I Missed My American Connection… At Least It Was Profitable?

My recent review trip to Europe didn’t exactly go as planned, as I had a downgrade issue on the outbound, a frequent flyer account suspension on the Middle East detour, and now I want to share what happened on the return. After a great flight in American’s new “premium” Boeing 787 business class, I misconnected, and had to spend the night in Chicago.

There’s a reason I waited to write about this, which will become more apparent in a follow-up post…

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My American misconnect experience in Chicago

After a night at the Park Hyatt London River Thames, my return journey had me flying from London to Chicago to Miami, with a planned 1hr59min layover in Chicago (arriving at 5:00PM, and departing at 6:59PM).

The night before my flight, while in London, I could already tell that my flight would be delayed. A couple of American’s new 787-9Ps have some serious maintenance issues, despite being brand new. For example, my flight was on the new Dreamliner with the registration code N842AA, and look how badly that plane performed in mid-July…

I was flying on July 28 from London to Chicago on AA91, and the issues prior to that were clear. On July 27, the plane was nearly five hours delayed (due to a maintenance issue) flying from Chicago to Los Angeles. It was then supposed to fly from Los Angeles to Chicago to London, to position for my flight.

As you’d expect, there’s only so much time that can be made up. So the night before, American already delayed my flight, moving it from a 2:25PM departure to a 3:30PM departure. The flight was then scheduled to land in Chicago at 6:05PM, which is tight, but manageable, given that I have Global Entry, TSA PreCheck, and wasn’t checking bags.

The anticipated 3:30PM departure more or less ended up being correct, and indeed, that’s exactly when boarding wrapped up, and also roughly when the door closed. There was then a slight air traffic control delay on the ground (since we had missed our initial slot, due to the delay), but we actually made good time, and landed in Chicago at 5:48PM, 79 minutes before my connection was supposed to depart — easy peasy!

However, then there was no gate available for us (presumably because we were delayed, and Terminal 5 at O’Hare is super busy in the evenings), and that required nearly an extra 30 minutes of waiting.

While our flight showed an arrival time of 6:21PM, the aircraft started deplaning at 6:25PM.

We arrived at gate M27W, located toward the end of Terminal 5, and I was departing from gate H16, located at the very end of Terminal 3. Could I clear customs and immigration, take the train, clear security, and get to my gate, in that amount of time? I figured it would all come down to how early they closed the door on my connecting flight.

I went as fast as I could, and made good time, given the reality of both of my gates being toward the far end of the terminals, plus Terminal 5 and Terminal 3 being completely disconnected.

I arrived at my connecting gate at 6:53PM, six minutes ahead of the official departure time. Obviously that’s less than the 10 minutes prior to departure that doors usually close, though I also know American has been promoting how it’s holding more flights for late connecting passengers, and I figured maybe this is a case where they’d do that — after all, American has no connecting flights that depart from Miami after this flight arrived.

But nope, I arrived at the gate to find the “Flight closed” monitor.

Not only that, but the jet bridge had already been pulled back, so it seems like it wasn’t even close.

What’s funny is that after the fact, the flight status page showed a 6:58PM departure, five minutes after I arrived at the gate. In fairness, the departure time is generally calculated based on when the plane pushes back. The aircraft ended up arriving in Miami nearly 30 minutes early.

I was then rebooked on a flight at 5AM the following morning. American offered me three terrible hotel options, so I ended up just booking my own hotel for the night…

At least I’ll make $700(ish) from this ordeal?!

I was bummed not to get home the same night and be with my family. On the plus side, at least if you’re going to have something like this happen, it’s nice for it to happen on a flight departing the European Union or United Kingdom. The European Union has EC261, while the United Kingdom has UK261, which is essentially the same (but of course post-Brexit, the UK needs its own policies).

If you depart the UK on a journey of over 3,500 kilometers and arrive at your destination three or more hours late, you’re entitled to £520 (~$691) in compensation. To clarify a couple of points:

• This is based on when you reach your final destination, and not how long the delay on a specific flight is (this can work for or against airlines, depending on the situation)
• The only exclusion is “force majeure,” but in this case, the delay was caused by a late arriving aircraft due to maintenance issues

Hey, at least this puts a more concrete cost to American closing the door early and choosing not to wait for any connecting passengers, which is fair enough. We’ll see how easily American agrees to its obligations here, given that airlines love to blame everything on ATC or weather, even if it’s patently untrue. But I know what the regulations are, so…

Bottom line

Unfortunately my flight from London to Miami via Chicago didn’t quite go as planned, due to issues that American seems to be having with some of its new Dreamliners. The plane I was on has quite a bad maintenance record, and that ultimately caused my flight to be delayed due to a late inbound aircraft.

I missed my flight back to Miami, so American’s new program for holding more flights didn’t work in my favor, despite it being the last flight of the night. Fair enough, since I wouldn’t expect every flight to be held.

On the plus side, at least this itinerary qualifies for UK261 compensation, which makes me feel a bit better about getting home late. How much of a fight that becomes remains to be seen…