Never fly American Airlines. Absolutely, the worst customer service of
any airline. Recently, I had to fly from Newark to Chicago. I wanted
to fly with Southwest airlines as I almost always do. Unfortunately,
my wife forced me to purchase a ticket on American due to having old
miles that were about to expire. I told her it wouldn't be worth the
aggravation, but finally relented. I booked a flight for 4:30 PM.
Two weeks after my booking, I was annoyed to receive an email from
American saying that my flight time was pushed back to 6:45 PM, which
was a very inconvenient change. If you sell a ticket for a certain
time, maybe you should stick with that time? Not so with American. I
knew from past experience that being on such a late flight with
American would also mean a good chance that they would cancel it. But
onward with hope.
Day of the flight, about an hour or two before I had to leave for the
airport, I get the dreaded automated call from American that my flight
was delayed. Ten minutes later, drumroll, no surprise, I get a call
again saying that my flight was canceled.
Eyes roll up in my head. Not to worry, tells me an agent on the phone,
we have you rebooked for tomorrow at noon.
Get to Newark the next day in plenty of time to make the noon flight.
Put my card in the self check in machine. Woops, it can't find my
itinerary. Wait it line to speak with an agent. Get to the agent and
she tells me coldly that I'm not on the flight, the flight is full,
and the best she can do is put me on standby. Ok, I say, I'd like to
speak to your manager. She responds coldly again, "well that's going
to be a while sir..." Continue to argue and she threatens to call
security. I wait and wait, and demand again to speak to a manager.
Finally, I'm told that the manager is at the gate, and the only way I
can speak to her is to proceed through security to the gate. I am
getting desperate and thinking of purchasing a ticket on United for
$1000 rather than continue with this AA clown show but decided the
wife would be upset so I wait an hour to get through security and talk
to a manager.
Get to the gate, and lo and behold there is no manager there. I am
told to sit and wait again. Finally, 20 or 30 minutes later a manager
shows up. She tells me in no uncertain terms that all of the flights
for the day to Chicago are full and the best she can do is put me on a
flight the next day (2 days after my original flight was scheduled). I
say that is ridiculous, can't you even reroute me through another
city? NO. I say: you need to offer a voucher to get another customer
off the flight.
"Sorry, I've already offered more than I'm allowed." I say can I
please hear you on the loudspeaker making the offer. She refuses. She
threatens to call security if I continue to argue. I say I'm going to
sue your company for breach of contract. She says go ahead.
I return to the ticketing area. By this time the $1000 ticket on
United has already been sold. I go back one last time to the American
counter in desperation, and magically, this time there is a supervisor
"right behind the door" that I can talk to.
She spends a minute or two on the computer and books me straightaway for
a flight later in the day on Delta airlines at LaGuardia (have to take
a 1.5 hour transportation service to get there).
p.s. I was thinking of emailing this complaint to the American
Airlines customer service through their website. Unfortunately, they
have a character limit on comments of 1500 characters and it couldn't
fit. Just another confirmation of how little they care to hear from
their customers/potential customers.
**Update** I wish AA would have spent a small fraction of the effort on customer relations on my flight experience as it has trying to get this review deleted from the internet!!
Ariel G. read more