Review: American Airlines B777-200 Main Cabin Extra FCO-DFW

This flight concluded my time in Rome for the canonization Mass-turned-papal-funeral trip. By the time I got on this flight, I was ready to go home after some Roman and Vatican adventures. For this flight home, I wanted a little bit more of a comfortable flight so I opted to book Main Cabin Extra. Check out this review of American Airlines B777-200 in Main Cabin Extra from Rome to Dallas/Ft. Worth!

Flight Info

Date Traveled	April 28, 2025
Flight No. / Route	AA239 / FCO → DFW
Aircraft / Tail	B777-200 / N784AN
Flight Time / Distance	11 hours, 19 minutes / 5614 miles
Departure / Arrival	10:00AM FCO / 3:05PM DFW
Class / Seat	Main Cabin Extra / 28H (center, right hand aisle)
Type / Cost	Award / RT 50,800 AAdvantage Miles + $64.31 (63,500-12,700 for employee 20% miles discount) + $60.02 MCE seat selection ($110.02 – $50.00 AMEX airline credit)
Loyalty Status	AAdvantage Gold

Summary

• Main Cabin Extra with more leg room made this flight a little more comfy
• Three meals served during this flight
• WiFi was expensive, but fast enough to do social media things

Booking American Airlines B777-200 Main Cabin Extra

For background on how I booked this leg, check out this blog post as well as my review of Main Cabin on the flight from DFW to FCO. 

The difference in booking this leg was that I decided to upgrade from Main Cabin to Main Cabin Extra a few weeks before departure. The cost to do so was $110.02.  In my arsenal of travel credit cards, I hold the American Express Hilton Aspire card, and it has a quarterly airline credit of $50. I hadn’t yet used it on anything this quarter so I figured I could use that credit to upgrade to a confirmed Main Cabin Extra seat. 

I’ll also mention that because I have Gold status with AAdvantage, I technically can select Main Cabin Extra seats at check-in 24 hours before departure. But I didn’t want to wait that long, and I knew that demand for flying out of Rome back to the US would be high because of the various tourists and pilgrims out and about in Italy so being able to select an ideal Main Cabin Extra seat right before departure could have been challenging. Also I wanted to make sure I selected an aisle seat and not one in the middle!

Note that Main Cabin Extra technically isn’t a separate cabin on American Airlines flights–it’s just an economy class seat with extra leg room and free alcohol on domestic flights.

Whenever I pay for ancillary fees or upgrades like this, I do not get an employee discount. So it was good that I had airline credit through a credit card to help offset the cost.

Packing for American Airlines B777-200 Main Cabin Extra

Similar to the flight to Rome from DFW, I just had my backpack and cross-body bag. I put my backpack in the bin, and had my cross-body bag underneath the seat in front of me.

I still had my First Class slippers, eye mask, and noise canceling headphones loaded into my cross-body bag, and that made them more convenient to access in order to be more comfortable during the flight.

Check In and Security/Customs at FCO

Because I had stayed at the Hilton Rome Airport the night before departure, I had a really easy time getting to the airport. I didn’t take a bus or taxi–I walked! The front of the hotel has a pedestrian bridge that connects to the terminals at FCO. And it was just 8 minutes from the front desk to the departure hall of Terminal 3.

Once I got to the departure hall, I looked on the boards to see where American Airlines had their ticket counters. Apparently they were at O441, which was on the far end of the hall in a section designated for US-bound and Israel-bound flights.

I got in line to check in with the Priority desk because I am AAdvantage Gold, but a guard stopped me and started asking me questions. He asked basic things like how long I was in Italy, why I was in Italy, and whatnot. I explained to him the original purpose of this trip, and how that got messed up, and how I ended up going to Pope Francis’ funeral. He understood the funeral part, but was hung up on the canonization Mass that I was supposed to attend. He finally figured it out and was amazed and started asking me more about Carlo Acutis and asked more questions about him–wild!

This all took a few minutes, and then I was finally able to see the ticket agent. Talking to the ticket agent only took a few minutes as well as they verified my passport and printed my boarding pass.

