It’s only been 9 days since I left cold Canada 🇨🇦 and today we are heading back to the cold as last year, I went on a pretty fun skiing ⛷️ trip to Eagle County and really wanted to do some more which is why I enjoyed my Canada 🇨🇦 trip a lot but I still wanted more. So I did some searching around and found a pretty solid deal for a skiing trip in Jackson Hole, a town in western Wyoming which isn’t all that glamorous but does have some BEAUTIFUL sights and is also a pretty popular skiing destination along with the Grand Teton National Park which I do plan to check out during my stay. Now there isn’t any nonstop flights from South Florida 🏝️😎🛥️🏌️ to Jackson but that doesn’t mean we never had it, American Airlines did maintain a short lived winter seasonal route from MIA but it didn’t come back last year when it should’ve. This means our itinerary will involve a connection and while I could go to Dallas-Fort Worth again maybe seeking a Boeing 777-300ER along the way, I decided to chose my connection point as Chicago O’Hare mainly because both itineraries were the same price and I haven’t been to ORD in like forever so this will definitely be a throwback. I arrived pretty early I’m talking 3:30AM at a fairly cold Miami International Airport, I wonder what must be going through the snowbirds heads when they touched down expecting warm weather 😅 I am back to traveling solo now so I was already checked in online and somehow managed to fit all my equipment I’d be taking into my singular carry on bag and backpack which skipped the need to make the line and since I always check in online, it was pretty much straight to TSA which took long as in for the checkpoint to open which wasn’t for ANOTHER HOUR AND FIFTEEN MINUTES. Maybe it was a bad idea to show up early but it is always better to be too early than too late. Once finally through it was off to find a Cafe Versailles since it’s about to be 5am and I am SLUMPED thankfully I was one of the first ones there before the crowd would form for some Cafe con Leche ☕️ I decided to make my way to the gate area to find a place to get some schoolwork done since we are only 3 days into the new semester and really don’t feel like falling behind but our aircraft would soon emerge.
FLIGHT INFO:
Origin: Miami Intl 🇺🇸 (KMIA)
Destination: Chicago O’Hare International 🇺🇸 (KORD)
Flight Time: 2:55
Boeing 737-8MAX (American Airlines)
Server: Expert
Here at gate D19 is our first aircraft of 2025 which is N341TR a Boeing 737MAX8 delivered to American in December 2023 and didn’t enter service until New Year’s Day 2024 making this a pretty young aircraft wonder if it’s still got that new plane smell, she has been sitting on the ground since yesterday evening after arriving from St. Thomas, USVI 🇻🇮 a destination I hope to check out soon along with nearby St. Croix. Our flight will be the 6th American departure of the day out of MIA with a few DFW flights, one to Charlotte, another to Los Angeles 🌴📸 and even one to Havana, Cuba 🇨🇺 boarding got started at 6AM sharp when I used to wake up when I went to actual in person school before switching virtual and while everybody wakes up to begin their day, I board a flight to begin my trip!
Both of Americans standard 737-800s and their new MAXES all have the same layout, having a total of 172 seats in a 2 class setup. Upfront we can find 16 domestic first seats in a 2-2 configuration featuring Collins MIQ seats the same ones found on their widebodies in premium economy which I had the pleasure to try out on a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner from Philadelphia to the 305 🏝️😎 a few months ago. And behind that are the remaining 156 economy seats in a 3-3 configuration featuring Collins Meridian seats with 24 of them being extra legroom main cabin extra seats. My seat for this early morning hop up to the Windy City will be 21F which seems pretty basic but will get the job done, it is a modern seat somewhat except that it doesn’t include built in IFE screens which I think is a big miss for AA since Delta and JetBlue have always believed in them and United’s new narrowbodies are starting to feature them not only that but even retrofitting older aircraft to the new interiors so American is slacking in this regard. That doesn’t mean this seat is all bad though, they do have a handy device holder, good sized tray table and the seats themselves are fairly comfortable at least for flights of this length not sure about cross country flights that do see these aircraft. The crew and ATC didn’t want to have a rough morning today so once we were finally done boarding, we pushed back and made our way back to MIAs runway 26L for take off!
Till the next time Vice City! 🏝️😎
After a pretty dark uneventful departure out of MIA, we reached our cruising altitude of 34,000ft just in time to see the sunrise 🌅 over Melbourne, normally the crew would begin serving the cabin right around now but since the ENTIRE plane except like 2 people excluding myself were asleep, they decided to not do one so the service review will have to wait till later. The Cafe con Leche ☕️ I had earlier apparently also wasn’t powerful enough to keep me awake as like 10 minutes after I took this picture, I fell asleep.
I actually had a pretty decent nap and woke up right by Cincinatti and just in time for the crew to begin their service almost an hour before landing in O’Hare, I got myself some biscoff cookies and more coffee ☕️🍪 just in case I fall asleep in the middle of ORD. It was very satisfying crunching down on that biscoff and drinking my coffee after a pretty nice rest and the crew were great especially since they were all in a very good mood even with a 6am departure they earn the 5 stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ like I said, there are no PTVs on this aircraft so stream to your own device entertainment will have to do the job, AA uses the ViaSat KA-band satellite WiFi for their connectivity to their streaming site and was the only function I used with the WiFi as everything else required payment for actual internet access which I tend to skip. But I never bothered with any entertainment as I wanted to get a good look around the landscape around the area.
Soon enough, it was time to begin the descent into Chicago. We flew northwest heading right over Michigan City before flying over Lake Michigan for majority of the approach only seeing land over the “coast” of Chicago and coming into land on RWY 28C and I really like this view of the wing with the spoilers deployed slowing down over Lake Michigan.
Soon enough we crossed back over land with a view of Evanston and other Chicago suburbs, unfortunately I sat on the wrong side and didn’t get a view over downtown itself but I won’t let that ruin this approach into ORDs RWY 28C this gorgeous morning.
TOUCHDOWN! Welcome to Chicago everybody and I am super happy to be back here since I haven’t been year in a pretty long time and even if it is for a short while, I’m glad to say I returner. As for the flight it was fairly enjoyable especially with the MAXES quiet cabin making this early morning flight easier for a lot of us. The crew were also really friendly despite the early hour and the seats were good enough for this 3 hour hop. I really like Americans MAX8s but I still believe that installing seat back entertainment would be a better choice in the long run as both legacy carriers are starting to feature them.
To “celebrate” the moment of having a very comfortable early morning flight and finally being back in O’Hare after a long time, I decided to pay a visit to the cockpit before I left and sometimes I forget how different the MAX cockpit is compared to the NGs
Welcome to Chicago O’Hares famous terminal 3 where Home Alone was filmed in when Kevin’s family were running through the airport on their way to Paris, France 🇫🇷 and even on their way to the 305 as well 🏝️😎 and speaking of the 305, our aircraft will actually be heading back down there as well taking more snowbirds to a not so warm Miami 🏝️😎 And while right now I should be heading to my next gate for the flight to Jackson, that is NOT where I’m heading as I’m actually going to hit up downtown for a reason you’ll be finding out tomorrow when I post the 2nd part of the journey. That will be it regarding this flight on American Airlines from Miami 🏝️😎 to Chicago O’Hare on their beaming Boeing 737MAX8 stay tuned for tomorrow for not only the story on why I left the airport but the stunning flight to Jackson including it’s “scenic approach” and as always between now and the next time, see you in the sky! 😉👋