Just finished a round trip on AA between JFK and LHR and have some good and bad to report.

The good, on both legs they have improved the "snack" served an hour before landing...now on the overnight flights you get a croissant in coach as the "breakfast snack" instead of the infantile snack pack and on the return flight, the snack instead of that awful snack pack was a hot piece of pizza which was actually good.

Of course the bad is they still charge for booze in coach and on the return flight into JFK, while the plane touched down at 1525 on a Tuesday afternoon, it wasn't until 1618 that the first bag came down the chute to the carousel which was downright ridiculous as our flight was the only arriving flight in the terminal...absolutely no excuse for this.

The other problem was on the flight over, I couldn't extend the tray from the seat in front of me...I thought to myself boy am I getting fat (it comes down and then opens up fully, it was nearly impossible for me and those around me to get the second part down)...on the return flight, no problem, plenty of room until I realized that somehow the 777 I was going over on had something wrong with the space between rows...

Overall I'd give the experience a C+; although a month earlier on a round trip on Virgin Atlantic, the experience was far superior.

The other little irksome thing (and I know it's not important in the scheme of things) which I complained about...when the beverage service came around I asked for a Diet Coke and I was serve that foul tasting Coca Cola Light (for the benefit of those who are unaware, diet coke is only sold in the USA, the UK, Australia, Canada while a completely different drink, and no it is not the same drink with a different name, called Coca Cola Light is sold in other countries. Anyway I complained and they didn't have any diet coke (the stewardess tried to tell me it was the same drink with a different name but of course it isn't)...in any event I looked at the can closely and it had all its messages in Dutch and it said for information, consult www.cocacola.nl.

Now here's my question..AA doesn't serve Holland...how could a can of coke (I assume there were others) get on an AA flight bottled (canned) in Holland when AA does not serve Holland.

(Don't flame me, these things are important to my palate and one of the reasons I miss the free booze)...but anyway AA should be serving coke zero to resolve this issue.

Oh well, guess you can't have everything.

If you want free booze, don't fly AA unless you want to upgrade to Business Class. BTW, Heathrow has many, many duty free stores. They also sell the little bottles. And you have already gone through security at this point, too.

Not to split hairs here, but Diet Coke IS sold in countries other than those you've listed. Diet Coke made and bottled in the US is exported to the far ends of the earth, including the garden spot I now live in (Middle of Nowhere, Indonesia) and my former residence of Kuwait. It's hellishly expensive, but since I don't drink the stuff, it certainly doesn't matter to me.

Coca Cola Light is also available and of course much cheaper, as it's bottled locally (or at least on the same continent).

Food and beverages for airlines are provided by contract caterers. These large companies, like LSG Sky Chefs owned by Lufthansa, serve dozens of airlines worldwide.

When the beverage cart return to the caterer, a can of coke will be pooled back with other ones, and they can end up on other airlines' flights.

It's always interesting to read about what is important to others here on Fodors. I've never considered food to be that important on any flight. So if they'd served Diet Coke instead of CokeLite would the flight have rated an A or B in your book?

Amazing how a single 12oz can of carbonated water can make that much difference in a 6hr flight.

Most of the world made the switch to Coca Cola Light years ago, at least as far as what's bottled locally. On a flight out of the United States, you'll get Diet Coke. On the flight back, you'll likely get what's available locally. Think of the expense involved to transport lots of cans of soda on an overseas flight only for the purpose of having them available for the return flight. I'd file that in the "ain't gonna happen" column.

Jeff..

I sort of was kidding about the coke issue however just for your information...

In the UK, diet coke is sold and bottled there...what happens is some what I consider to be unscrupulous retailers import from great distances their coke products not from the official coke bottler in the UK (their cans now say made in GB) but from great distances...who knows how old these cans are...if you look you will see all sorts of foreign languages on the cans (as was the one I had which was in Dutch)...with the diet variety in the silver cans it's easy to see when this garbage is being pulled as the drink as bottled in the UK is indeed diet coke but on the continent, it is a completely different tasting foul tasting (at least to me) thing called coke light (it is a misconception among many that coke light and diet coke are the same drink with different names, that is absolutely positively WRONG).

What I didn't understnad, assuming the flight was catered in London and AA just doesn't fly to Holland how a coke can bottled in the Netherlands could end up on the beverage cart...I've had this happen before...obviously the caterer is cutting corners and thinks nobody notices the difference.

Personally, as I said somewhat tongue in cheek, if they used coke zero instead of diet coke there wouldn't be any problem!

But it wasn't really meant to be all that serious an issue (although it is to me but I'm a little bit nuts).

Sure, I realize it was just a rant. I have my beverage loyalties too.

Maybe I should rethink what I said. On the AA flights from Costa Rica to MIA and DFW, which I fly frequently, you always get Coca Cola Light instead of Diet Coke, but they also have Sierra Mist and Sierra Mist Free, neither of which is available in Costa Rica. They have to be transporting those cans on the flights to Costa Rica. Maybe they are just left over from the supply on the US-CR run.

I had to laugh at the Coke thing ...

The Coke, Diet Coke, and some of the other drnks that we buy locally are created and bottled/canned locally in Bermuda. They taste great - sharp, robust, and not VERY sweet. They have a zest ting.

When we go to USA, UK, etc and try their local Coke (or whatever), they tasted so different - they seem overly sweet, didn't have the fizzle - or something - they just tasted different!