From the last trip I took to Rome (July 2017), I remembered Security and Customs taking forever with long lines for both. But at 7:30AM in the morning, there weren’t a lot of people going through security so it only took like 5 minutes. They didn’t ask me to remove anything from my bags other than my iPad.

For Customs, FCO had plenty of open lanes and they use an automated passport control system that scans your passport and your photo taken. It’s a similar system I’ve seen at airports like HKG and SIN. This part only took about 6 minutes to get my exit stamp from the Customs officer.

Once through, I meandered my way through the terminal to get to the lounge.

The Prima Vista Portus Lounge at FCO

After doing some light research the night before, I settled on trying the Prima Vista Lounge. Because I have Priority Pass from the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, I was able to access this lounge.

The Prima Vista Lounge can be found airside in the non-Schengen portion of the terminal towards the E51-E61 gate area, across from the security checkpoint. Kind of hard to describe, but I think it’s decently straightforward to find.

I arrived at about 7:45AM and checked in with the front desk after they greeted me warmly. They scanned my boarding pass as well as my Priority Pass membership card that I had pulled up from the app.

Inside the Prima Vista lounge are various spaces to hang out in. After walking past the front desk, there were restrooms to the left and seating by the windows. There is a main seating area with food and drink along the right wall. By the windows are semi-private podlike seats. The main seating area has armchairs with side tables that have charging ports. There’s also a meeting room in the back corner with a conference table. I also noticed another seating area designated as the quiet zone separate from the rest of the lounge. And I also saw there was a separate dining area with more seats.

I couldn’t take too many pictures because of the amount of people in the lounge. I wouldn’t say it was full, but most of the seats in the main space were occupied. I did end up in the quiet area because no one was in it at the time I sat down.

For food, the Prima Vista lounge was serving breakfast. All the typical breakfast times were available seemingly catering to more of an American palate: eggs, bacon, pastries, fruits, yogurts, etc. 

I didn’t really get food as I was full from the breakfast buffet at the Hilton Rome Airport earlier in the morning. I did settle for a few drinks though.

There was a bar and coffee menu, and fridges were available that contained both still and sparkling water bottles. 

For other amenities, there was free WiFi. The passcode is available at the front desk. I did connect to it and ran a speed test for the WiFi, and it came back with:

• 3.41 mbps download
• 3.76 mbps upload
• 68 ms ping

That’s pretty slow, but it was serviceable enough for me to upload a few Instagram stories and browse around on my phone during my lounge stay.

I saw there was one set of restrooms, and one shower. I’m not sure what the protocol was for the shower, but I’m assuming you would have to talk to the front desk to use it.

Overall, I love the darker aesthetic of the lounge and the elegant finishes to match. The chair was comfortable, and the food spread was pretty great even though I didn’t eat. I also loved that the lounge had windows to the outside although they didn’t appear to have good views of the adjacent gates nor tarmac.

At about 8:30AM, I used the restroom, refilled my water bottle (a mistake I’ll share below), and headed to Gate E41 for my flight to DFW.

Boarding American Airlines B777-200 Main Cabin Extra

Boarding for this 10:00AM flight to the DFW was scheduled for 9:10AM as stated on my boarding pass and on the departure monitors. 

The gate was E41, and from the Prima Vista Lounge, it required me to take a people-mover train from T3. I just followed the signs. It took me about 12-15 minutes overall.

When I arrived at the gate at 8:45AM, I saw there were a lot of people seated in the gate area, and a good handful were lined up to talk to the gate agents. A few security guys (dressed similar to the one when I checked in at the ticket counter) were walking around and talking to passengers asking similar questions.

The gate agents made their usual announcements periodically as boarding was approaching, but I was particularly amused by the announcements in Italian! Sounds so cool! Lol.

At 9:08AM, they made the announcement that boarding was about to begin so everyone gate lice’d the boarding lanes, and at 9:10AM they called for Concierge Keys to board.

While I was waiting for Group 4, I saw one of my church friends from back home also waiting around! So I briefly caught up with him and his family while waiting for Group 4 to be called.

