The Details
- Flight: AA4306
- Aircraft: E175
- Class: Domestic First
- Seat: 2D and 2F
- Route: Indianapolis (IND)-New York John F. Kennedy (JFK)
- Distance: 837miles
- Duration: 1hr 52min
- Departure: 13:07
- Arrival: 14:59
The Preflight
For this journey, my fiance and I were headed to Lake Como in Italy to get married at the beginning of May 2024. We had booked separate tickets with American Airlines from IND to JFK and then Air France from JFK to Milan via Paris.
We arrived at IND airport an hour before boarding, giving us time to eat lunch at the Priority Pass restaurant The Fan Zone, which had recently been renovated and rebranded as The Tap. Thanks to our Chase Priority Pass membership, we each had $28 to spend on food.
We shared a chicken avocado wrap and a basket of delicious warm pretzel sticks with beer cheese.
The E175 flying us to JFK today, registration N117HQ, was a 16-year-old aircraft operated by Republic Airways on behalf of American Airlines under the regional brand American Eagle.
Boarding began three minutes early at 12:40 PM.
The Flight
American Airlines features 12 Domestic First class seats arranged in a 1-2 configuration across four rows on all their E175s. Each seat is 20″ wide and has 36″ of pitch.
My fiance and I were seated in 2D and 2F.
Each seat had a bi-fold tray table and in between the two seats was a small cocktail tray. Unfortunately, our cocktail tray was broken and would not pull out.
Each seat also had a USB port and 110V outlet.
No predeparture beverages were offered on this flight. The doors were closed 19 minutes after boarding at 12:59 PM. We had a brief taxi to runway 23R and took off at 1:06 PM.
Once in the air, the flight attendant offered a beverage service. I went with my usual Woodfords with a side of Coke Zero.
On flights between 500 to 899 miles, American Airlines should offer a snack basket with packaged snacks in Domestic First class. On this flight, however, the snack basket was not catered and instead flight attendants offered us the Main Cabin snacks of Biscoff and pretzels. A second round of drinks was also provided.
The rest of the flight was uneventful with a small amount of turbulence as we neared NYC given the rain in the region. We landed at 2:58 PM followed by a 10-minute taxi to gate 36.
This was a very generic regional Domestic First class flight with American Airlines. The seat was average, service was average, but they forgot to load the snack basket which is a small differentiator that sets this apart from Main Cabin.