Question about the entertainment on a particular flight (AA), need answer fast

Factual Questions
1

I don’t know whether this is knowable or not – a probability is good enough for me. I’m flying on an American Airlines flight tomorrow departing LAX. The aircraft is a Boeing 777. Apparently some of AA’s 777s have been retrofitted with a digital entertainment system with lots of movie choices. The ones that haven’t been upgraded give a few channels of in-seat choice with exactly two (crappy) movies.

I want to know which 777 version I’m likely to get so that I can decide whether to put in effort to figure out some alternative form of entertainment for the long international flight. No one that I could get on the phone at AA has been useful, but perhaps someone here has experience or inside information that can help narrow down my odds. (I imagine that it isn’t known which specific member of the fleet I’d get, in which case the question becomes: “What fraction of AA’s 777s that depart LAX have the upgraded entertainment system?”)

2

Simple rule:
Plan for the worst, hope for the best.
Expect there to be no digital selection. If there is W00t!

3

In my experience it is a crap shoot, individual planes often get shuffled around often.

4

It might be possible to figure out which specific 777 model you’ll be flying on, but we’d need to know where you are headed.

I second Rick’s advice: assume the worst, and be pleasantly surprised if it works out better.

5

The American Airlines Entertainment web sites don’t say which 777 flights have the features you’re looking for, that I can find.
…

6

Can’t you just call American Airlines and ask them?

7

In the OP:

Simple, but not universal. Preparing and carrying my own entertainment causes a large loss in utility in this particular case, which is why my risk/reward calculation does not trivially lead to: bring stuff.

Thanks for the replies. I’ve still got a few hours, but then I’ll let this thread die, unless someone says they are curious about the outcome.

8

How so?
I have never found that carrying a paperback book or two, or an iPod caused much of a loss of utility.
A 52" plasma on the other hand might lead to some interesting logistical problems.

9

You might want to ask on a forum like flyertalk.com. It’s pretty active and there’s probably someone there who’s been on that same flight recently.

10

With respect to recent events, one can expect no entertainment value from nipple rings, eh?

11

Just because someone took the same flight recently, there is no guarantee that today’s flight will be on the same exact airplane.

12

Try www.seatguru.com. They show two different configurations of the 777 for AA. Find the right one (you can usually tell by looking at the seat map), and click on the “Video” icon. If applicable, they sometimes even tell you what movies are playing this month.

13

FWIW, I’ve never been on a 777 on an international route that didn’t have an ample selection of movies. My guess is that the 777s with lousy entertainment systems are for domestic routes.

Not an authoritative answer, but a quick one.

14

I took a JFK->Zurich AA flight two weeks ago, on a 777. There was no in-seat TV, just the overhead TV showing movies. On the way back I missed my connection :frowning: and they put me on United.