American Airlines is undoing a negative policy change that it implemented last year, as part of its effort to become more customer friendly.
In this post:
American improves airport standby policy
As of July 1, 2025, American has introduced same-day standby for all passengers, regardless of their AAdvantage membership. With this, all customers can list themselves for standby on a domestic flight with an agent, up to 45 minutes prior to departure.
As American describes this decision, “we are continuously looking for ways to enhance the travel journey for our customers and this update gives all customers the convenience of a flexible itinerary, space permitting.”
This update represents the reversal of a policy that was implemented in March 2024, where we saw a few new restrictions added:
- Standby was limited to AAdvantage members, meaning non-members couldn’t standby for other flights
- Standby requests were limited to aa.com and the American app, so airport agents could no longer place passengers on standby; the exception was for Platinum Pro, Executive Platinum, and Concierge Key members
- Standby requests needed to be made at least 45 minutes before departure, except for Platinum Pro, Executive Platinum, and Concierge Key members, who could request it up to 15 minutes before departure
This is a minor but positive policy change
This update on American’s part is sensible. It undoes a policy change implemented last year, which felt like it was punitive just for the sake of being punitive. I think that March 2024 policy change so perfectly summed up the state of American’s approach to customers at the time, as part of Vasu Raja’s El Paso World Domination strategy.
American created a policy to prevent agents from helping customers, for seemingly no good reason at all, other than “policy.” Why add a policy that makes it harder for customers to get help? For that matter, the issue was often that American’s tech wouldn’t work correctly, so even if you got an incorrect error message, an agent still couldn’t help.
We know that American has been trying to improve in recent months. The airline is greatly lagging Delta and United when it comes to financials, and we’re definitely seeing a bit of a vibe shift at the moment.
American appointed Heather Garboden as Chief Customer Officer, and we’ve seen the airline announce it wants to become more premium and customer focused. We’ve started to see some positive changes, and many of those have simply been reversals of previously dumb policies.
It’s really sad how much catching up American has to do. Rather than trying to catch up with Delta and United, American is still busy catching up to its former self. But hey, I’m happy to see these changes!
Bottom line
As of today, American has restored same day standby for all passengers at the gate. All travelers on domestic flights can now add themselves to the standby list at least 45 minutes before departure, and agents are allowed to help with this. This is a reversal of an early 2024 policy change, and I think customers will appreciate this.
What do you make of this American policy change?
Maybe they'll check bags through on separate tickets next?
On one hand, sure, great.
On the other hand, dilutes the benefits of status a little more.
Still a loooong... way to go. And as long as these monitors won't have returned to the seat backs, improvement will remain an exercise in futility. Even in domestic first, taking out your own device is a hassle which makes you less comfortable, I'd rather not imagine what it must be like in 35B.
AA goes extra effort to shackle their employee's. Do they not anticipate bad ideas?
This will make commuter pilots and flight attendants a nightmare trying to get to world or fly home!
American is in business to take care of passengers and their needs, they are not there to get you back and forth to work because YOU choose to live away from your base city and you are responsible to get back ka and forth on your own.
American is in business to take care of passengers and their needs, they are not there to get you back and forth to work because YOU choose to live away from your base city and you are responsible to get back ka and forth on your own.
So I give up. Are you Mark or James?
You should add: Standby does not work usually if you have checked luggage.
Most airlines out there either prohibit standby or restrict it to very specific fares. As the people running them aren't stupid, there must be a sound commercial reason for that.
Some of these 'customer-friendly' policies that the US carriers seem to like can have important hidden and/or opportunity costs, the classic example being the 'no change fee' policy which can result in airlines flying one or more empty business class seats halfway across the world...
Most airlines out there either prohibit standby or restrict it to very specific fares. As the people running them aren't stupid, there must be a sound commercial reason for that.
Some of these 'customer-friendly' policies that the US carriers seem to like can have important hidden and/or opportunity costs, the classic example being the 'no change fee' policy which can result in airlines flying one or more empty business class seats halfway across the world after a customer found a better last-minute fare with a competitor. Make no mistake, that cost goes into the price of the ticket and it benefits some passengers (namely corporate travellers) at the expense of others (premium leisure pax).
What did the idiots expect? As soon as I read about it I marked them off my list.
Looks like AA is backtracking on a lot of negative changes they made over the past years. One can only hope they continue doing so to improve on customer service. Going for GrAAT again.
But is it free for regular or non members??
That is a huge improvement. On the ground, I saw agents refuse to list me for standby. Even as Executive Platinum.
Other than trying to avoid irregular operations, which often isn't an issue until near flight time, I've never seen value in standby. Normally you have to wait to the end of boarding, the seat you end up in is a crapshoot and you may be forced to check your bag. And if you're in a premium cabin that's not where you're going to end.
Might be worth it for a short leg like CLT/RDU or DCA/LGA where being jammed into 24E is a no big thing.
Hard disagree. A successful standby can turn a 2 1/2 layover into a 15 minute layover. This is what _would_ have happened to me if the new process had been in place last year.
Still salty over being refused while a plane took off with empty seats.
Ditto on the disagree---was just able as a Gold to jump the standby queue on ORD-DTW with 3 flights going in 4 hours with IRROPS and other delays abounding. Was able to get on the earlier delayed flight rather than our scheduled one.