Boarding seemed to go slow, but I saw that Group 1 had 40+ passengers. And at about 9:21AM, I scanned my boarding pass with Group 4. While walking down to the jet bridge, I noticed they had set up secondary security checks for security to go through bags. Luckily, I wasn’t selected… this time. 😳

Departure in American Airlines B777-200 Main Cabin Extra

I got into my seat at about 9:23AM. My backpack went in the bin and my cross-body bag went under the seat in front of me. Weirdly, most of the overhead bin space was already taken up by others who had boarded before me, but I was still able to find space in the bins just above my seat.

Departure was scheduled for 10:00AM.

While waiting for the remainder of the passengers to board, I saw that I had OTHER church friends on this flight, and one of them was seated in 28D, the opposite center aisle seat from me. So we chatted and shared our Italian adventures. I noticed another friend passing by in the aisle too and briefly caught up with her. 

Between those times, I was taking notes and pics for this review.

Boarding completed at 9:49AM, and the boarding door closed immediately after that. We pushed back a few minutes early at 9:58AM.

Weirdly, we idled after pushback for about 10 or so minutes, then we got into the pattern for take off, but that also took another short while.

We finally took off at 10:24AM!

Cabin in American Airlines B777-200 Main Cabin Extra

This is the same cabin as my incoming flight to Italy. The only difference being I had a different vantage point due to sitting in the aft Main Cabin and on the right side. Aesthetics and lav locations remain the same.

Also the aft Main Cabin is the slightly bigger one of the two cabins.

You can check out the layout on Aerolopa.

For cabin temperature throughout the flight, I found it to be nice during boarding and takeoff. But as the flight went on, it got colder. I ended up putting on my pullover and utilized the blanket provided. Had I not put on those layers, I would have been miserable throughout the flight because of feeling cold.

As a fun fact, I did look up above my seat and noticed that there were five air nozzles and lights.

I used to fly this aircraft type A LOT like ten years ago before American Airlines retrofitted the B777-200 fleet. In the old configuration before the retrofit, the seats in Main Cabin were a 2-5-2 configuration, meaning there were FIVE seats in the middle. I guess I never noticed that AA never updated the panels above the seats so they are still in the old configuration with five nozzles and lights.

Seats in American Airlines B777-200 Main Cabin Extra

My seat was 28H, which was on the right side of the aircraft and was an aisle seat in the center section. 

This was the same seat model as my incoming flight to Italy, and it has the same features. The big difference is that this seat is Main Cabin Extra so the seat has more leg room (34” vs 31” seat pitch), and a little more recline (4” vs 3” recline).

I should also mention that the placement of the seat legs of Row 27 is such that 28G and I had to share the same underseat space. Luckily this wasn’t an issue as 28G didn’t place a big backpack under there.

And because this was an international flight, the seats are equipped with a blanket and pillow in Main Cabin.

Entertainment and WiFi on American Airlines B777-200 Main Cabin Extra

The system and content on this flight were the same as the incoming flight. My particular seatback monitor was fully functional, and I didn’t observe anyone else having issues with their units.

On this flight, the WiFi actually worked! Well, it didn’t work on the ground, and that is by design for this fleet type. However, the WiFi signal became operational about 30 minutes after takeoff. 

I also confirmed that the WiFi stops working once below 10,000 feet. So keep that in mind before swiping right or watching the next TikTok while on approach to landing.

How much is WiFi in American Airlines B777-200 Main Cabin Extra?

The price is the same for everyone regardless of class.

For the 2-hour pass, it was $29.

For the All-Flight pass, it was $35

I ended up paying for the $35 All-Flight pass (for science!). I was a little concerned the payment wouldn’t go through as I manually entered in my credit card info, but it did. 

How fast is WiFi in American Airlines B777-200 Main Cabin Extra?

After running the speed test, the numbers came back as:

• 52.6 mbps download
• 5.52 mbps upload
• 870 ms ping

Wow, that’s a pretty great download speed but abysmal upload and ping. I actually discussed this with a coworker who works with WiFi analytics, and the results look like this because of limitations of the hardware and the system bottlenecking in a particular way. Interesting stuff.

Service in American Airlines B777-200 Main Cabin Extra

I thought the flight attendants provided good and efficient service. There were 6 of them taking care of Premium Economy and Main Cabin, 3 on each side of the aircraft. 

