American Flagship Lounge at JFK

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.