So they do what you want and you call that “infuriating”? Good lord
Most of the employees have been as frustrated as the customers - often more so! You can always get an unprepped for curveball thrown at you, but it all really starts with poor planning and decision-making in the HDQ, be it schedule builds, turn times, acft types, crew scheduling, or overly optimistic expectations around weather and ATC issues.
Just another example of how sucking is the culture at AA.
Posting more accurate ETD’s will not solve American’s operational issues, in fact the new policy will actually cause more and longer delays. Soon American will be adding more gates at DFW, it’s only going to get worse.
The rolling delays are frequently more frustrating than the delay itself. Tell me honestly that we’re leaving two hours late and I can get some work done, have dinner or sit in the lounge but tell me every 20 minutes that we’re leaving in another 20 minutes and I’m effectively held hostage at the gate.
I was recently on a business trip with some of my colleagues who are not as avgeeky as I am, and there was a posted delay. I checked the inbound aircraft and told them we have at least another hour, let's go back to the lounge. They were hesitant as we were "boarding in 20 minute" (despite there being no plane at the gate!). Well, guess who had a frustrating hour at the gate, and guess who had some lunch a few cocktails?
If passengers with FlightRadar24 can work out that the inbound aircraft hasn’t landed yet, it probably shouldn’t have taken until 2026 for the airline’s systems to reach the same conclusion.
We've heard EXACTLY the same promises some 10 years ago, when they were touting the GREAT improvements at handling delays by susbtituting aircraft (and indeed, there was at the time an increase of gate changes and and aircraft replacements to do a sector). It did not last.
We are at the point when my confidence in AA to implement any changes is ZERO. It actually sounds as if somone somewhere had a great idea to improve conditons, but that suggestion was actively and successfully fought by those in charge of implementing it,
Maybe Scott Kirby's prediction of AA's imminent demise is just wishful thinking, but I have no doubt it would be the best to improve passenger experience. RIP AA.
This is one of the main reasons I stopped flying American ~15 years ago. The 15-minute incremental delays, when you knew the inbound aircraft wasn't even close, were infuriating. That combined with the horrible tech made them just incredibly frustrating to fly.
At that time, I believe United was already incorporating the inbound aircraft information and overall did a better job with delay notifications (though back then they still had significant operational issues and frequent mechanical delays and cancellations).
It's wild to me that 15 years later, they are only now tackling this issue and by tackling, I mean doing a targeted pilot in one airport...
Worse are when delays become overnight delays and luggage isn't off-loaded. That holds the pax hostage in not being able to cancel/rebook unless they can do without whatever is packed.
I’ve heard plenty of promises about fixing rolling delays, so I was honestly a little hesitant. I ended up booking my flight by calling +1 💨833🔹411🔹0647, and my experience was really good.
For context on how much this matters: in the US BTS data, 74.6% of American's domestic flights arrived on time from August 2025 to July 2026, 8th of 12 US airlines, against 81.5% for Delta in first place. Charlotte, where the trial starts, had 77% of flights on time over the last 12 months. Until AA's estimates get better, Udo's approach is the right one: check where the inbound aircraft actually is on FlightAware or Flightradar24 rather than trusting the boarding time. (Disclosure: I run TripStow, which publishes these BTS figures by airline: tripstow.com/airlines/aa)