I hate American Airlines
Jun. 20th, 2002 12:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joflasherSo travel yesterday was a pain. Going to the presentation wasn't that bad. Flew down on a 6 AM AirTran flight. AirTran is a nice little airline. It has comfy seats, polite people, full cans of soda, and all the little things a good airline should. Which is probably why I had so little patience with the fucknuttery that AA pulled on me for the return trip.
Get to checkin 1.5 hours before flight leaves. Get told by checkin that they'll assign me a seat when I get to the gate. I, being distrustful, ask "are there still seats left unassigned?" and checkin dude says "sure, lots of them".
Go to gate, ask for a seat. Get told "we're not assigning seats yet, come back later". Go get celebration drink with coworkers. Come back 0.5 hours later and ask for a seat. Get told in a snotty voice, "Standby passengers won't be assigned seats until plane is loaded". I politely point out that I'm not a standby passenger. They say "oh, okay, come back in 25 minutes, we'll have a seat for you then. We just need some time to do this bookkeeping". Come back and get the standby thing again. Point out once again that I am not a standby passenger. Note, this is all still with the same gate keeper person, who has looked me in the eye at every encounter. After waiting another 15 minutes, at which point the plane has started to board, coworkers included, she finally tells me that the plane is overbooked and since no one has offered to volunteer a seat, I was SOL. I point out that the two guys in front of me who also weren't assigned seats at checkin and who had just run in at the last minute were assigned seats and I had been waiting on her for the last hour. Why did I not have a seat and people who hadn't been waiting did, especially since she had taken my name at each of our meetings? Was told "there's nothing I can do about it now, they have their seats and the plane is full."
Get fed up with apparent incompetance of this gate keeper. Go talk to the other gate keeper, explain what has happened and ask, still politely, how was AA getting me back to Boston. That guy offers to put me on the next flight out (2 hours away) and to give me a voucher that can only be used with AA. Since the boarding has closed by this time, I accept, get my new boarding pass, insist that they give me a seat number this time, even though he tried to pull the "you'll get your number at the gate" trick again, and call home to let Boy know I would be late. Go through security AGAIN to get to the side of the airport that the next flight will be boarding at. (note to self, never wear those nice new sandals to an airport. They made me take them off and run them through the scanner every time).
Fast forward two hours. No plane. Another 30 minutes, 20 minutes past when the flight should have left, first announcement about bad weather and assurances that our flight will go out. 30 minutes later, yay, plane. Boarding starts. The gate keeper, the same one from the last flight, calls my name over the loud speaker. I go up and ask if there is a problem. She says, while looking right at my face, "this flight is overbooked and no one is offering to give up their seats. I'm afraid we're going to have to schedule you for the next flight, which leaves at 6 AM tomorrow."
Normally, I am a very polite person. Normally I never take my anger out on the individual when I think it might be the corporations fault. Hell, the worst I ever do to telemarketers is to hang up on them after telling them to remove me from their calling list. But even I have limits and this situation went sooo far past them. I was supposed to be home by 7. Here it was, going on 9 and I was still talking to the same damn gate keeper who didn't put me on the last flight.
Needless to say, I got home on that flight. And I still might carry through with that letter to AA explaining how their gate staff could use some customer relation skills and some general intelligence. Have already told secretary to not book me an AA flight again unless all other flights to the destination city have been shot down by flying pigs.
On the up side, the fact that I got in after midnight permitted me to guiltlessly skip the 8 AM meeting today.
Get to checkin 1.5 hours before flight leaves. Get told by checkin that they'll assign me a seat when I get to the gate. I, being distrustful, ask "are there still seats left unassigned?" and checkin dude says "sure, lots of them".
Go to gate, ask for a seat. Get told "we're not assigning seats yet, come back later". Go get celebration drink with coworkers. Come back 0.5 hours later and ask for a seat. Get told in a snotty voice, "Standby passengers won't be assigned seats until plane is loaded". I politely point out that I'm not a standby passenger. They say "oh, okay, come back in 25 minutes, we'll have a seat for you then. We just need some time to do this bookkeeping". Come back and get the standby thing again. Point out once again that I am not a standby passenger. Note, this is all still with the same gate keeper person, who has looked me in the eye at every encounter. After waiting another 15 minutes, at which point the plane has started to board, coworkers included, she finally tells me that the plane is overbooked and since no one has offered to volunteer a seat, I was SOL. I point out that the two guys in front of me who also weren't assigned seats at checkin and who had just run in at the last minute were assigned seats and I had been waiting on her for the last hour. Why did I not have a seat and people who hadn't been waiting did, especially since she had taken my name at each of our meetings? Was told "there's nothing I can do about it now, they have their seats and the plane is full."