During boarding, they handed out disposable earbuds for people to use during flight. I was surprised at how many people still accept these, but I suppose most people have Bluetooth headphones, and the entertainment systems on this aircraft type are not Bluetooth-capable.

Otherwise, here was the timeline of their service after takeoff (hh:mm):

• 00:16 Started handing out special meals
• 00:25 Drink and meal carts started heading towards the front of Premium Economy
• 00:48 Got my meal
• 00:55 Got my red wine
• 01:13 Finished food; lighting scene changed for sleep but only my side dimmed
• 01:17 Service items taken up 

Halfway through the flight, they served the mid-flight snack:

• 05:24 Carts passed by
• 05:40 Got my sandwich and white wine

And lastly, for the pre-arrival meal, they served everything pretty quickly:

• 09:58 Morning light scene turned on; carts passed by
• 10:04 Got my hot pocket

Overall while I did think they were friendly and efficient, I kind of thought their service was a little transactional and not personable. I don’t have a problem with that since I frequently travel using my flight benefits, and I can understand that having about 200 people to serve requires efficiency. But still–if I were a loyal paying passenger, a little more engagement would be nice.

Food and Drink in American Airlines B777-200 Main Cabin Extra

There were three meals served on this 11 hour flight. I thought this was interesting because on the DFW to FCO flight, there were only two meals. So maybe 10+ hours is the magical flight time to have three meals served.

I believe there were pretzels and Biscoffs, juices, and water available in the galley area after the main meal service was done, but I didn’t verify that this flight.

Overall, I thought the meals were good and at decent timings. I never felt hungry or thirsty.

Dinner

The choices for dinner were either chicken or pasta. Considering I had the chicken on the way to Italy, I was curious to see if the pasta was good on the flight out of Italy. So I selected that.

Pretty similar offerings as the incoming flight and same presentation: main entree, roll, side salad, crackers and cheese, and a dessert.

The pasta came with a red sauce. It seemed balanced, but I thought it could have used more spice or salt. For the pasta itself, I thought it was decently al dente, but not something you’d tell Nonna about.

For the roll, it was ciabatta. It was hard on the outside but soft on the inside. I thought it tasted great with the included butter.

The salad with olive oil and balsamic dressing was pretty good. The radishes added a nice crunch.

I noticed that the crackers and cheese were of different brands than my incoming flight, but were pretty similar and very good. The cheese spread this time was creamy and very spreadable.

Lastly, the brownie was just okay. It was light and kind of airy, but not moist either.

I paired all this with the red wine, which was a Cantor red blend. The tray also came with a small bottle of water.

Mid Flight Snack

For this, there were no options. Everyone got the same ham and cheese pretzel roll sandwich and vanilla bean ice cream.

The sandwich was kind of salty and soggy, but otherwise tasted alright. 

For this meal, I selected a white wine. What confused me was the flight attendant added ice to my white wine. I realize that white wines do taste better chilled, and some varieties are good with ice. But…I tend to drink my wines neat (which…”neat” is not how one describes drinking a wine lol). So I was thrown off by this. I mean…I still drank it and it was good, haha.

Pre-Arrival Meal

Not really a meal but more of a lite snack. We actually had two options this time: beef or cheese hot pockets.

I selected the beef hot pocket. It was kind of warm, the pastry was a little doughy, but the beef filling was pretty good. I paired this with another red wine. No ice cubes this time.

Lavatories in American Airlines B777-200 Main Cabin Extra

Like my incoming flight to Italy, there were five lavatories total for Premium Economy and Main Cabin, with three of them at Door 3 splitting Main Cabin and the other two in the aft galley area.

With my seat being 28H, the closest lavatories to me were the mid-cabin lavs on the right side, which has two. I’ll reiterate that most of the reason I like aisle seats is so that I can leave for the lavatories without bothering another passenger, and I don’t mind being the one bothered by middle seaters.

Again, these lavs have a decent amount of space to them. The mid-cabin lavatory on the left side of the aircraft is accessible, so it has more space and other features for persons of reduced mobility.

