JFK American Flagship Lounge

March 2022

American Flagship First Dining at JFK

My Uber ride from LGA dropped me off at Terminal 8 some 7 hours before the departure of our flight to LHR.

In preparation for BA moving over to Terminal 8, the normal Flagship First Check-in was closed for renovation and replaced with an ugly and spartan temporary check-in.

Once inside Flagship FIrst Dining, today's menu...

Not the best start as there was no Grand Siecle.

Yummy cornbread to start our lunch.

A few hours later, dinner...

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American Flagship First Check-in at JFK

American Flagship First Dining at JFK...

August 2019

With LGA's ongoing construction, ground transportation is a mess. Since you needed to shuttle to get to taxi stands, I opted for Uber. My driver was waiting in the nearby shared ride lot, but it took 30 minutes just to get onto Grand Central Parkway. Another 30 minutes later and we're at JFK.

I was able to use Flagship First check-in for a direct path to PreCheck, where amazingly I was the only passenger at PreCheck security.

Upstairs in the Flagship Lounge to the First Dining...

... which was surprisingly crowded with all 4 booths and 5 of the window tables occupied.

Since I had two hours to kill before my flight, I decided to sample the menu, three starters. After a slow start, this turned out to be one of the best FFD meals I've enjoyed. I started light with the Spring Pea Salad, sugar snap peas, English peas, pea shoots, lemon, mint, parsnip-cauliflower purée, toasted macadamia nuts. This dish just didn't do anything for me. Very bland with inedible snap peas.

But after that disappointment, a big wow. The Korean-style Beef Carpaccio was sensational. Creekstone Farms beef tenderloin with with sweet soy, Asian pear, French radish, baby fennel pickle, ke2pie furikake.

Next up was the ChimichurriRock Shrimp Arepa. Another wow, with marinated rock shrmip, white corn arepa, red cabbage slaw, aji amarillo crfema, soft herbs. Amazing.

After the crowd left, I moved over to a booth.

For my main, the Lamb Porterhouse with chickpeas, fava beans, Persian cucumbers, herloon cherry tomatoes, ricotta salata, herbed goay cheese.

The lamb was spectacular. Perfectly prepared dish with an amazing combination of wonderful flavors.

I had intended on having dessert but AA revised the departure time from an earlier delayed 7:10pm to 6:50pm. So I rushed out for the long trek back to Gate 33, the furthest gate from the Lounge.

New York JFK to Bermuda BDA

American AA 1416

737-800

6:29pm-10:00pm (sked)

6:50pm-9:55pm (actual)

August 6, 2019

First Class 4B

For the 1h45m flight, snack options of protein plate or cheese and fruit.

Despite the late departure, we made up time and arrived a few minutes early... to a very dated airport terminal.

Customs was easy although the agent had a little trouble understand why I would only come for 16 hours. LOL.

September 2018

In spite of the long walk from the T8 40 Gates to CBP, I was upstairs in the departures level of T8 less than 15 minutes after deplaning.

The biggest delay was at PreCheck, where there seemed to be a whole lot of confusion by the one PreCheck agent who appeared to be have no interest in expediciously processing passengers. Add in the wave of line cutters and it took 15 minutes to clear security.

And then to the Flagship Lounge, where I had the most bizarre experience. Since Cathay Pacific has an arrangement with AA for its passenger to access Flagship First Dining, typically one can access First Dining on arrival when connecting to an AA flight. Either the policy has changed or the lounge dragon was having a bad day or was just uninformed. She looked like she'd seen an alien when I told her that I and others have previously access First Dining on arrival. She offered one excuse after another as to why I couldn't access from First Dining, from "I've never heard of that" to "I don't have any invitations". The final whopper was "since I used the Cathay Lounge in Vancouver, I couldn't use First Dining at JFK". Not that I was going to eat anyway since I was still completely stuffed from my dining orgy that only ended 3 hours earlier. I only wanted it to make sure I could still access and for the photo op.

So I gave up and entered the Flagship Lounge, just not Dining, which both my Business Class ticket and BA Gold status give me access. And then for a shower which I really wanted and needed.