Let me start by saying that I’ve never flown American on any long-haul flights. However, based on a recent short-haul flight between New York and Toronto, I guess I can consider myself lucky! I usually fly Continental and Delta within the US, they are not great but OK and that’s the best you can ask for these days, at least for domestic US travel.
This time, my boss and I took American just because it has the most flights between La Guardia airport and Toronto. Very disappointing experience. We departed 2 hours late from New York, which is understandable in view of bad weather conditions. What’s not understandable is the complete lack of communication from the airline as to why we were delayed, when we could expect to take off, etc. - and this despite the gate agents standing in front of the passengers! The flight itself was pretty bad. The plane looked significantly older than most of the passengers (no exaggeration, this) and was VERY badly maintained. I had to change my seat as the fabric was literally ripped off my seat.
Every row I could see, there were crumbs scattered eveywhere - hello, where is the aircraft maintenance crew?! Of course, no food served (Delta and Continental still do serve food on most domestic flights that I have been on) and the airline crew were ALL grossly overweight (I am not someone who is looking for my ideal of beauty on board but I think the airline crew do need to conform to certain weight requirements from a safety angle). Coming back from Toronto, it was the same story, a 1-hour delay this time, again no food and far worse, a really old and badly maintained plane. The only positive was that they did not lose our luggage (even though it was only a 48-hour trip, we still had to check in bags due to the liquids restrictions).
I told my boss that next time we have to go to Canada, we should stick to Delta or Continental, they may have fewer flights but they have better planes and more amenities. Based in this experience, I feel sorry for anyone who has to endure a long-haul flight with these guys.