The American Airlines Experience, In A Nutshell

,maybe if congress had to travel on commercial flights they would get it and regulate the industry- only thing corporate greed gets is $$ - start holding the airlines accountable.

I had the same thing happen yesterday, serial failure by AA in attempt to get cross country. The only thing the video missed was images of passengers dumped by AA on the terminal owners, looking like homeless zombies. Original flight DCA DFW SJC cancelled 5h before flight time. No justification. No alternate SJC option without flying a day later - choices to SFO via ORD or MIA. Earlier flights not offered as alternative. No compensation offered for overnight delay at origination point or extra ground transport costs at proposed destination. Chose ORD - big mistake. Reading other comments here sounds like MIA is also a basket case when there are failure scenarios. Flight was delayed on the ground 90 minutes. Landed ORD 804pm for an 819 connection. Connection inbound flight was delayed 9 minutes. Sat on tarmac 25 minutes because no gate could receive us. Connecting flight departure was delayed till 845 then 900. Arrived at connecting gate which closed before the posted time. I watched as it sat there 20min before rolling back. Can't let you on - Federal Rules. Waited an hour in the Customer Assistance desk line for an agent who was unempowered to assist me. No meal voucher. No hotel voucher. No compensation. Delay blamed on weather so they could avoid responsibility rather than AA voluntary choice to not have last west coat flights for the day wait for flights that had landed with connecting passengers to deplane. Waited in line rather than using app because app failed to disclose AA now has a service level that excludes hotel vouchers when they can blame someone else for problems they could have solved themselves thru competent management. App option to rebook disappeared after connecting flight took off. This option should never be removed when you know I'm trapped at connecting airport with no rebooked connection and is an obvious software defect that should have been fixed before giving the app to customers. Call center was understaffed - offered callback 1h 9min later. When callback occurred I still had 22min on hold forced listening to ads for other AA products, or "your call is important to us" recording. If you're going to call us back do it when an agent is available. Spent overnight like a zombie with 100s of others in ORD waiting for 445am boarding time for rebooked flight. No point in paying $200 for a hotel you can rest in only 2 hours. No ability to get baggage on rebooked flight even though there was 4 hrs to do so. -- eventually got to SJC 18hrs late with no sleep. At least it wasn't as bad as the passenger ahead of me seeking Customer Assistance who was in day 3 of rebookings and failure trying to get to her final destination. Rebooking on Greyhound would have been faster for her. The first flight crew were mumbling that blaming on weather was a lie to avoid responsibility. The Customer Assistance agent openly said she had no tools to care for me and could only follow the process. Top management cared about profits not customer experience. The calls for re-regulation are not unreasonable. The airlines have forgotten they are in the transportation business, and the customer service business - not the fees fees fees please wall street business. Maybe we need new laws to force mandatory passenger compensation like Europe. Maybe we need new "Lemon law" style penalties and compensation for intentionally sending customers on flights known doomed to fail before departure. Maybe we need laws that mandate clear lie-free communication with severe financial penalties for omissions, lies and dishonesty by carrier personnel. People do what they are incented to do, and the incentives for AA top management clearly inadequately demand customer care during times of failure. People in this thread say Delta is dramatically better? Maybe that's worth a try. I just hate connections in ATL.

@Ever after much hassle (including escalation to regulator and CEO) I finally got a piddling amount of compensation (IIRC 20k miles or so) - nothing compared to the amount I would have got from EU261!

This exact thing just happened today. I have 9 family members going to AGU. Rolling delays from a 12:55am departure to a 2:00pm departure. The 10:00am DFW to AGU to arrive in the middle of the day has been changed to their night flight arriving past 10:00pm. Now my family, including my 2 year old daughter, risk having a 24-36 hour layover in DFW because of a tight connection they might not make. Plus a lengthy car ride home arriving past midnight in rural Mexico, which is why I specifically booked the flight to arrive in the middle of the day. Has anyone had luck getting refunds or compensation for these situations?

Perfect summary of the appalling level of comms AA have. I had a near identical experience flying AA biz JFK-LHR - rolling delays through the night, no info, finally left 10h later. Since then would only fly an EU261 carrier eastbound.