Review: American Airlines A321neo First Class ANC-DFW

Flight Info

Date Traveled	June 23, 2024
Flight No. / Route	AA #399 / ANC-DFW
Aircraft / Tail	A321neo / N409AA
Flight Time / Distance	5 hours, 55 minutes / 3043 miles
Departure / Arrival	Depart 8:40PM AKDT / Arrive 6:11AM+1 CDT
Class / Seat	First Class / 5D (aisle)
Type / Cost	PAID / $414.84 RT (20% off) + ($78 MCE seat selection – $50 Hilton Aspire airline credit on incoming) + $263.09 First Class upgrade for this return flight = $705.93
Loyalty Status	AAdvantage member

Summary

This redeye flight in American Airlines A321neo First Class from Anchorage to DFW was a great and comfortable experience while I was awake. My main complaint was that the meal service took up a significant portion of the flight, reducing the amount of time I had to attempt to fall asleep. Regardless, I was rested enough to endure a full work day after arriving in the morning.

Rating: 4.0/5

Booking American Airlines A321neo First Class

I discussed how I booked this roundtrip flight in my Main Cabin Extra review for American Airlines A321neo going from Dallas to Anchorage.

For this flight in particular, I checked the AA app about a month before this flight. I saw that the upgrade offer was $263, and I went ahead and took it because I thought it was a pretty good deal. For a ~6 hour red eye flight?? Totally worth it, in my opinion. I knew I would be headed straight to work after I landed so getting decent sleep was important to me. From a previous red eye flight from Anchorage to Dallas, I did the same thing but in Main Cabin–I didn’t get good sleep and regretted it throughout the work day, lol.

Once I got confirmed in First Class, I was able to pre-order my meal. I feel like the menu hasn’t really changed in a while but the main choices were fruit and cheese plate, golden roasted chicken, veggie and grain bowl, and beef short rib. I selected the beef short rib as I haven’t had it before. And it seems to be a fan favorite meal on the Internet.

Also noteworthy is the ridiculousness that I paid the upgrades to First Class for both legs from Utqiagvik to home! But I couldn’t resist the low prices for those paid upgrades. Maybe this is a hack?

Packing for American Airlines A321neo First Class

The one item that was crucial for me for this flight was my eye mask! I really needed to be able to sleep this flight and blocking out most light is essential for me. Earlier in the year, I decided to get the nicest one: the Sleep Mask by Tempur-pedic. Yes, the bed people. Was it effective? Read below!

Check In At Anchorage and the Alaska Lounge

For this flight, I checked in at some point the day before. Again, I had no bags to check or anything. And check in time wasn’t essential as I wasn’t nonreving this flight.

I didn’t have to go through the TSA because I connected from the Alaska Airlines flight from Utqiagvik.

Because I had less than an hour after landing and deplaning from that flight, I decided to go check out the Alaska Lounge for food, drink, and restroom.

The Alaska Lounge at Anchorage airport is located by gate C2. I had access because of my Admirals Club membership through the Citi Executive card.

At the front desk, the agent checked my credit card and also my boarding pass.

Inside, I noticed three main seating areas that are kind of divided. Towards the restrooms in the back is a seating area with some work booths and countertop seating as well as a drink station. A fireplace subdivides the main seating area with comfortable loungers, and one half of the main seating area is where the dining tables are. This also has the bar and entrance to the food room, which are right by the front check in counters. Lastly, there’s another seating area more dedicated to private booths and resting. The different seating areas are all by the windows so you can easily see out onto the tarmac and adjacent gates.

I wanted a drink so I hit up the bar first to see what they had for complimentary and premium drinks.

I ended up going with the Wycliff Brut because sparkling wine makes me feel fancy, lol. While pouring my glass, the bartender was asking a few questions about where I was traveling to and such. I kept it short so I could go sit down.

After setting my drink down to save my seat/table, I went off to the food area. I awkwardly tried snapping pictures of the available food while passengers were actively trying to browse them, lol. Honestly, the food spread at this particular lounge felt very similar to an American Airlines Admirals Club but with slightly better hot food options.

I ended up getting some of the tortellini and Italian chicken. Again, I knew I’d be sitting in First Class on the flight and would be getting a meal so I didn’t want to eat heavy here in the lounge. Besides… I didn’t have much time. The tortellini and Italian chicken were delicious though! Both had great flavor, and the chicken wasn’t dry.

While eating, I was browsing around on the Internet using my cellular data. I didn’t try nor test the WiFi since I had trouble connecting to it.

After eating, I chugged my brut then used the restrooms. There’s only one set in this lounge. They are nothing really special as they looked pretty generic. I couldn’t tell what specialty soaps and lotions they were using.

Reflecting back on this quick lounge experience, I am not sure how good of a use case this lounge would be for me since Anchorage isn’t really a gateway to my frequent destinations. However, it is nice that it exists and that I have access to it for the times I fly onward to Utqiagvik or home from Anchorage.

Afterwards, I skedaddled outa there to get to my gate.

