New: American Airlines App Boarding Push Notifications

By: Ben Schlappig

Published: April 28, 2019

29 comments

Update: This functionality has now been fully implemented.

Historically American’s mobile app has lagged the Delta and United apps in a countless number of ways. While that’s still the case, American has just made a significant improvement to their app which I’m excited about.

As noted by @TheForwardCabin, American’s app now sends push notifications when your flight actually starts boarding (the push notification also states when boarding ends, but that’s less useful here). This is something that both the Delta and United apps have done for a long time, and it’s something that I find to be incredibly valuable.

The push notification is tied to when the first boarding pass is scanned, so if there’s a delay in boarding this shouldn’t go off, which is great news.

As of now this is just being tested, though it’s my understanding that this should be expanded shortly.

Last October I wrote a post that perfectly highlights why this is such a great improvement. For example, if you have a rolling delay (either due to maintenance, crew, or weather), it can be risky to wait in American’s Admirals Clubs or Flagship Lounges.

They don’t always announce delays in the lounges, and as I wrote about at the time, American has a nasty habit of only delaying flights in very short increments, meaning you’re constantly on edge if not at the gate.

With this change you’ll immediately know if the flight starts boarding, which should at a minimum ensure that you don’t miss your flight.

This is also useful in those instances where a gate agent decides to start the boarding process early, so that you can know it makes sense to head to the gate.

American obviously has a lot more areas in which they need to improve, but this has been a pain point for me for quite a while, and I’m happy to see that they’ve implemented this.

Are you as excited about American’s new boarding push notifications as I am?

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Suzie Guest

May 6, 2019, 10:23 pm

Great idea so long as it works correctly. I unfortunately missed a flight only five days ago due to this. AA messaged me to say my flight had been delayed (whilst I was in the airport) so I went to the gate at the new departure time....only to find my flight had already left! I’ll be interested to find out what American’s view is on this as I incurred considerable cost as a result

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Matt Guest

April 29, 2019, 10:36 am

This will certainly be a welcome improvement if it functions as intended. I'm so used to American's delay on announcing delays that I didn't even realize other airlines handled it better; that's pretty sad. A few months ago my wife and I left the Admiral's Club and showed up at the gate about 5 mins before departure from MIA. Passengers were already queuing up to board. I looked out the window and ... no plane at the end of the jet bridge. Really? This flight is going to board in 5 mins w/o a plane? 10 mins after boarding was supposed to start the board was still showing an on-time departure, but still no plane. We considered heading back to the AC, but thankfully stuck around because 20 minutes later they switched the gate to an entirely different terminal. Go figure. Two weeks ago my plane had an unspecified maintenance issue in ORD. The gate agent said they wouldn't tell him what the issue was. Same issue with announcing delays only after boarding time has passed. The GA eventually came on and said maintenance gave him a decision time of 10pm (1.5 hours away) and made a point to specifically say "if you want to go to hang out in the Admiral's Club I will make sure to call there and have them announce when we're going to start boarding, or when a decision has been made." So there's no system for it at all, but at least a great GA can make a difference. The agent at the AC told me a lot of the time the extended delays around this time are simply because of shift change; one maintenance crew starts working on the job, their shift ends so they say "see ya later" and essentially walk off, quickly briefing the arriving crew who have to analyze the issue for themselves and then finish the job. I know unions, OT, etc all factor in, but it's super frustrating that passengers are delayed an extra 30-45 minutes because some techs can't get 15 mins of overtime.

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Bill Guest

April 29, 2019, 8:19 am

Flew ORD- LGA this morning and didn't get a notification. Sent AA a note about it and week report back.

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CRB Guest

April 29, 2019, 7:53 am

I’m a little confused, my AA app has been giving me push notifications when boarding has started for the past year, when the agents have opened up the boarding. Oddly today it did not give me a notification.

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Tom Mariner Guest

April 29, 2019, 7:48 am

Wow, on top of the announcement that 1980's legroom will be restored, and our luggage stored at no cost in the [wait for it] luggage hold -- great news! Oh wait, that didn't happen. But we did get the world's smallest bathroom, one tiny bag of potato chips if we do not spend $9 on a joke of a meal on a cheap plastic tray, and no seat reclining because it would be into the nose of the person behind us.

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