American Helps Make Our Anniversary… Memorable?

Happy Anniversary!

Last time this happened on United I just called and told them I'm not taking the second leg, I'm renting a car and driving three hours since I can't count on them to actually make this situation better (weather in Miami delayed the inbound plane so we couldn't get from Houston to Austin). Since I am 1k they refunded that part of my ticket even though it was weather related. Sometimes cars are just better than planes :/ It would be interesting to know if AA would do the same!

@Benjamin — Did you read the post? AA was the only option. I'm not including Allegiant as a viable option, since even their pilots don't trust their safety.

@Jon — That's well and good, but the point is that AA didn't say "ok there's going to be a 4-hour delay." Instead, by doing it in 15 minute increments over and over again, they take away people's ability to find alternate plans. I'd obviously much rather be told up front that it's going to be a massive delay, rather than creating glimmers of ultimately futile hope.

I feel you, Ben. AA truly is a miserable company when it comes to customer service. Here are two recent experiences I have had with AA.

1. Yesterday, I was on the 8:25 AM flight from SFO to PHL, scheduled to arrive at approx. 5 PM. The moment my Uber pulled up to SFO at 6 AM, I received a notification from AA that my flight was delayed until 6 AM. Yes, PM--as in approximately 10 hours after the scheduled departure, and more than an hour after the scheduled arrival of the flight in PHL (which, mind you, is a transcon + 3-hour time difference). (At least they were not doing 15-minute rolling delays for 10 hours, right? Wrong. Read on.)

AA was unable or unwilling to re-accommodate people promptly (since this was just a delay and not a cancellation???). Thankfully, my company's travel department re-booked me promptly on a United flight to Newark and I took the train to Philly, arriving roughly when the AA flight was scheduled to depart SFO. As I arrived in Philly, I received a notification that AA had cancelled the original flight. I feel sorry for the people who were stuck at SFO for 10+ hours only to have their flight canceled, and then faced with either an unplanned overnight in SFO or an unplanned redeye on another flight (assuming they could find one with seats).

2. Last fall, I was flying from ATW (Appleton, WI) to PHL through ORD. It was an 11:30 a.m. ATW departure arriving in ORD at 12:45 p.m., leaving ORD at 1:45 p.m. and arriving in PHL at about 5:00 p.m. We boarded promptly at 11:00, pulled away from the gate at 11:30 and then sat until 1 p.m. due to a ground stop from ORD. Out of AA's control, and the connection from ORD to PHL was also delayed, so not a huge deal. At 1 we went back to the gate and were offloaded from the plane. Then the 15-minute rolling delays started.

They kept claiming a ground stop at ORD due to weather, but the weather map showed everything had cleared, and any website I could find with info showed the ground stop had ended at 12:30. We had rolling 15- or 30-minute rolling delays until about 4:00 p.m. By then, our ORD to PHL connection was about to leave, but there were still other ORD to PHL flights that day with room, so we were working on being re-booked. At 4 we re-boarded and began taxiing. A minute in to taxi, the pilot made an announcement that we were returning to the gate. This time it was mechanical. Once de-planed, AA made an announcement that a mechanic was being sent from Milwaukee (1.5 hrs away), and they were pushing our departure to 8 p.m. At this point, unless the last flights out of ORD were delayed, there was very little chance we were making it to PHL until the next morning, even if ATW to ORD took off (suspect given the mechanic driving in). We decided then to take matters into our own hands.

We got the AA EXP service desk to re-book us on the ORD to PHL flight at 10 p.m. and headed straight to the car rental counter. We were on the road by 6 p.m. We made the drive in 2hr45m, and by the time we returned the rental car and hit the departure terminal it was 9:15. Of course TSA Precheck closed at 8, so we had a long line. But because it was AA, the 10:00 p.m. was delayed until 10:45, so we were saved somewhat by AA's incompetence. We arrived in PHL sometime after 1 a.m., but at least we made it. When my phone got service in PHL, I received an AA notification that the ATW to ORD flight was rescheduled to 8:00 a.m. the next morning.

AA handled the situation extremely poorly in so many respects. For example after we returned to the gate at 1pm, I asked the gate agent if she could rebook me on a 5pm direct from MKE (only 1.5 hours away) to PHL, and she said that would be a bad idea because the ATW to PHL flight would likely be "leaving any minute now" and I would end up getting in to PHL sooner by staying the course. By the time we realized that was not the case, it was too late to try to try to make the MKE flight.

Again, I feel much worse for the people who held out faith in AA even longer than I did and got stuck overnight.

AA truly is the most miserable company for customer service.

I recently retired from one of "The Big Three" for reasons you mentioned, among other reasons, after 29 years. It was amazing to me what they get away with such as delaying flights for up to 24 hours so documented completion factor could be protected. Airlines do their best to treat customers badly. Unfortunately, so much of it is done behind the scenes and decisions made by people that never have to face the customer, as I did. I'll never forget a letter I read from a customer over 20 years ago. Your story made me remember that. The customer wrote , "You did not delay me three hours; you delayed me 15 minutes 12 times.". I'll never forget that. The customer was saying, "tell me the truth. I can take it and make better decisions than sitting in the gate area.". There's another caveat to all of this. The passenger has become more demanding and more selfish in the last 20 years. It used to be if an experienced employee like myself saw a lengthy delay coming I would send the high value customers to the lounge and tell them we'd make an announcement when things were getting better. That's not allowed anymore because people complained that the lounges became too noisy. Yep the lot of you that complain we hold you hostage at the gate are the same complainers who say we don't keep you informed in the lounge and the first to bitch that there are too many announcements in the lounge. As an airline employee, and now retiree, I drive even though I have free flight privileges. It's much less stressful. Yeah it's more expensive, but our entitled society has forgotten that. THAT'S why airline travel is so stressful because we've all forgotten just how fast and convenient air travel is, despite all it's problems.