I was an AA exec plat out of CLT for two years (and fly AA all the time as an Alaska elite now) and tbh I rarely had a truly atrocious experience (aside from the rather dismal customer service and the CLT ground crews that deliver bags an hour after arrival). As someone who has been a top tier elite with all four legacy carriers, AA is easily the worst of them but it’s all kinda on the margins.
My impression is AA is in a moderate meltdown this summer from all the weather at their hubs. They’re also struggling with an aircraft shortage, at least of widebodies. Moreover, the ongoing FA contract negotiations have made the crews (understandably) quite grumpy.
This is all to say that while AA won’t live up to your experience on Delta, your experience so far is definitely atypical, at least based on my time flying AA regularly over the past four years.
My other AA elite friend and I have a phrase—“peak AA”—that kinda captures this. The gist is that AA is *fine* but there’s always just something that feels off, and often cheap. Like WiFi is still $25 whereas other carriers have it for free or less than $10. Or the gate agents are assholes. Or like the water dispensers in the club are too low for the cups they provide, or whatever. Just dumb shit on the margins that AA could fix but doesn’t care about because they’re comfortable being the worst of the legacy carriers. Thanks US/AW management!
Yeah it’s been kind of bad recently. DFW had a meltdown and then PHL and CLT followed that up. They really aren’t catching a break and MIA is about to enter its problem season soon with the way hurricanes are forecasted.
It’s not just you. It’s been particularly bad lately with spring weather, but out of over 60+ flights I’ve flown this year, 57% have been delayed (averaging 45 min delayed, many skewing 2+ hrs though), and that’s not including 2 straight up cancelations.
Not getting any pre flight service is par for the course. FAs do not get paid until the door is closed and the plane has pushed back from the gate. I have no idea why this was ever accepted but customers are paying the price for this terrible decision. Also, 15 minutes delay is nothing.
There seems to be a lot of delays going around lately. What airport do you fly from and where do you typically connect? Weather has been shit in DFW this summer, which is their main hub. It has been really screwing up operations.
I find that how good the service is really depends on where the crew is originating from. What city were you flying out of?
As for the delays, it’s par for the course since Covid and it’s not really an AA only issue. Have had the same issues on delta and united.
Not just you. I got platinum status this year, and I’ve had two flights in two weeks cancelled. Rebooked on a different airline on the first one, paying $650 more out of pocket so I wouldn’t miss $450 theater tickets. American gave us 5k as a sorry. Cancellation was crew related.
Second flight they were gonna be delayed 1.5 hours, which was our whole connection, so American automatically rebooked us on new flights a day later. Said we could extend the trip on the back end but couldn’t get us back til two days later. Our rebooked flights where then also delayed an hour and required us to stay overnight in another city, where we’d have to wait in line for hotel vouchers upon arrival. At that point, we just canceled. We’ll get the refund but of course I’m sure they’ll give us nothing for the cancelled hotel we gave up.
Both times that our flights were cancelled, we saw on the airport departures board that nearly every AA flight out of Austin was delayed or cancelled. That plus their shit customer service means I’m def not trying to renew status with them this year and I’m not even sure I’ll fly with them again while I still have it, given that I can’t seem to ever get where I’m going anyway.
4-6 flights a week and not a single one on time? I fly weekly and while you may depart 15 min late, I typically land pretty dang close to the time I was supposed to land and that’s what matters most IMO.
AA has a solid 30+ min baked into every flight from what I’ve seen. My recent flights to and from DFW - Pittsburgh (that’s this months destination) have been landing early believe it or not
I was an AA exec plat out of CLT for two years (and fly AA all the time as an Alaska elite now) and tbh I rarely had a truly atrocious experience (aside from the rather dismal customer service and the CLT ground crews that deliver bags an hour after arrival). As someone who has been a top tier elite with all four legacy carriers, AA is easily the worst of them but it’s all kinda on the margins. My impression is AA is in a moderate meltdown this summer from all the weather at their hubs. They’re also struggling with an aircraft shortage, at least of widebodies. Moreover, the ongoing FA contract negotiations have made the crews (understandably) quite grumpy. This is all to say that while AA won’t live up to your experience on Delta, your experience so far is definitely atypical, at least based on my time flying AA regularly over the past four years.
My other AA elite friend and I have a phrase—“peak AA”—that kinda captures this. The gist is that AA is *fine* but there’s always just something that feels off, and often cheap. Like WiFi is still $25 whereas other carriers have it for free or less than $10. Or the gate agents are assholes. Or like the water dispensers in the club are too low for the cups they provide, or whatever. Just dumb shit on the margins that AA could fix but doesn’t care about because they’re comfortable being the worst of the legacy carriers. Thanks US/AW management!
Yeah it’s been kind of bad recently. DFW had a meltdown and then PHL and CLT followed that up. They really aren’t catching a break and MIA is about to enter its problem season soon with the way hurricanes are forecasted.
It’s not just you. It’s been particularly bad lately with spring weather, but out of over 60+ flights I’ve flown this year, 57% have been delayed (averaging 45 min delayed, many skewing 2+ hrs though), and that’s not including 2 straight up cancelations.
Not getting any pre flight service is par for the course. FAs do not get paid until the door is closed and the plane has pushed back from the gate. I have no idea why this was ever accepted but customers are paying the price for this terrible decision. Also, 15 minutes delay is nothing. There seems to be a lot of delays going around lately. What airport do you fly from and where do you typically connect? Weather has been shit in DFW this summer, which is their main hub. It has been really screwing up operations.
That is INSANE that FAs don't get paid until departure.
This is the norm for AA. Godspeed.
20 segments last month and none cancelled, and only 1 delayed by more than 15 minutes. Probably jinx myself now. YMMV.
No. It’s a shit airline
It's not you, it's me...
I find that how good the service is really depends on where the crew is originating from. What city were you flying out of? As for the delays, it’s par for the course since Covid and it’s not really an AA only issue. Have had the same issues on delta and united.
Not just you. I got platinum status this year, and I’ve had two flights in two weeks cancelled. Rebooked on a different airline on the first one, paying $650 more out of pocket so I wouldn’t miss $450 theater tickets. American gave us 5k as a sorry. Cancellation was crew related. Second flight they were gonna be delayed 1.5 hours, which was our whole connection, so American automatically rebooked us on new flights a day later. Said we could extend the trip on the back end but couldn’t get us back til two days later. Our rebooked flights where then also delayed an hour and required us to stay overnight in another city, where we’d have to wait in line for hotel vouchers upon arrival. At that point, we just canceled. We’ll get the refund but of course I’m sure they’ll give us nothing for the cancelled hotel we gave up. Both times that our flights were cancelled, we saw on the airport departures board that nearly every AA flight out of Austin was delayed or cancelled. That plus their shit customer service means I’m def not trying to renew status with them this year and I’m not even sure I’ll fly with them again while I still have it, given that I can’t seem to ever get where I’m going anyway.
My flight tomorrow is oversold. They're asking for volunteers. Did I get bad karma by making this post?
4-6 flights a week and not a single one on time? I fly weekly and while you may depart 15 min late, I typically land pretty dang close to the time I was supposed to land and that’s what matters most IMO. AA has a solid 30+ min baked into every flight from what I’ve seen. My recent flights to and from DFW - Pittsburgh (that’s this months destination) have been landing early believe it or not
Not recent but I commuted for 18 months CLT-ORL and early was the rule rather than exception.
And you will keep flying AA despite all this LOL
You commented this on previous posts also. Why must you be so exhausting?
everyone always complains, and nothing changes