May 8, 2009 1
I HATE AMERICAN AIRLINES
I know, me with all caps. I never do that. What is amazing is how in the past I used to love American Airlines. I would travel a lot and I’d insist on AA. Then they started to suck. But I stayed somewhat loyal for a while. About a year ago I got stuck at DFW (where I happen to be writing this right now) and the way American Airlines handled things I decided I’d exhaust my miles and be done with them. I haven’t had to travel for work lately and when I did go on trips I’d go on great Mexican airlines like Mexicana.
Today I decided to take a last-minute trip using my miles. I got to the airport and was chilling in the departure lounge when they announced over the PA that the flight to DFW had mechanical problems and was canceled. She said we could either wait at the gate in line with her, call the 800# and have them rebook, or go back out past security again and talk to a ticket agent there. She said there’s ten agents out there that can help rebook.
Since I’m a special case flying on an award ticket I knew I just couldn’t got to the automagic kiosk and be on my way. So I called and was transfered to the international agent and was quickly answered by a man with an English accent that could see about helping me. According to his information the flight wasn’t canceled yet but he said that since I was at the airport I’d have more updated information so he tried to find me another flight to DFW to make my flight (I had a 3 hour layover and since AA has about 1 million flights to DFW from Austin it should be a piece of cake, right?) Well the other flights are oversold. He did say I could take Continental to my destination through Houston. I wondered if I could do that on a free ticket. He said sure. So he went about changing my reservation to a Continental flight and I’m thinking my prepaid hotels past their cancelation time for the weekend would be used. He did say I’d have to go out to the ticket counter and have an AA agent issue a paper ticket (remember those?) that I could take to Continental for the boarding pass. No problem so I walk out to the ticketing area and there’s a giant line of fellow passengers waiting for the TWO agents (not TEN as she said before). The line was not moving. I was upset (especially since I’ve lost platinum and then gold status on AA and I couldn’t use the first class line).
So I walked over to the Continental counter since it was empty and they had my reservation but couldn’t issue a ticket because I needed the AA ticket first. The couldn’t help me, but since the Continental flight was still hours away I could manage to stand in line and not worry about missing the flight. Back in the AA line, I’m waiting for about 10 minutes with zero movement in line and a man from the airline comes out and says that the flight is un-canceled and will be leaving at two and people needed to get back to the gate with their original boarding passes. It was about 1:30 at this point. But the problem was since I saw my reservation at Continental, I didn’t know if my boarding passes were valid anymore. So I waited in line and called AA again. Again, the agent answered immediately and after looking at the information said I seemed to have a valid ticket on AA and could take that flight. With about 20 minutes before the flight was to leave I, could I make it through security and to the gate. Well Austin Airport is small and the last time through security might have taken one minute. Sure. He said if I didn’t make the flight, to call back and wished me luck.
So now in the security line it was full of people that were normally at going through plus all the people on my flight that needed to go back through security again. I finally make it to the X Ray machine and since I knew my belt would set it off, had it off and was ready. Well the person at the xray machine monitor had problems with first bag full of clothes and no weapons or bombs. So she calls over someone to inspect that bag. I can’t leave since my other bag and my Mac are still in the machine and now there are SIX TSA agents staring at the monitor with puzzled looks on their faces and pointing at the screen. I’m going to miss my plane. It was a miracle the mechanical problem was resolved and now I was going to miss the plane because of this bag. THE SAME BAG I WENT THROUGH SECURITY WITH 45 MINUTES BEFORE with no problem. Zip. Nada. so I ask the brain trust that if they have to check my other bag anyway why not just check this bag too? They look at me as if I’m nuts. But the fact they’ve been looking at the bag in the XRAY for more than five minutes, they probably should inspect it by hand right? The supervisor is involved and the number of people crowding around the monitor is now at 8. No new passengers are entering the airport through this checkpoint.
Eventually the supervisor makes the executive decision that the bag must be searched by hand. I have 10 minutes to get down to the gate. So now two agents are searching each of my bags. One is trying to use his psychological profiling techniques by asking how I’m doing. I said I was doing fine until I had to go back to the ticket counter and now this problem with the bag. The same bag I passed through security with less than an hour before. I was worried about missing my flight and wondered why it took them so much time to just pull the bag and look at what they couldn’t see with their fucking x-ray machine (I think I might have said effing to the man). He goes through the bag and there’s no bombs, just my toiletries bag (sans liquids, they’re in the ziploc bag) my MacBook’s power adapter, iphone adapter, some headphones and shit like that. The geriatric woman with poor eyesight is taking her time going through my clothing bag. I’m finally deemed not a threat to national security and get to the gate. If you’ve seen my tweets this week you know my knee is fucked up so I was only able to walk at a brisk pace to the gate. I’m preparing my dialogue for the AA agent back at the ticket counter as I get the Continental tickets after I get to the gate late. Well, there were still tons of people in the line at the counter that needed their flights re-booked back onto the flight so the plane wasn’t going anywhere yet. I could have stopped for a drink and still made it before the door closed.
I get on the plane and it becomes clear what the mechanical problem was: the AC was broken. It is 93f and sorta humid and the AC on the 20 year old plane was broken. I optimistically thought maybe after we were underway it would work, but nope, not going to happen. It took about 30 minutes to get from the gate to take off — it is only a 35 minute flight — and no AC. But instead I was happy to get to experience not one, but two screaming babies that had their scream volume turned up to 11. My battery is dying on my iPhone and there’s no jack under the seat to recharge. It was miserable.
I know what you’re saying AA isnt’ so bad, dude. They were going to fly you out of the country on a competing airline on your free ticket. They did get you to Dallas. They can’t control the morons on at the security checkpoint. The plane is a machine, it breaks sometimes. Wouldn’t you rather get your flight traveled than being an broken plane? Right. But what they did do is how they handled announcing the delay and non-mechancial issue (the mech issue could be something additional to no AC). They tell the customers to go back past security to the front ticket counter when there still was a high probability the flight was going to go. They could have had the agents at the front of the airports come to unused gate counters to rebook people. But they didn’t. They said the flight was canceled and if you want to go to Dallas it would be faster to go through security to many agents that can help. Someone — perhaps the gate person making the announcement — decided to make the problem not her problem by sending people back outside. That’s my problem.
So fuck American Airlines. Fuck them. Fuck them. Fuck them. I’ve flow countless flights on them and given them (a lot of time paid by my employer) a lot of money but no more. I’m not flying them again. The free flight worth of miles I have left with them I’ll spend on hotels or something. But they’ve lost my business for good. (exlcusions: a) I have to take them home on this trip and b) if my employer insists on my using AA I guess I have to go, but I won’t like it).
The good news is I’m on vacation now. I’m in the godforsaken DFW airport and it is sucking less than usual. I got something to eat (I forgot to mention I was starving while I was having all this shit happen). I am able to charge my computer and iPhone. Things are turning around.








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