started waiting.
Just talking about general random crap like we usually do passed the time quite well untill we were called to the desk where the women was quite friendly and started chatting to us about NYC, her job and not laughing at our passport photos. Anyway after a brisk and simple check we started to have a wonder round, had a can of Diet Coke each and decided to take the step that is through security at Heathrow!
All in all it wasn't a bad experiance at all, maybe because we didn't have to wait too long with how early it was and it seemed no different from any other UK airport I've flown from (yet...) we were surprised to see a guy remove a massive pair of scissors from his bag before he ran it through the metal detector, amazing how different the consequences may of been if he'd let his bag go through with it!
Anyway through security and into the departure lounge we still had time to kill so we had a general wonder looking at what a/c were parked up including two n/c UA 763s, had something to eat and watched BBC News 24. After some time we were getting quite bored and we could actually see what gates the AA flights would be boaring from so we headed up towards the gate area despite the flight not being called and sat around knewing it would be no more than 15 minutes before we were called.
Apparently BAA have a problem with that, and two people working for them told us we couldn't so instead of making us walk back the way we came they advised us to head the way of arriving passengers and join flight connections to get back to the departure lounge and said it should only take around 15/20 minutes.
We joined this queue for flight connections which dissapeared round a corner and then another and by this time we had been waiting around 10/15 minutes and I was getting concerned because it was near 7:30am and our flight was due to be start boarding at 7:45am.
Then we had a saviour come along! a women working for BAA happened to walk past and took one look at us and said "Where are you two travelling too?" and we explained our situation and she asked us to go with her, so we went around the corner and saw the queue and were shocked at how long this could of took and we guessed at least one to two hours. She also said she'd been doing this job for way too long to notice people like us in a queue of predominantley Asian people on flights from the Middle-East connecting to US bound flights etc
Anyway finally back in the departure lounge we had to walk the way we had just came, it was annoying that all that could of been avoided if the original non-sensical duo who told us to move us in the first place sent us back the way we came. We happened to bump into them on the way back and explained the scenario to them rather briefly who just seemed to nodd it off, you wanted to express some-what more rage upon them but we decided that wasn't exactly wise .
Anyway we finally reached gate 17, where we had some more security to contend with. Ben the sod was lucky enough to be let through after a boarding pass check but I was took aside along with other random people to have a thorough bag check etc. That was all over rather briefly and I got to sit down where we noticed all the flight crew walking through to board (inc. 3 pilots), after some man conducting a survey had delayed us getting up to start boarding we finally headed down the jetway to where N788AN was waiting.
We boarded rather quick and walked through the first class and buisness sections which always look more appealing ;) and sat down in our seats at 35A/35B, American has a 2-5-2 seat layout on their B777s so this benifitted us rather well :D, the seats are very comfy and we were quite impressed with the legroom. We also noticed this flight was at best only going to be 50% full so me and Ben both got a window seat and people reserved the middle 5 seats for themselves to lye down on later in the flight!
Anyway we pushed back being surrounded by aircraft owned by rival UA in the form of an old colour B744 and B772 and headed off to RWY 27L where we got clearance ahead of a BA A319 for departure and what seemed like a low powered take off run we were off into the sky on our way to the USA!
Inflight we soon reached a cruising altitude of FL380 which towards the end of the flight reached FL400, we could hardly fault American on their inflight service which always seemed frequent and friendly when coming round with drinks, meals etc
The PTV's had round about 12 channels of TV and the same for radio as well as an inflight map. All were controlled by touching the screen or with a remote from your seat which also doubled up as an inflight phone! all you had to do was scan your credit card, pay and ring. With the TV channels round about 3 were showing films and the rest showing a split of documentarys, comedy shows and what became mine and Ben's favourite channel on the way out, Cartoon Network!
The radio had all sorts playing from country to just released stuff, the inflight map showed all the usual and we making very impressive time today due to reach NYC at 10:40am which was a good 40 mins ahead of the scheduled 11:25am
All in all it was quite surprising because on the internet we'd read very mixed reviews about AA ranging from very bad to very good so we were glad we had the latter, maybe it was a one off luck thing but we'd find that out on the way back. Anyway before long it seemed we had began our decent and were beginning our approach to JFK, being sat on the left we only had a great view of the water most of the time but we soon clocked onto the fact we'd be doing a visual onto 13L.
It was interesting because we seemed to sit idle at 3000ft eventually 2000ft for what seemed an age before making a turn toward the runway, he also didn't extend the flaps at all untill we seemed to be on a not-longish final but hey he landed it and it was possibly one of the smoothest landings ever! also wierd to see an airport tug on fire as we went over the threshold!
After exiting rather quick we made our way to Terminal 9 passing by the area's for UA, Jetblue and so on before taxiing to the gate at the start of cul-de-sac thing! finally we were here after all the planning that had gone into it, but after exiting our aircraft we made our way to immigration and this being the USA we weren't expecting anything less than an strict and orderly experiance! JFK was amazingly quiet but this immigration area looked dedicated to AA so I guess it wouldn't be massivly busy say like somewhere in Europe. We had our completed forms we'd done on the plane ready and handed them to the guy at the desk, we then had to have our fingerprints taken and a cam take a pic of our face before we were allowed through to get our bags which we hoped would be waiting for us.
We only waited round about 10/15 minutes for our bags to come down and we got them and headed out the Terminal where the NYC heat hit us right in the face, with all the massive vehicles and yellow cabs we had finally got here. We'd had an awesome experiance with AA and now we had to make our way to our home for the next 5 days. The cabs offer a flat rate of $49 for trips to/from Manhatten from JFK excluding any tolls etc you may go through which you have to pay, it seemed almost surreal to actually be here but after a journey of roughly 30/40 minutes we got to our place called 'The Continental Hostel' on 330 W95th Street + Riverside.
After paying off the cabbie and walking into the small lobby of our hostel where about 5 people were sitting on their laptops we checked in, this is where you have to love the simpleness of Expedia having every detail of your holiday on two peices of A4 paper, I quickly filled out a form for them, showed them my passport as ID and we were lucky enough to have a room 119 on the first floor. We headed up the stairs where the room numbers didnt quite match up and eventually realised when American's say 'first floor' to any UK residents heading over there they actually mean 'ground floor' so that was even better having a room a literal two seconds walk from main lobby area/exit.
I'm not going to go into immense detail about everyday of our trip because I literally would be here forever but needless to say we visited all the usual sights and did ALOT!!! of walking, ie roughly 20+ miles on our fourth day walking down to the World Trade centre site. Anyway here's a short selection of pictures which I hope you'll enjoy, don't laugh!