With this trip starting, I only have 1 continent left to visit that being Africa as I have been throughout North & South America, Europe, Asia and starting today Oceania heck I’ve even visited Antarctica 🇦🇶 before back in April of 2023 😂 but what country in Oceania are we headed to? Well I kind of wanted to “relive” my Maldives 🇲🇻🏝️ trip from June and while looking I discovered the small country of Fiji 🇫🇯 and while looking up places in the area I just knew I had to go there, sorry Australia 🇦🇺 maybe next time I’ll go visit you guys if I find myself back in Oceania. Now Miami 🏝️😎 where my journey will begin and Nadi where it will end are 7,495 miles apart which is a little bit less than MIA to Dubai, UAE 🇦🇪 but there aren’t any nonstop service which makes sense because there isn’t really a reason for it I’m not against it but if there isn’t a reason to fly this far, why do it? So this trip will involve a connection and we will be doing that in “sunny” Los Angeles 🌴📸 so the plan is simple I’ll fly from MIA to LAX on American Airlines, enjoy 12 or so hours in Hollywood before flying with the flag carrier of Fiji 🇫🇯 Fiji Airways from LAX to Nadi this will only be about the first leg though. I arrived at MIA very early in the morning since my flight was at 9:00am and while I was already checked in and had my boarding pass, I still had to wait in the line thanks to my checked bag but that wasn’t painfully long but TSA was a different story,
For those without pre check that is 😂 for me I simply got through in like 10 minutes. As an early morning tradition here in MIA, a Cafe Versailles stop is a NECESSITY and it was nice to relax and check out the aircraft parked around concourse D this morning including ours which we’ll go check out right now!
Flight Info
Origin: Miami Intl 🇺🇸 (KMIA)
Destination: Los Angeles Intl 🇺🇸 (KLAX)
Flight Time: 4:29
Boeing 777-300ER (American Airlines)
Server: Expert
LA 🌴📸 isn’t the only place I could’ve connected to Fiji Airways on, I could have went with San Francisco 🌉 which wouldn’t be that bad since I’ve never been there and I could use the layover time to explore kinda like I did with Dubai but I chose LAX over SFO simply because of one factor
Boeing 777-300ER
Why fly an A321 when I can fly this beast and also it was much cheaper. But waiting at gate D14 is N720AN, the 11 year old B77W taking me over to LAX which was delivered new to AA in January 2013. Now the gate didn’t provide a good view to the point I went to the sky train station, got on, took this photo and got off once again but it definitely looks better than ANYTHING I would’ve gotten at the gate but I had to hurry as boarding has already begun so let’s get on this bird!
Americans B777-300ERs have 304 seats in total with 8 being the unique flagship first seats in a 1-2-1 configuration only found on this plane, I’ve been lucky enough to experience it on flight from here in MIA down to Buenos Aires, Argentina 🇦🇷 and back part of my Antarctica 🇦🇶 trip. Next up is the 52 flagship business seats also in a 1-2-1 configuration, premium economy is behind that in a 2-3-2 configuration and finally the main cabin in a 3-4-3 configuration. AA used Safran Flagship Suites for the flagship first cabin, Safran Cirrus IIs are found in the business cabin, Collin’s Aerospace MiQs for premium economy and finally Safran 5751 slimlines for the rest of main cabin. Bulkhead rows in the 1st economy section and the exit row, the one behind it and the 3rd row in the rear section are sold as “Main Cabin Extra” my seat will be in the 4th row of the first section of economy class, 27L to be specific. Nothing was provided on the seat once I got there but it was fairly comfortable which is good since these planes used to fly from Dallas DFW all the way to Hong Kong 🇭🇰 pre pandemic and that was around 16 hours if the winds were really stroking but for a 4 and a half hour transcontinental flight, it’s works great 👍 the aircraft did end up pushing back fairly late due to boarding taking a super long time but our arrival into Los Angeles 🌴📸 shouldn’t be affected by this too much and we should still arrive on time but let’s pushback, fire up those GE90s and make our way to MIAs runway 26L for take off!
We had a pretty short taxi since we were really close to the runway and as we were number one for take off this morning and slightly running late, the captain wasted NO time at all and got us airborne as quick as possible, bye bye Miami 🏝️😎 see you in 10 days! 👋
After a flying a bit towards the south, we turned west over the beginning of the Florida Keys and soon reached FL360 off the coast of Fort Myers, Punta Gorda and Cape Coral. The crew wasted no time preparing the snack service in which it was a choice of beverage and biscoff cookies so I decided to take a Coke to accompany my biscoffs and while this was a neat little service,
This is the ONLY one on this flight, yeah we are going to go 4 and a half hours on 1 drink and snack which isn’t sufficient but hey this is America 🇺🇸 so what did I expect 😂 now onto the entertainment, each seat is equipped with the Panasonic eX2 AVOD IFE system which includes lots of movies and TV choices, live TV, moving map and even seat to seat communication. Wi-Fi is also available with the Panasonic high speed satellite Wi-Fi being installed on this plane. While scrolling through the movies I saw Jurassic World which I always wanted to see when I was younger and when I finally saw it, I generally enjoyed it so I guess it’s time to relive that memory again!
About half an hour before the movie ended, I got up to use the lavatory and stretch my legs a bit and it was then I noticed we were flying by Houston, Texas 🌵🤠
After that I watched some of The Office because I haven’t watched it in some time while we made our way across the rest of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona and I got a bit thirsty, so I asked an FA for a Coke and she happily gave me one and we even started talking a bit about AA at LAX and how their operations are a bit small compared to the before times and she even remembers working the HKG flights before they were axed and she misses them a lot. And I forgot to rate the service earlier but they earn 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ as every crew member I interacted with as phenomenal even the pilots! But we are getting closer and closer to LA 🌴📸 so we might as well get ready for the approach into Hollywood.
Unfortunately, the visibility started dropping as we got closer and closer to landing to the point that I thought we were in London, UK 🇬🇧☕️ and not in LA 🌴📸 but I’m gonna let that ruin this iconic approach into LAXs RWY 25L!
After a pretty uneventful final approach, we have successfully landed, welcome to Los Angeles! 🌴📸 now how did this flight go? Well it was great, it was nice to fly on a Boeing 777-300ER on a domestic flight, the seats were great, cabin was fairly clean and the range of this thing is amazing, the B77W is indeed the perfect aircraft that AA could’ve chosen to be known as their flagship. The only complaint I really have is the “meal” since a small snack and drink service isn’t enough for a transcontinental flight let alone even only 1. If you want anything else, you better ask an FA because that cart will only come around once but other than that, great job AA!
I decided to ask the pilots after we parked if I can visit the cockpit and sure enough they let me and I took this snap while in the captains seat, definitely cool to be sitting in the flight deck of my dream airline to work at on my dream aircraft to work on!
Once I was out I didn’t stop there, I decided to check out the flagship first seats since those will be going away in favor of the new “flagship suites” which will be introduced on Airbus A321XLRs, new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners and eventually these B77Ws. This is my 2nd time at LAX this year since I was here back in February for my cousins volleyball 🏐 tournament in which we flew Spirit Airlines for almost 6 hours 😣 That’s all regarding this flight on American Airlines from Miami 🏝️😎 to Los Angeles 🌴📸 on their flagship aircraft, now I’m off to rent a car and go explore the city of angels for a little bit before coming back for my trans pacific flight to Fiji 🇫🇯 I’m hoping you will stick with me for not only that next flight but the others to come from this trip and as always between now and the next time, see you in the sky! 😉👋
