American Outright Lies, Blames Maintenance Delay On Air Traffic Control

In a separate post, I shared how I recently missed an American Airlines connection while flying from London to Miami via Chicago. The silver lining here is that UK261 regulations apply, which entitle me to £520 cash compensation. It’s pretty clear cut, but that’s not to say that airlines won’t try to get out of it.

American doesn’t tell the truth about flight delay reason

Just to recap, I recently missed a connection due to a late inbound aircraft, resulting from a maintenance issue with the aircraft on a previous flight. If you pull up American’s own notes about the flight on ExpertFlyer, you’ll see the following reason for the delay:

“LATE ARRV A/C DUE TO PRIOR MAINTENANCE DELAYS”

That’s really straightforward, and not open to interpretation. The flight was delayed by roughly an hour on departure due to maintenance issues with the aircraft, which caused the plane to arrive late. On departure, the plane was then slightly delayed due to air traffic control, but that was because we missed our takeoff slot due to the late arriving aircraft resulting from the maintenance issue. If the flight had operated on schedule, we would’ve had our takeoff slot.

This is simply not open to interpretation, this is 100% how the regulations work. So following my flight, I submitted the following comment with customer relations:

Due to a maintenance delay on AA91 from LHR to ORD, I missed my connection from ORD to MIA, resulting in a forced overnight. This means I got to my destination roughly 10 hours late. In line with UK261 regulations, I respectfully request the 520 GBP cash compensation mandated by authorities, based on the delay in reaching my final destination, due to a delay within American’s control.

Six days later, I received a response from American, as follows:

Providing dependable service is what’s expected of us, and when we don’t operate flights on schedule, it’s easy to understand our customers’ disappointment. Please accept my sincere apology for the disruptions encountered on your recent trip from London – Heathrow.

We have reviewed the applicable regulations, and you do not qualify for the regulated compensation because the flight was delayed due to Air Traffic Control issues. Our records indicate that American Airlines flight AA91, scheduled to operate on July 28, 2025 from London – Heathrow to Chicago O’Hare, was delayed for 81 minutes due to Air Traffic Control ground stops/holds.

Air traffic disruptions can be the result of weather conditions, congestion at the destination or origin city, weather along the flight path, or ground stops/holds.

When situations like this occur, Air Traffic Control will decrease the number of take-offs and landings which impact the number of flights that can operate. It may appear that other flights were unaffected, this is because a portion of flights may have been delayed or canceled to free up space and minimize traffic.

While I understand you were made aware of some maintenance items being taken care of during your delay, we will often take the opportunity to handle minor issues during that time since we’re already awaiting clearance. Although other factors may negatively contribute to inconveniences during a Air Traffic Control ground stops/holds, we consider what set the off-schedule event in motion and advise our customers accordingly. I am sorry to hear your plans were impacted and you arrived to Miami International Airport later than planned. 

ASKJHDASLKFJLKFHJDLS. I’m sorry, what?!

So the aircraft was delayed by 81 minutes due to air traffic control delays, and then during that air traffic control delay, the airline might have worked on some maintenance issues? None of that is true:

• The inbound aircraft arrived over an hour late
• We had no maintenance issues on our flight
• We had a slight air traffic control delay because we were late

So I responded to the email as follows:

Thank you for your response, I appreciate it. I would kindly ask you to take another look at your records. The aircraft operating this flight, N842AA, operated AA98 to London, and arrived over an hour behind schedule. This was due to prior maintenance issues with the aircraft. For example, please see the flight notes for this flight, which I’ve also attached:

“LATE ARRV A/C DUE TO PRIOR MAINTENANCE DELAYS”

The only minor air traffic control delay that happened is due to missing our slot as a result of the maintenance delay, which is covered under UK261 regulations, since maintenance issues were the initial cause of the delay. Are you suggesting that this is not accurate, and that there were not previous maintenance delays? I would like to point out that the entire sequence of flights for that aircraft were delayed by hours the day prior — AA2012, AA2321, and AA98 — the aircraft was trying to make up time with each turn.

I’d respectfully ask you to reconsider your decision, in light of the facts.

Just hours later, I heard back from the same person at American, who responded as follows:

Thank you for writing back. I’m sorry to learn that you’re still upset with us. That’s certainly not how we want our customers to feel.

We have thoroughly reviewed the circumstances surrounding flight AA91 from London – Heathrow on July 28, 2025 and have confirmed the reason for the delay was due to Air Traffic Control.

Flight delays are complex and can affect airline operations in a variety of ways. We can assure you that we would never mislead our customers about the reason for a flight delay, cancellation or diversion. We consider what set the off schedule event in motion and advise our customers accordingly.

While I regret any further disappointment this may cause, compensation under Air Passenger Rights Regulations / The Aviation Air Services Law is not due when a delay is out of our control.

As you can see, he doubled down on the initial claim. He has “thoroughly reviewed” the initial situation,” and he can assure me that the airline “would never mislead” customers.

This response of course in no way addresses the points that I made, which is mighty convenient. Suffice it to say that this isn’t over…

How sad that companies instruct employees to be dishonest

I get it, no airline wants to pay cash compensation to passengers, especially since UK261 and EC261 regulations are quite generous toward consumers in that regard. At the same time, the law is the law, and if the airline wants to fly to a certain destination, it should also abide by the laws of that destination.

American has a specialized customer relations team that handles requests for government mandated compensation, and those people do this all the day, so they know the actual regulations like the back of their hand. It’s also one of the reasons that it takes time to receive a response, unlike American’s automated customer relations, with nearly instant responses.

But goodness, I find it really distasteful to outright lie to customers in this way. That screenshot I shared of the flight notes above isn’t something that I just made up, but instead, those are American’s own notes about what happened on the flight.

The delay was caused by a late arriving aircraft due to a maintenance issue. Period. If there’s a small additional delay due to losing your slot because of the delay, that doesn’t suddenly become the core reason for the delay, and trigger a “force majeure” excuse.

This isn’t the first time that I’ve seen American do something like this. In mid-2023, I wrote about how Ford had a delayed flight, and the airline also lied about the reason, to get out of paying government mandated compensation.

It seems obvious to me that frontline employees are being instructed to lie to customers. When something is as black and white as this, I find that to be particularly reprehensible.

In fairness, American is hardly alone in this regard. It often takes a bit of back and forth before an airline agrees to pay a compensation claim, as they do what they can to wear you down. This is why there’s a whole industry of companies that help with these claims, and take a cut once the compensation is actually paid out.

For me this is a matter of principle. I’m not going to be gaslit, and I’ll file a complaint with regulators in both the US and UK if I have to. The reason I didn’t write about my delay until now is because I wanted to see how American would respond, without me drawing attention to this.

For all the claims people have of bloggers getting special treatment, I think this trip is the prime example of how that’s not typically the case. On this trip I was downgraded, suspended, misconnected, and lied to. So the next time you think we get anything special, well… there you go.

Bottom line

My American Airlines flight was delayed due to a late inbound aircraft, resulting from a maintenance issue on a prior flight. This caused me to miss my connection, entitling me to UK261 compensation, in line with regulations. I don’t make the rules, but this is exactly the kind of situation for which these regulations are created.

When I contacted American, though, the airline informed me that the entirety of the delay was due to air traffic control issues, and maybe the airline performed some maintenance during the air traffic control delay… which is just malarkey, plain and simple. And this is’t some honest mistake — the airline knows this, and it’s reflect in the carrier’s own notes.

Even when I pointed this out, American simply doubled down, while ignoring the facts that I presented…

Has anyone else experienced similar outright lies from American about the reason for delays?