If BA offer you a flight that is actually run by American Airlines...

... and it's the same price but at a more convenient time, so you take it thinking 'well it must be pretty much the same or else they wouldn't offer it', don't say I didn't warn you.

It is not the same.

You can't check in online, which means that you get to the airport to find that everyone who booked via AA has already taken all the good seats.

When they come around with the drinks trolley and you ask for a gin and tonic they say 'we charge for liquor'. "Liquor"? What a judgemental and puritanical word! I am going to sit in this very small space for the next 11 hours, and you seek to deny me gin? I have paid for a service with gin, as all Englishmen deserve. We didn't build an Empire on denying people gin! (I'm not technically an Englishman, but it scans better than saying I believe that everyone deserves gin if they are taking a long flight).

Then you turn on the little TV, searching for something to take your mind off the fact that you have no gin, because you have no cash, because you have spent all your dollars and were going to go to the cash machine at the other end, and discover that the selection of films is rather more sparse than on the BA flight, and that they don't start when you ask them to. No, they start whenever they feel like it, and you have to plan your time around them. If you wanted to watch <forgets names of all the films that were there because they were rubbish> Film A then you have to wait around for half an hour watching the no-booze trolleys go past, or deliberately wake up from your nap. If the crew ask you a question during a critical bit of dialogue that's it, it's gone forever. What century is this? Even the BBC has iplayer. I don't wait around for the time that a show is actually ^on TV^ at home when there are other forms of entertainment, and yet you make me do so when I am stuck in a seat and have nothing else to do?


Rant over. Ish. I know it all comes under First World Problems, but really if you are paying for BA make sure you get your booze and your telly.

On a more serious note, do vegetarians book special meals on flights? I figured that since there was always a vegetarian option for the main food that veggies would just choose that and not worry about it. Don't do that if you are flying with American Airlines. I chose the vegetarian because it sounded nicer and the label said "Allergens: Fish". Not very veggie at all then.