During the 11.5 hour flight, I used the lavatories four times (hh:mm after takeoff) and their cleanliness:

• 01:10 / right side mid-cabin: decently clean, but had to wait a while due to post-meal rush
• 01:50 / right side aft: decently clean
• 04:40 / right side mid-cabin: sprinkles on the ground, paper debris in the corner
• 08:45 / right side mid-cabin: sprinkles and paper on the ground, but a flight attendant actually stopped me from going initially so she could refill paper products lol

What did I do in American Airlines B777-200 Main Cabin Extra?

Besides eating and using the lavatories, I did a few things.

For movies, I watched Sonic 3 and Moana 2.  I was mildly entertained by both, and I think the first movies were much better haha. But enjoying these movies at 35,000 feet and a wine in hand made the movie-watching experience enjoyable!

I also worked on taking notes for this flight for this review as well as drafting blog posts for this trip.

Lastly, knowing that I would be arriving in the afternoon in DFW, I didn’t want to sleep too much on this flight so I could fall asleep easier at my usual bedtime. Still, I did close my eyes for a while a few times towards the last half of the flight. I didn’t even use my eye mask! 

Other Stories to Share

One observation I had during this flight was people periodically opening their window shades to look outside, realize how bright it was, then close it. MULTIPLE TIMES! There was a younger guy at a window seat kind of near me, and he kept doing that. With this being a purely daytime flight, and with the cabin in dark mode, we definitely had a handful of blinding light moments.

So when I was in the Prima Vista lounge, I grabbed a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge. I didn’t finish all of it so I put the remaining in my Yeti water bottle. What I didn’t think about was that I put a carbonated drink into my water bottle…which I then opened to drink water on the flight. The difference in pressures made for a loud champange-like pop sound. Luckily no one heard it but me. I think. And luckily nothing destructive happened.

The CRAZIEST thing to me though was running into multiple friends from my church back home during boarding. Multiple! We didn’t coordinate being in Italy at the same time nor did we have the same reasons for going, but it just somehow lined up that a handful of us were on this DFW flight to go home. Soooo wild to me haha.

Arrival at DFW

The scheduled arrival time at DFW was 3:05PM. 

The captain made an announcement at about 10 hours and 44 minutes into the flight for the flight attendants to prepare for landing as we had about 25 minutes left in the flight.

On the descent, it did get a little turbulent when we were at about 12,000 feet in the air with about 50 miles left to go. I think there were isolated storms in the area.

Mr. Opens-The-Window-Shades kept his window closed, as did most passengers, so I couldn’t see outside on our approach for landing. But I knew it was north Texas so lots of green and open spaces until reaching the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex.

We touched down at 11 hours and 11 minutes then arrived at Gate D27 about 40 minutes later at 2:50PM. I think because we arrived a little earlier than scheduled, we didn’t have a gate just yet and had to wait. Or traffic was backed up. I’m not really sure!

So from gate to gate, FCO to DFW, the total time ended up being 11 hours and 52 minutes.

I’ll also comment here that because it was an afternoon arrival into DFW, many other international flights (especially European) arrive in the afternoon too, US Customs and Immigration at Terminal D was terribly, terribly backed up–even the Global Entry line! I actually had to wait in a 30-minute line for Global Entry, which I’ve never experienced before lol. Luckily I didn’t have any checked bags so once I got cleared by the Customs officer, I beelined my way out of there to get back to my car parked at work to go home.

Bottom Line

Flying American Airlines B777-200 in Main Cabin Extra was a great way to finish out my Roman adventure with a papal plot twist. Because the flight had three separate meal times, I never felt hungry or thirsty. The extra leg room let me stretch out, and the functional WiFi allowed me to stay connected with friends and family while on the flight. While I didn’t intend to get proper sleep on this flight, I still found the seat and cabin to be comfortable enough even though the cabin got cold mid-flight.

While I thought the flight attendants could have been more personally engaging, I did appreciate their efficient and friendly service.

For all the little inconveniences, my pilgrimage mindset kept me in check. But even then, I really didn’t have much to complain about this flight, even if my white wine had ice cubes in it.

Thankfully American Airlines has nonstop flights between DFW and FCO, making any kind of Roman adventure easily accessible!

What do you think of this flight from Rome? What would you have done differently?