American Airlines, you made my list.
On Thursday, February 10, I thought I was on my way to Washington, D.C. to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), and I would’ve made it on time, too, if it hadn’t been for American Airlines.
Joplin Regional Airport (JLN) in Joplin, MO is about twenty-five minutes from my apartment and AA just began offering commercial service. In fact, AA is the only commercial operator at JLN. The City of Joplin traded out United and Frontier codeshare partner Great Lakes Airlines for AA earlier this month. Thursday, February 10 was American’s first day.
I was excited to be able to fly out on a major airline from an airport that was three hours closer to my house than the next nearest commercial airport that offers reasonable fares (MCI). However, thanks to the brilliant display of incompetence by AA’s station crew at JLN, that pipe dream was shattered quickly.
I arrived at JLN thirty minutes prior to take-off with checked baggage with pre-printed boarding pass in hand. However, by the time the desk agent at the ticket counter even bothered to acknowledge me, it was — get this — ninety seconds after some sort of procedural cut-off and he refused to allow me to board with baggage. At first it was apparently because I had two checked bags (I was leaving on a five day trip, after all), so I offered to combine them. That option was workable for about another fifteen seconds until I started to step out of line to combine luggage. At that point, he told me I wouldn’t be allowed to board even if I combined bags. When I questioned why my options had changed so quickly, he informed me that combining luggage had never been an option! His patronizing attitude continued.
I then asked if there were any way for me to board the plane, he informed me I could leave my baggage at the ticket counter. I then informed him that leaving my baggage unattended was not an option; I was attending a professional conference, after all! I asked if AA would send my baggage through on the next flight, since they do that when flights are delayed or passengers are re-routed. After all, I consider this to be AA’s fault. The desk agent was anything but helpful and promptly refused. He told me my only option at that point (ten minutes into the conversation) was to call AA Reservations and then left me at the counter.
After I stepped back from the counter in stunned shock at the way I had been treated, the very same desk agent checked in four more passengers! The total check-in time for those four other passengers was less than two minutes. Instead of checking with me or helping me get re-routed through a different airport (my flight was the absolute last flight leaving JLN on 2/10/11), every single agent at the ticket counter left and then shut off the lights, leaving me absolutely stranded at JLN.
When I called AA Reservations, the first level agent I spoke with was very friendly, but informed me that I would need to speak with the Station Manager at JLN in order to rectify my situation. When I told her that I had been completely abandoned at the ticket counter and that there were no AA employees in sight, she was appalled. I kept a cool head, however, and asked about being routed through a nearby airport such as SGF or TUL. The very helpful AA Representative said she’d be happy to check on flights leaving both those airports that evening. When she came back, the price was almost $800 to fly out of SGF. We didn’t even get to discuss TUL. I very politely and calmly told her that $800 to fix a problem that hadn’t been my doing in the first place was ridiculous and that I would not be paying it and asked if there were someone else I could speak with who might be able to offer me a more suitable solution. Since the Station Manager and the entire AA crew was AWOL, she transferred me to her supervisor.
After both of us explained my situation to the supervisor, she, too, was appalled and embarrassed for the way I had been treated. The supervisor said she would be able to re-issue my ticket under the guise of “weather delays” at DFW, my connecting airport, at no additional charge. However, when she went to re-issue my electronic ticket, she discovered that the highly incompetent station crew at JLN had marked my boarding pass as “boarded,” as in, I was on the aircraft. That’s not only unprofessional, it also raises legal issues for AA, since the airline receives an EAS federal subsidy to fly out of JLN – something that is generally based on the number of passengers that are on board each flight.
Because of this “oversight” on the part of the JLN Station Crew, she was unable to re-issue my ticket without the AWOL station crew backing my boarding pass out of the flight and they were not answering their phone. She even told me not to “answer the phone” if I “hear[d] it ringing.” I did, in fact, hear the phone ring about twenty-five times. No one came back to answer the phone at the ticket counter where I was still standing. The supervisor tried the gate phone, and, finally, someone picked up.
