The Details
- Flight: AA2838
- Aircraft: A321
- Class: Main Cabin Extra
- Seat: 8A
- Route: San Diego (SAN)-Phoenix Sky Harbor (PHX)
- Distance: 368miles
- Duration: 51min
- Departure: 12:38PM
- Arrival: 2:29PM
The Preflight
After spending a few days visiting my family in San Diego, it was time to fly back home to Indianapolis. My routing today would be from San Diego to Phoenix to Indy with American Airlines. I arrived at Terminal 2 an hour prior to the scheduled boarding time. Boarding began at 11:57AM with a packed gate area.
Our A321, registration N558UW, was a 10-year-old aircraft originally delivered to US Airways in September 2012 and then transferred to American Airlines in December 2013 after the merger between the two airlines.
The Flight
American Airlines had recently completed updating all of their A321 with newer Collins Merician slimline seats, increasing the seat count, as well as removing seat-back entertainment from the older seats. The new “Oasis” style A321 cabins had a total of 170 main cabin seats arranged in a 3-3 configuration. Rows 8-12 as well as row 24 were designated as Main Cabin Extra which meant an extra three inches of pitch for 33″ total.
I was seated in 8A the very first row of the Main Cabin. American had removed all of the bulkheads between the Domestic First and Main Cabin which meant the bulkhead rows had increased underneath storage in front of them. Each seat was 17.5″ wide and had three inches of recline.
The bi-fold tray table was stored in the armrest. I appreciated how there was a small flip-up tablet holder built into the tray table.
Boarding took over 20 minutes to complete with pushback five minutes later at 12:25PM. We took off at 12:38PM with slightly cloudy views of downtown San Diego, Point Loma, and Coronado Island.
Due to the “short” 51-minute duration of the flight, the cabin crew announced that there would be no beverage service in the main cabin. On this particular route, I have noticed it is hit-or-miss with the flight attendants being willing to offer drinks and pretzels. I did enjoy the extensive in-flight entertainment selection which I streamed on my iPhone.
Just as we reached our cruising altitude, we began our descent into the Phoenix metro area. On our approach, we had a great aerial view of Sky Harbor Airport.
We landed at 2:29PM with our gate arrival at 2:36PM. Thanks for the ride!
This was a flight with nothing to write home about. American Airlines got me from point A to B without delay although I would have appreciated a more consistent beverage service as I had gotten drinks on previous flights from San Diego to Phoenix.