American Airlines A321neo First Class Boarding and Departure From Anchorage

Somewhere along the way to my gate…I noticed a sign that I had to take a selfie with.

Before arriving at the gate, I filled up my Yeti water bottle from a drinking fountain. I always appreciate it when the airport water fountains have a water bottle spout. This is my hack to not spend $8 on a water bottle at the airport! 😀

With my water bottle filled with glorious tap water, I arrived at gate B7 about 18 minutes before boarding. This gave me some time to find a seat and make some notes about this flight.

Boarding was scheduled at 8:05PM, and boarding actually started at about 8:08PM. When it was boarding time, I selfishly wanted a paper boarding pass so I did end up bothering the gate agent to get one printed out… While I was waiting around, I overheard the pilot talking to maintenance about something not working, but this wasn’t the cause of the delay in boarding.

Somewhere in all that, I ended up being one of the last First Class passengers to board due to me not lining up for boarding early enough due to my pursuit of a paper boarding pass. Luckily my seat was 5D, an aisle seat.

Once boarded, we waited for boarding to complete. No pre-departure drink offered, but I wasn’t about to go complain on Reddit about that.

Departure was scheduled for 8:40PM. But it was a pretty full flight so boarding took a long while. Or maybe because I boarded with First Class, it felt long to wait for everyone else lol.

The door closed at 8:42PM, and we pushed back at 8:43PM. The PRAM played the safety demonstration.

We took off at about 8:59PM. It was a little shaky on initial ascent. It felt like we were climbing with a higher-than-normal-alpha. Either way, we banked immediately towards the south towards Texas.

American Airlines A321neo First Class Cabin and Seats

American Airlines A321neo aircraft have 20 First Class seats in a 2-2 configuration. During boarding, the mood lighting for the cabin was set to some sort of ambient blue. Perhaps this was some sort of evening or night mood lighting? I liked it.

The bins never got filled in First Class. I noticed after all of First Class boarded that about half of the bins were used at all! Gee, I think everyone was traveling like minimalists or something—I was kind of impressed. Also, boarding Groups 7-9 didn’t have to use the First Class cabin bins. Lastly, I think the right hand side of Row 1 houses emergency equipment and thus can’t be used for passenger luggage.

The First Class seats are Collins Aerospace’s MiQ seats. These are similar to the Premium Economy seats on American Airlines’ widebody fleets.

These seats feature a large mesh pocket for your belongings, side seat storage with a charging port, two (!) cocktail trays—one in the row in front and one hidden just under the top of the center console (push to deploy/stow), device holder on the back, USB A power port (no USB C), and a literature pocket for the safety card, menu, and motion sickness bag. The food table deploys from the armrest opposite of the center console, and the table also features an adjustable device stand.

The seat overall is pretty spacious. Not as cushy as Alaska Airlines’ First Class on their B737-800s, but still comfy. Because this is a longer flight, bedding came included with a Casper pillow and blanket. This was great because I planned on sleeping on this flight.

I did notice that there was an INOP sticker on seat 3C for the power port as it was apparently not working. That served as a good reminder to bring my own battery bank to power devices in the event of inoperative plugs on the aircraft.

Lastly, when I deployed my tray table, I noticed it wasn’t level laterally—it leaned towards the right! Which makes sense because it doesn’t utilize the center console for support so putting excess weight on the unsupported end could cause it to permanently bend that direction…

Other than these issues, I didn’t see or experience anything wrong with the seats.

American Airlines A321neo First Class Service and Food/Drink

I saw that two flight attendants were working First Class. They worked like clockwork and made everything efficient.

About 15 minutes after takeoff, one of the flight attendants confirmed pre-orders and then also took everyone’s drink orders. The other one was busy warming up the food and doing other preparations.

I didn’t see a menu on my row at all or in the row in front. Either way, the choices on this flight were either a chicken parmesan or enchiladas. The flight attendant also mentioned that someone canceled their pre-ordered golden roasted chicken, so that was available as well.

As the flight continued, we were all given a warm towel then our drinks served with warm mixed nuts. Then our meals.

I was basically served second to last due to the front-to-back, left-to-right serving order. I didn’t get my meal until about 1 hour and 10 minutes into the flight.

I had pre-ordered the beef short rib with espagnole sauce. It came with mac and cheese, salad, roll, and veggies/mozzarella with pesto. Paired well with whatever red wine they had on board. The short rib was soft and tender, and the brown gravy made it savory and moist. The mac and cheese made it a great accompaniment with the beef. For the salad, it came with sun dried tomatoes and leaf greens and an oil and balsamic vinegar dressing which tasted great. The olive, mozzarella hors d’oeuvres were great too, as well as the warmed roll.

I finished eating this main meal about 20 minutes after I got served. They took my tray away and shortly served dessert. The choices were either brownie, sundae, or fruit and cheese tray. The sundae semmed to be pretty popular for most of the other passengers, but I ordered the brownie because I am mildly lactose intolerant and didn’t want to have an uncomfortable rest of the flight, lol.