At this point, I had been on the phone with AA Reservations for about fifty minutes. It took another thirty minutes for the station crew to come back to the gate and to figure out how to fix my issue. I was on the phone with AA Reservations as she was typing information into my file – the file they were reading at the desk. Someone finally came up behind me and, without introducing themselves or offering any reason, asked for my ID. By power of deduction, I figured out who he was, but that in no way excuses his lack of professionalism. I was giving the very upset AA Reservations supervisor a play-by-play of what was happening, and all she could do was apologize. In fact, the JLN station crew was never able to fix my ticket. Thankfully, they were able to back it out far enough that the very fed-up AA Reservations supervisor was able to take over and re-issue my electronic ticket.
Once my e-ticket had finally been re-issued by the AA Reservations supervisor, I walked back up to the ticket counter to check in for the flight leaving the next morning (Friday, February 11) at 7:00 so I could leave the airport for the night with boarding passes in hand. When I asked to check-in for the next morning’s flight, the very same desk agent who had denied me boarding for that afternoon’s flight was the one who stepped forward. He very sarcastically told me, “Well, I still can’t take your baggage.” I told him I didn’t care, that I just wanted my boarding passes so I could leave the airport. By that point, I’d been standing in front of the ticket counter, either speaking with JLN staff or on the phone with AA Reservations for two and half hours. I was ready to go.
While he was printing my boarding passes for the next day, an American Eagle advertising executive who had been overseeing the inaugural flight walked up to find out what was going on. Instead of simply saying there had been a problem, the JLN agents seemed all-to-eager to pin all of the blame on me when their boss walked up.
AA Exec: “What’s going on here?”
JLN female agent: “Oh, Mr. Hays was just a few minutes late [not true -CH] for his flight, but he understands” (smiles sickeningly sweet at me).
Me: (stares back at exec and agent)
I didn’t offer an argument. There was no need. Yes, I could have made a scene, but at that point, I was afraid they were going to deny me boarding for the next flight. I still had no idea why I’d been denied boarding that afternoon. My luggage was fine; I’d flown with almost all of it before. I just wanted a boarding pass and to get out of JLN.
The next day I arrived at the airport and checked in both myself and my condensed luggage (why take another chance?!) without hassle, save for the continued snide remarks from the JLN station crew. Right before the scheduled departure of 7:00 a.m., we boarded AA flight 4784 and then proceeded to sit on the tarmac for about thirty minutes. I’m a frequent flier, so I didn’t think anything of a delay of thirty minutes; I’ve sat on the tarmac for an hour and forty-five minutes without really thinking much about it. At around 7:30, the pilot came on the loudspeaker and announced that our plane was experiencing a mechanical failure in the left propellor and that we would be delayed for at least three hours while they flew in a mechanic from DFW. He had no further information.
We were then required to deplane, exit security, and collect all of our checked bags. Still, AA offered no further information except that the ticket counter would help re-book us. Unfortunately, I was already seven hours late from my expected arrival at DCA the night before, so I was not a happy flier. I waited in line at the ticket counter for an hour and forty-five minutes before I even reached the front of the line. During that time, we were not offered any travel updates or refreshments, save for cheap bottled water or office coffee. No meal coupons, no realistic offers of shuttles to other airports, not even a guarantee that we would be able to fly to DFW on the plane the mechanic was coming in on. In fact, the mood in the terminal seemed to indicate that no one would be allowed to fly back on that plane and that unless we wanted to drive ourselves to SGF, we would be re-booked on the already-full 3:30 flight to DFW.
I had overheard the American Eagle marketing executive from the night before mention that a shuttle might be provided to SGF, so I was hopeful that when I reached the ticket counter, I would be able to be re-booked and given a seat on the shuttle. However, there was no shuttle, and by the time I was re-booked, there were no seats left out of SGF. At that point, the snide remarks from the AA JLN crew continued, but they did finally inform us that we would be allowed to fly to DFW on the aircraft that had brought the Dallas-based mechanic. That flight was to leave at noon, and I would still be able to make my connection.
