Honolulu to Phoenix
March 20 in the United States ⋅ 🌧 23 °C
American Airlines AA694 | HNL/PHX
Premium Economy Class
Boeing 787-8 | N810AN
ATD/2355 | ATA/0906+1
Sakura Lounge/Admiral’s Club
I know what you’re thinking: I traveled barely a month ago. Well, I have a big project at work starting in April, and it is expected to last through this calendar year and into next year, so I decided to clear my vacation days ahead of this busy period. I kinda planned this trip ass backwards. I knew Cathay Pacific had reasonable one-way Business Class fares out of Rome (they only fly to Rome seasonally and less than daily so they cannot command the premium fares that other carriers with year round and/or daily service can reap), so I booked that flight first and then I looked for one-way fares from Honolulu to Southern Europe. The Premium Economy fare to Barcelona was very reasonable as it was still the Northern Winter schedule, so I selected Barcelona as my first stop. I then had to figure out how to get from Barcelona to Rome and the stops in between, which I’ll cover in a later post.
My first leg on this trip was delayed for almost an hour because American had two aircraft that needed a Ground Power Unit but they only had one GPU available. I knew this was cause me to misconnect my next leg to Dallas/Fort Worth, which is where I was scheduled to connect onto my last leg to Barcelona. However, I assumed AA would book me onto one of two later PHX-DFW flights so I could still make my connection to Barcelona, so I didn’t fret too much.
I managed to sleep pretty well on this flight. As we descended into PHX, I got a notification on my AA app that I was being rerouted via Pittsburgh and JFK, with the final leg to Barcelona on Iberia. I was surprised by this, but a quick search indicated that both the PHX-DFW flights that would allow me to connect onto BCN were sold out. With this rebooking, I would arrive in Barcelona almost five hours later than initially scheduled. I wasn’t pleased about this, but the other options presented to me on the app were worse. Because I had a short connection in PHX, I decided to take this option and not go to the customer service desk to ask them to help me connect on my originally booked DFW-BCN flight.Read more