The brownie was decadent, warm, with some ice cream topping and it was sooooo good!

After the main meal service was done, the flight attendants put out a tray of snacks available for the remainder of the flight up in the galley. It included Biscoff cookies, chips, and similar things.

I think this is my main complaint for this flight: it took a little over two hours for the meal service to complete, which impeded my goal to get some decent sleep.

No second or lite meal served before landing.

American Airlines A321neo First Class Entertainment and WiFi

Nothing really new here from the DFW-ANC flight. I know media content changes only happen at the first of every month. And that hadn’t happened yet.

I did not test the WiFi speed this flight as I assumed it would be similar to the incoming flight. I will say that WiFi is not complimentary for First Class passengers.

During meal service, I did decide to watch Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom.

American Airlines A321neo First Class Lavatories

Despite this flight being almost 6 hours long, I only got up twice. Again, I like choosing aisle seats for longer flights so I have easier access to the lavatory without having to awkwardly ask rowmates to get out of my way, haha.

On AA A321neos, there’s only the one lavatory at the front of the aircraft, across from the galley and by the flight deck door.

After I finished watching Aquaman, I used the front lavatory for the first time. This was at about 2 hours and 25 minutes in flight. My seatmate had used the lav before me so I wasn’t sure if it was him who left a bunch of TP unflushed in the toilet. Otherwise the floor seemed free of debris and wet spots, which was nice. However, whenever I lifted the toilet seat up there was…some blood on the rim?? Gross!

I again used the front lavatory with about 1.5 hours left in the flight. The lavatory looked about the same as it had earlier.

Sleeping In American Airlines A321neo First Class

Part of my justification for buying the upgrade to First Class was the hope and intent to sleep better than sitting in the back of the plane.

After the meal and movie, I had about 3 hours left in the flight to try and get some sleep (again, the meal service took over 2 hours). My hope was that the food coma and alcohol would contribute to me falling asleep faster, but that wasn’t really the case. I did have my Tempur-pedic eye mask and AirPods Pro for blocking out light and sound, respectively. The eye mask really blocked out light, and I like them because it achieves this without pressing on your eyeballs as there are “pockets” over your eyes. And my AirPod Pros did a pretty good job of canceling out the softer sounds and hum of the engines.

I’m not sure I felt really rested since it was only a few hours, and I had to use the lavatory somewhere in the middle of that block of time. I probably fell in and out of sleep the entire time.

Arrival at Dallas/Fort Worth

An announcement happened at about 5:35AM local time that we’d be landing in about 25 minutes. Afterwards, sunrise mood lighting went into effect to ease everyone into waking up. Weirdly, I noticed the cabin felt real cold at descent so I’m not sure if the air conditioning overcompensated for the stereotypical Texas heat at 5:30 in the morning or what.

Approaching DFW Airport, we landed towards the south. We touched down at about 5:57AM and arrived at gate A9 at 6:05AM, about 5 or so minutes early. Nice.

Because I was at the front of the plane, I managed to deplane pretty quickly and with no bags to claim, I was in an Uber to work by 6:15AM.

Stories and Other Things

Before departure at the gate, I couldn’t help but look at the screens at the gate as well as looking up the priority list on company internal systems. There were 8 seats available with 5 nonrev standby passengers listed. It made me realize I could have …flown this flight without buying the revenue ticket. BUT I WOULDN’T HAVE GOTTEN FIRST CLASS.

I’ll say once again that I love how quiet the A321neo engines are especially on takeoff. They purr quite gently, haha.

During the meal service, I couldn’t help but notice how a few other First Class passengers didn’t know how to operate or deploy the tray table from the armrest. I suppose it isn’t that intuitive, but… at the same time such design has existed for a long while now. Maybe they were First Class newbies??

There was an elderly woman who sat across the aisle from me who did the most amazing thing–she plugged in a USB cable to her FREAKIN’ CD PLAYER. I think she had some sort of audiobook on CD. What a badass, haha.

Lastly, I intended to go straight to work after this flight. The Uber took me to my parked car at work, which I then drove to the work gym to shower and get ready for work. I made it to my desk at about 8AM, which is my normal start time. Niiiiice.

I did mention that I didn’t get restful sleep, but I think I slept enough that I was able to survive most of the work day painlessly. Which makes me wonder about the other people on the flight who intended to do the same sort of thing–going straight to work after the flight. My seatmate was dressed as if he was going straight to work after the flight so maybe the idea isn’t so crazy.

Bottom Line

Flying American Airlines A321neo in First Class on this redeye flight from Anchorage to Dallas/Ft. Worth was actually a great way to spend about 6 hours in the air. The seat was spacious and comfortable, the food was delicious, and the service was great. And the aircraft is really nice. My only complaint is that the meal service could’ve taken less time so as to give everyone more than 3 hours of attempted sleep.

Either way, I managed to get enough sleep to survive the subsequent work day and being in First Class definitely helped with improved comfort versus sitting in the Main Cabin.

Do you take red eye flights? And would you be excited to do it if you were sitting in First Class?