American Airlines
Officially, American Airlines are a bunch of chumps. Why, you ask? Well, I have full intents to tell you, obviously.
My first flight out from Portland was at 6:45 AM, but wasn’t on American, but actually on Alaskan Airlines. They were actually quite a pleasing airline. The flight was empty, for the most part, and I couldn’t convince them to give me a free upgrade to First Class, but they at least provided a snack on the flight, as opposed to American, who chooses to now sell their snacks for a ridiculous price of $4 (items that consist the package cost less than a $1 in total).
My arrival was in San Jose, CA - 8:20 AM, which was 15 minutes ahead of schedule. I was pleased. However, to no fault of American Airlines, the airport was under complete reconstruction. As a result, I ended up having to leave the terminal we arrived at (which used a drive-up ramp as opposed to the standard ramps), use an inter-terminal bus to take me over to Terminal A. However, rather than being provided access to the terminal without having to go through the TSA security, I was treated just like any other person coming from the outside, and had to go through security AGAIN. This was quite annoying and rather pissed me off seeing as the security line wrapped quite a way around the building. It took me about 30-45 minutes to get through security.
So, when it was time for my flight from San Jose, CA to DFW, we ended up leaving 25 to 30 minutes late. Upsetting, yes, but the pilot managed to get us on the ground at DFW right on time, giving me plenty of time to get to my next gate for departure, except for one small detail. Our arrival gate was occupied by the time we arrived, so we were holding on the ground for 45 minutes - with no other available gates available to dock at. So, as a result of 45 minutes delay caused me to have only 15 minutes to run between terminals to get to my next gate. However, once we were at the arrival gate, it took another 10 minutes for everyone to get off the plane, thus giving me 5 minutes to get to the plane. Melissa informed me that it was the last flight out that night (via Cell Phone), so I ran harder than I’d ever run before.
I managed to get there right as they had closed the cabin and already started one of the engines. So, lucky for me, the somehow ended up stalling long enough for me to get there - the plane left 20 minutes late as a result of me.
But, worse of all was the fact that both Melissa AND my luggage somehow didn’t end up on the plan back to College Station. There was actually quite a shortage of luggage on the flight - as there were other people who were missing their luggage.
I might elaborate more on this later, but for now I have other things to do. Ciao!
Hmmm. I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t come along in your luggage.
Wow, sorry I’m quite behind on reading these. As you know, we’ve both been busy with finishing up Cerberus projects, preparing for school/starting school, and other events. I will get caught up with these shortly, I promise.
Now, in reply to this blog: I completely agree with your opinions on American Airlines, for I too have had a lot of trouble with them in the past. You already know the story, Chris, but I’ll give a brief retelling here:
In late July, I was making my return to Kentucky from visiting Chris in Texas. My local airport is a regional airport, so they only fly to select cities in the mid-west (Chicago, Detroit, Memphis). My flight was scheduled to fly from Houston, TX, to Chicago, ILL, then from Chicago, to Evansville, IN. The flight was delayed for about fourty-five minutes on the runway. American Airlines wasn’t at faught for the delay, but it did set me back and nearly made me light for my connecting flight in Chicago. After my first flight, and boarding my connector flight in Chicago, we were forced to wait on the runway yet again. Not because of weather conditions, but because the O’Haire towers were incompetent of directing flights properly.
An hour passed on the runway. I try to remain patient and optimistic about getting home. The frustrating thing about the delay is that the pilot didn’t inform us what was going on with the delay, so passengers were left to wonder or assume.
The fight from Chicago to Evansville is only a 40 minute flight, so I figured things would be okay. Well, I was wrong. I called my parents while on the plane and told them I was going to be late. While on the phone speaking to my father, he told me what was going on, and that our pilot had clocked out. How fucking ridiculous is that? No information given to costumers, and no pilot to even fly the damn plane for a 40 minute flight.
Shortly after speaking to my father, I turned and told people beside me what had happened. The flight attendant spoke to us on the intercom about how the flight had been canceled because of “weather conditions” shortly after. Bullshit! If anything, there may have been a dark cloud in the sky.
After leaving the plane, we were told to go to “any of the gate desks to retrieve valtures.” Hmmm…Another lie. I’m willing to bet I talked to over ten customer service representatives until I found one that didn’t turn me away because they were “too busy” on their computers.
So, what kind of valture did I receive? A flight ticket for the 7am flight, and $10 for food. That’s right, while other people on my flight were offered cab and hotel values, I got fucked with a food valture, for restaurants that were closed, and no place to sleep. That’s pretty raunchy if you ask me, but they didn’t care.
I went to complain to the main American Airlines front desk to see if I could get any help. Keep in mind this is around 11:00pm past security gates. I made the mistake of leaving the terminal. I went to the front desk just to find out they were closed. When I tried to go back through the security gates, they were closed as well. I had no other option but to jump onto the monorail and head over to the international terminal, where they have no American Airlines service desk, but they do have some restaurants that stay open later than the other terminals.
To make a long story short, I waited around until 5:30am, when security opened, to go back into my terminal. I then waited at my gate until me flight…CANCELED because of “bad weather” (grey clouds). I was rescheduled for a 9:30am flight…CANCELED because of more grey clouds. Rescheduled for an 11:30am flight…CANCELED due to rain. ” ” 12:30pm flight…CANCELED due to lightning. ” ” 2:00pm flight…CANCELED for grey clouds. After a few more cancelations and playing a twelve hour game of Musical Gates, I finally boarded my flight around 5:00pm to go home.
While O’Haire Airport (a partnered destination for American Airlines) may have had some part of this, the raunchy service team at American Airlines should have done a much better job of helping their frequent customers during a 16 hour+ lay-over. After this experience, I think it’s rather obvious to say I will never fly American Airlines again, nor will I ever use O’Haire Airport for connector flights.