Even though they had forced us to collect all of our baggage, they were more than willing to immediately take it back at the ticket counter. I’m not sure what the point of making me deal with it for two hours only to re-check it was, but I was thankful they took it before the flight.
I was the first one through security at 11:30, and we took off basically on time. The flight to DFW was more or less enjoyable, and we landed without incident. I made my connection and landed at DCA after 8:00 local time that evening, missing an entire day of my conference.
At that point, I thought my AA troubles were finished. If I had only known.
On Monday, February 14, I arrived at DCA with my friend Jarrod Mendicki around 1:45 p.m. for our 3:05 flight. Our cab let us off at American’s curbside check-in. As we approached the counter, we overheard the agent tell the woman in front of us that the 3:05 flight to DFW had been delayed until after 5:30 and that the three of us should step inside to be re-booked. The AA agent inside funneled us through the kiosk lines, even though we told her our flight had been delayed. It was as if she couldn’t hear us. Sure enough, the kiosk told us our flight had been delayed until at least 5:30, meaning we would miss that last connection to JLN that evening and have to spend the night at DFW.
The desk agent was very friendly and worked to re-book us together, even though we had separate reservations. She “even” waived our baggage fees. To her, it was a gesture of goodwill. After all I had experienced on the flight into DCA, it was the absolute least AA could do. She booked us on a 4:45 flight to DFW, slightly earlier than we had anticipated, but it still wouldn’t land until 7:10 local time. Our flight to JLN (AA flight 4703) was taking off at 7:25 from another terminal. We all knew there was no way we would make it, but we were thankful she was able to get us on the flight just in case a miracle happened and we landed early. She flagged our reservations as being authorized for overnight accommodations in the event of the inevitable.
Once through security, we called AA Reservations to see if we could be re-routed through TUL or SGF so we could return to Pittsburg that evening. In the process of that phone call, the highly rude AA Reservations representative “accidentally” deleted our reservations. That means we were stuck behind security we absolutely no working boarding passes. When I asked him to fix it, he refused, saying his “system” wouldn’t allow him to re-book us on the flight to JLN that evening, even though we had been booked on it until he deleted it. I thanked him for his time and hung up, very upset and frustrated. It took the gate agent almost twenty minutes to rectify the situation, and after printing three or four non-working boarding passes, he was able to re-book us on both the flight to DFW (AA flight 1539) and the flight to JLN, just in case we made it.
By a miracle of God, we landed and deplaned at DFW almost a whole twenty minutes ahead of schedule and ran through the terminal to grab the SkyLink train to change two terminals. We raced up to the gate for the JLN flight and were the last two passengers to board. They shut the doors shortly after we boarded.
We landed safely that evening at JLN a few minutes ahead of schedule, thankful just to be home.
What did AA offer me to compensate me for this terrible experience?
Let’s start with what they did not offer me.
- They refused to allow me to board and offered no explanation.
- They refused to send my baggage through on another flight, provide me with alternative means of air transportation, or even assist me with re-booking.
- I was stuck with the bill for transportation, lodging, and food the evening the stranded me at JLN.
- When departing JLN, I was still required to pay for my checked bag.
- When asked directly by another passenger, JLN crew refused to offer complementary tickets.
Now, in terms of compensation?
- One bottle of Best Choice off-brand bottled water.
- A complimentary bag of salted almonds on the flight to DFW.
- 5,000 frequent flier miles for my “inconvenience” during the mechanical failure of the second flight I was booked on.
5000 frequent flier miles may seem like a good amount at first glance, but consider that it takes at least 25,000 to go anywhere on AA, and many more to have a real trip. Also, these miles do not count toward any type of mileage status or any other reward. A nice gesture, but only a drop in the bucket in terms of absolution.
I do not feel I am out-of-line in requesting a pair of round-trip complimentary tickets from American Airlines. I was delayed in airports for over two days and one night (2/10/11) had to find my own accommodations, food, and transportation. I missed half of my conference and wasted a night of hotel reservations.
I am not a satisfied American Airlines customer – not by a long shot.