2 things we have here the others may not have: distilled rain water (pure) and cane sugar.

So each country make their Coke differently.

We like our local Coke the best!

So, perhaps the OP didn't like the Cola Cola Light because it was bottled/canned in Holland where they use different ingredients???

Anyway, we are diehard AA travellers. I know they started selling drinks about 3 years ago , but there is nothing we can do -- BUT at least the AA fares are often lower than BA ones when going across the pond - for us, that is (we are in Bermuda). We find the overnight AA flights better than BA - more lights out on AA!!

As for the bags taking long to come out at JFK - well, we have to go thru US Immigration (we are non-US) so by the time we're thru our bags are already out!

Virgin Atlantic may be nice (we haven't been on one but we have heard) but their fares are too high for our liking, even there is strong competition on pond-crossing flights.

Coke Zero from Hong Kong definitely doesn't taste the same as Coke Zero here.

I hope everybody realizes this is not meant to be an abrasive discussion like some are but hoping to have a little fun with it.

I read on some board in the last day or two that one US retailers at a large mark up is selling cans of coke bottled in Mexico rather than the USA...why...because Mexican coke uses cane sugar while I think USA bottled coke uses corn syrup fructose as I remember as its sweetener. Coca cola claims there is no difference in taste but obviously there is.

I don't drink coke because the prevailing opinion is those with diabetes should avoid sugar (that myth has been disproven BTW as long as it is in moderation)...I drink the sugar free varieties. As noted, coca cola has several different versions of sugar free coke...there is diet coke bottled in the USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia among other places...then a completely different drink, and it's not just the water, it's the whole formula, called coca cola light bottled throughout most of the rest of the world.

Recently, by far the best sugar free coke product is coke zero which uses the coca cola formula and supposedly tastes exactly the same as coca cola..(I haven't had a regular coke in so long that I don't know how true this is)...obviously there are variations in all other countries...for example I am completely addicted to a drink sold only in the UK called diet coke cherry....it tastes just like cherry cough medicine and there is hardly an coke taste...it tastes completely different than what we have now in the USA called coke zero cherry (my favorite USA drink)...

I know, I know it's a travel board.

Getting back to my flight AA105 this past Tuesday, I have complained to AA about the delay in baggage...actually normally it takes foreigners, especially, about a half hour to get through US immigration at the AA terminal at JFK what with the obnoxeous fingerprinting, retina scans, third degree or whatever they do to foreigner.

On this particular Tuesday afternoon, there were no other international flights in the international arrivals area and even on the US passport line, which normally moves very quickly, it took a while...and I thought the same thing...big deal, my bags will be waiting for me...I was through at 1555....and lo and behold no baggage had appeared yet...it took another 23 minutes on top of the 20 minutes I had waited at passport control...this was simply unacceptable and to me contempteous on the part of AA; especially since there were no annoucements made of the hold up!

That issue is serious...the coke issue is not obviously.

This has to fall under one of the most ridiculous rants I've seen in a while.

rkkwan already explained how the coke switch happens. AA just like every airline in the world uses contracted caterers.
Food is done according to the airline instructions so chances are you will get consistency both ways, but stuff like soda are caterered from a big pile of ALIKE stuff. Coke Lite or Coke Diet probably sounds the same to the caterer and when they pull off stuff from a flight from AMS in LHR they recycle the unopened cans and distribute them to new flights. It's not like AA has it especially flown in from AMS.

Booze charge in Y has been around for years now. No surprise there.

Baggage handling has it's moments. I have been on flights that only took minutes to get luggage and I have been on flights that took longer. Part of travel. 50 minutes is not the end of the world. I've waited longer for luggage after flights on BA and much longer on one flight on LAN, yet that didn't change my opinion about either airline in the long run.

Table tray not working properly? Why not move or was the flight full because AA is so popular?
Breakage of equipment happens. People abuse stuff. Others following them don't report the problem, so unless one reports it to the staff and they write it up there is no way AA maintanance can know about little stuff like that. They are not checking every seat between every flight.

And here is my final question. If Virgin is so great and you always have some issues with AA, why go back to the inferior airline?


Reporting from Cairo. Last full day here. Monday we're lying BA 747, upstairs to LHR to meet with a friend for fun evening. We're spending a night in London before flying down to Dubrovnik for a week with friends in Croatia.

AA..

Don't take everything so seriously.

Leaving aside the drink argument...there was something wrong on the flight over as not only my tray table could not be fully extended but that of everybody around me.

But I was complimentary to them as far as the improvements in the second snack.

But as far as the soda bit, lighten up a bit.

no problemo xyz123!!

Basically, we think AA is a good airline - for us, that is.

Our DS (early teens) went on a school trip to Peru on AA via Miami this month. 2 flights, same airline.

On the return the LIM-MIA was one hour late arriving in Miami but they still had 2h 30m connection. BUT ... the US Immigration took forever in MIA that they MISSED the Bermuda flight!!!

There were 15 of them but AA would not hold the Bermuda flight for just a few minutes for them!

But AA kindly put them all up at AA's expense at the plush JW Marriott hotel in MIA for the night and put them on the flight home the next day. They thoroughly enjoyed the hotel! We have AA to thank!!

I gave up sodas many years ago. You know how bad they are for you? I now drink water and wine.