On a recent flight from London to Chicago, I had the opportunity to fly with American Airlines. I generally avoid American carriers like the plague, and only fly with European Airlines when I can. At London Heathrow, I found that checkin was a complete zoo, with only 4 counters open to handle all the hundreds passengers flying to all their destinations in the US. I had to stand in line almost one hour prior to checkin. The counter clerk was extremely rude, and at one point even told us that we shouldn’t even be on the flight (KLM had put us on the flight at the last minute due to some flight delays earlier in the trip). After getting thru checkin, we had to go thru security, which was also an ordeal. Apparently, all brown skinned people are Osama Bin Laden’s personal friends, and must be treated as such at security gates. After having my carryon baggage examined by hand, and my shoes tested for explosives, I was finally admitted to the gate area. Boarding was prompt, and the plane did manage to take off on time. The brand new B777 was very clean and fairly comfortable in economy class (any seats are better than KLM’s beaten up cramped seating in economy). All the seats had personal TV’s, but the movies really werent worth watching. We were all fairly hungry and were waiting for lunch. When the flight attendants came around, they informed us that they had lost our vegetarian meal request (even though it had been provided to them more than 24 hours in advance), and that they really had no suitable meals for us. Imagine having to sit thru an eight hour flight without any real meals!! They did offer us the dry salads and tiny pieces of spongey cheesecake from the regular meal, however. Throughout the flight, I found that the flight attendants were okay, they werent rude or racist, but at the same time they did not provide the level of service one would receive on Swissair or KLM. Bored and hungry, I ended up sleeping thru most of the flight (something that I never do), and when I woke up the flight attendants were coming around with a prelanding snack of cheese pizza and chocolate. This time, I was actually able to eat, and I thought that the food was okay, nothing spectacular. We arrived in Chicago ontime, but not very refreshed. Overall, I would have to say that American is a very average airline. If they had honored my meal request, maybe I would have rated them higher. I wouldnt mind flying with them again, as long as all the European carriers are unavailable.