My Moms aunt, her husband, and two kids were always the highlight for me when I went down to Cali, Colombia 🇨🇴 when I was 7-8 years old. We’d always go to the Rio Pance, eat at Crepes & Waffles, Ventolini etc… and we even spent a TON of Christmas’s 🎄🎅🎁 together it was great until about a year ago, the husband moved across the pond to Madrid, Spain 🇪🇸 he got a better job over there and it worked out really well for him eventually before the end of 2022, his wife and 2 kids moved over as well and haven’t been to Cali since and now I have pretty much NO family on my moms side living in Cali except 1 aunt everybody else either died or moved to nearby cities or countries. And today me and my family reunite with them as we fly to Madrid with American Airlines. Let’s get down to Miami International Airport and get this trip started!
Flight Info
Origin: Miami Intl 🇺🇸 ( KMIA )
Destination: Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas 🇪🇸 ( LEMD )
Flight Time: 8:33
Boeing 777-200ER ( American Airlines )
Server: Expert
When we initially booked this flight, it was on their much newer Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner which is an aircraft im very familiar with especially when I did a lot of day trips with AA to mainly grow my account to eventually have A LOT of miles so I can pretty much book flights for free 😝 and this was back in late 2020 and early 2021 were these planes were commonly flying domestically due to the cough cough disease 🦠 but I never made a trip report on those flights and I was excited to do a 787-8 report but that was until 3 weeks ago when I found out they swapped out the Dreamliners and replaced them with the much older Boeing 777-200ER while the Barcelona flights which leavers an hour after the MAD flight kept the B788 but im not that disappointed, AA is planning on phasing them out so even though I’m bummed about this, im glad to fly on of these old jets before they are retired and despite their average age the cabins are actually really nice. This flight was an afternoon departure so need for Cafe Versailles and while my family were at the gate ( they took this picture for me by the way ) I was up in the Admirals Club due to my status. Eventually we had to board so we did just that!
Now the B772 can fit MUCH MORE people than the B788 and as a result, manly people got some upgrades including myself so while my family is in Main Cabin, I’m sitting up in Premium Economy. Sadly we don’t get a good view out the window since the engine and wing blocks almost everything, I’ve already seen Miami 🏝️😎 and Madrid overhead to no need. I’ve gone to Madrid before long ago on Iberia’s Airbus A330-300 and it was a lovely experience I’m glad I get to go back to the Spanish Capital.
We made our way to Runway 8R for our departure into the beautiful blue sky to begin our 8 and a half hour journey across the pond!
Does anybody else like it when the plane turns in the direction out sitting on so the tour view directly towards the ground? Yeah I do and look at this final view over the 305 🏝️😎 before not seeing land until the Iberian Peninsula still a good distance away from now!
We reached our cruising altitude of FL370 somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean and the crew begin their service it was a typical economy meal despite being seated in premium economy it was between a chicken and vegetarian option I went with the chicken it came with crackers and rice, overall a great meal for economy standards and the crew were nice but were BARELY around so 3 stars for them ⭐️⭐️⭐️ despite it still being light outside by the time the service was done, they still had dimmed the lights and asked ALL passengers to put their blinds down so people can sleep and I didn’t want to sleep just yet, I watched a few movies and played angry birds to pass the time.
I still took peeks out the window, every few minutes and caught this SPECTACULAR sunset 🌅 over the Atlantic! It did let in a little bit of light but the crew weren’t around and everybody was pretty much asleep so it didn’t bother anyone. I watched a bit of TV and checked our progress for our flight to MAD before calling it a night and taking a “nap” so see you in the morning!
I actually didn’t get much sleep, about only 4 hours before I was woken up for the pre landing meal about an hour from MAD, all it was a ham and cheese sandwich using croissant for the bread and a beverage choice I asked for coffee but I heard probably the WORST thing to hear at 5am.
“Sorry, the coffee machine is broken”
NO COFFEE?? Yikes 😬 so I asked for apple juice instead at least the amazing blue and pink mood lighting kept me up, the pilots not so much. They were actually DOZING OFF a lot and even missed our descent point so as soon as the seatbelt sign came on, it pretty much as a ROLLERCOASTER ride down our descent rate was about 3,000ft per minute 😬 luckily we got back on course with our descent before turning base for RWY 32R at MAD but that wasn’t then end of the problems.
TOUCHDOWN! Welcome to Madrid’s Barajas Airport! Before we get to the conclusion, Let’s go over the problem we faced. The pilot’s drowsiness struck again while slowing down he accidentally engaged the PARKING BRAKE so we were slowing down MUCH FASTER and we ended up coming to a complete stop on the RWY this isn’t the first time this has happened and it actually happened to me on another AA 777 from LAX → MIA back in June. Luckily, the pilots disengaged the brake before coming to a complete stop. Somebody even got worried that we would need to evacuate. We got moving again after 20 seconds after fully stopping. Now for the conclusion, despite the troublesome descent and the unexpected stop of the RWY, this flight was actually somewhat great yeah I know the B772 kinda made the flight “worse” but for me it didn’t, I generally like both AA 777s even though I’m team 300ER instead. I don’t mind flying the 200ER and it was great flying one again before they are eventually phased out by new Dreamliners and Airbus A321XLRs. And the most disappointing thing about the flight was the not working coffee machine a lot of us ( especially the pilots ) needed it so we all got off exhausted from the flight luckily the return is a daytime flight so it will go better to hopefully it will. 🙏🏻
When we were initially boarding back in Miami 🏝️😎 I had asked to visit the cockpit and they said yes so here it is! It looks AMAZING in the dark 🔥 I’ve seen their B77W cockpit back in April when I flew from MIA to Buenos Aires, Argentina 🇦🇷 as part of an Antarctica 🇦🇶 trip and it was pretty much the same thing as this.
Welcome to Madrid’s terminal 4S the S meaning “satellite” and out of ALL the gates here, ours was one of the few on the south side with NO Jet bridges that’s right! We got to disembark onto the apron as and stared at the marvelous Boeing 777-200ER which brought us all the way from the 305 🏝️😎 to Madrid in the span of 8 and a half hours. That will always be my favorite part of aviation, being able to cover long distances in a short amount of time. We got into a bus and made out way to passport control 🛂 and baggage claim before having a very long day here in Madrid from all this jet lag, I am planning on spotting Friday here at MAD so stay tuned for that and as always between now and the next time, see you in the sky! 😉👋