Get fed up with apparent incompetance of this gate keeper. Go talk to the other gate keeper, explain what has happened and ask, still politely, how was AA getting me back to Boston. That guy offers to put me on the next flight out (2 hours away) and to give me a voucher that can only be used with AA. Since the boarding has closed by this time, I accept, get my new boarding pass, insist that they give me a seat number this time, even though he tried to pull the "you'll get your number at the gate" trick again, and call home to let Boy know I would be late. Go through security AGAIN to get to the side of the airport that the next flight will be boarding at. (note to self, never wear those nice new sandals to an airport. They made me take them off and run them through the scanner every time).
Fast forward two hours. No plane. Another 30 minutes, 20 minutes past when the flight should have left, first announcement about bad weather and assurances that our flight will go out. 30 minutes later, yay, plane. Boarding starts. The gate keeper, the same one from the last flight, calls my name over the loud speaker. I go up and ask if there is a problem. She says, while looking right at my face, "this flight is overbooked and no one is offering to give up their seats. I'm afraid we're going to have to schedule you for the next flight, which leaves at 6 AM tomorrow."
Normally, I am a very polite person. Normally I never take my anger out on the individual when I think it might be the corporations fault. Hell, the worst I ever do to telemarketers is to hang up on them after telling them to remove me from their calling list. But even I have limits and this situation went sooo far past them. I was supposed to be home by 7. Here it was, going on 9 and I was still talking to the same damn gate keeper who didn't put me on the last flight.
Needless to say, I got home on that flight. And I still might carry through with that letter to AA explaining how their gate staff could use some customer relation skills and some general intelligence. Have already told secretary to not book me an AA flight again unless all other flights to the destination city have been shot down by flying pigs.
On the up side, the fact that I got in after midnight permitted me to guiltlessly skip the 8 AM meeting today.
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no subject
Date: 2002-06-20 11:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-06-20 11:58 am (UTC)Awwww.... Share! :)
Tell us exactly what you did to (hopefully) leave him in a blubbering puddle of goo on the floor, meekly wishing he'd never even gotten out of bed that day, let alone cause you so much trouble. :)
(Or am I being overly vicious again?)
)
no subject
Date: 2002-06-20 09:12 pm (UTC)I've had a lot of really good experiences with them, and I've found them to be a lot easier to deal with than, say, USAir.
I realize this experience you had with them is unacceptable. It's actually quite confusing why they wouldn't give you a seat number. I always do e-tickets, and I tend to have my seat number before I even walk into the airport. Nonetheless, I'd be more inclined to blame poor handling of a difficult situation (overbooking), than the situation itself. All airlines overbook. We know this. The guy you dealt with was just a schmuck for not being up front with you. Hey, it happens. Maybe he's a disgruntled former TWA employee. Or maybe he's just dumb.
I'm gonna show you the other side of the coin.
A few weeks ago, J and I were travelling back from a trip back east (on AA). We had one connection to make in STL. There were storms all along our flight path. Not surprisingly, the first leg of our flight left late. By the time we took off, we were scheduled to arrive at STL about 3 minutes before our connection was supposed to leave. We spent most of the flight psyching our selves up for spending the night in St. Louis. When we deplaned, the agent at the gate said "hurry, they're holding the plane for you". We walked briskly to the other end of the universe where our connecting flight was waiting (it was unforunately on a different concourse...can't win 'em all). When we finally got there, the agent politely took our tickets and said "okay, we're waiting for three more people and nine bags". They knew who they were waiting for, what flights they were coming in on, how many bags they had, and (I guess) what a reasonable amount of time would be to wait for them. Yes, it delayed the departure time a bit (probably about 20 minutes). I'm sure the people who had to wait weren't overjoyed, but I think 20 minutes is tolerable. (I've had to wait 2 hours for a flight Pgh -> Philly) Anyhow, we arrived back in Austin, safe and sound, and were amazed to see all three of our bags come out at baggage claim. Heck, I'm amazed to see all my bags appear under normal circumstances ;-)
Okay, so that's my AA story. I actually go out of my way to fly AA because I tend to prefer them over other airlines. If it's only a matter of a couple dollars difference in the ticket price, I'll go with AA. It's all a matter of opinion, I guess. I've been quite happy to avoid flying USAir (they don't do Austin). I used to really like USAir because, well, Pittsburgh was the hub. Then I started flying other airlines and discovered that USAir is actually pretty sucky. But that's another story... ;-)
Just don't let this one bad experience cause you to boycott the entire company. I'm sure there's at least one person you know who can tell you a similar tale of torment about a *different* airline. Are you prepared to boycott all of them?
Just my $.50
have a nice day.