by Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor.
There are times when you have to cut ties to a vendor when the arrangement no longer is suitable. Then, there are other times when the insolence and lack of respect is so great that if the internet was not available to vent such consternation we probably would boil over in frustration.
American Airlines won the latter approach by leaving my wife stranded–alone in an airport–lied about there being no accommodations to carry her through the night, and refused any form of compensation for their failure to schedule crew members for the flight, leading to this debacle.
Since it was not in American Airline’s interest to offer a hotel room or at least courtesy voucher for another flight here’s some negative publicity as a parting gift to you.
A close friend is a flight attendant with AA so it was with disappointment I write this, regarding his employer. But kinship has limits.
My wife attended a professional conference in the District of Columbia and afterward was scheduled the night before last to fly from Reagan International to Albany to visit family. I remained home during her travels.
She was to board an American Airlines direct-flight to Albany at 7:30 PM. Just before then, the desk announced a delay, which then turned to a cancellation. It seems the flight was short a crewperson who allegedly was to travel from Charlotte. The airline then announced the flight would be delayed until 11:30 but changed this to a cancellation. Several of the original passengers were allowed to rebook on another flight but by the time my wife arrived at the counter there were no seats available. The next flight would be in the morning.
Essentially, they told my wife she was on her own. This was after she informed them she did not live in DC.
When she telephoned me and asked what to do, I explained that AA should offer her a voucher for a hotel room to billet her for the night since it was American Airline’s fault the flight was cancelled. She then returned to the counter and requested an accommodation but to her dismay she was told there were no hotels available and that they would offer no compensation to my wife. No compensation? They drop the ball and my wife was expected to pick up the pieces.
I then went online and discovered that there were ten hotels in the vicinity having vacancies. My wife and I do not use smartphones so I had to do the research for the American Airlines’ employees who just rolled over and pretended that no vacancies existed. Oh, maybe it was because no “cheaper” hotels were available or that it involved too much work to help out a customer. Unfortunately, when I tried to reach my wife the cellphone went to voicemail. The reception there was poor during our previous conversation. I left messages with information on which hotels to call but she didn’t receive the voice mail notification until the next morning.
Thus then began the ordeal for my wife, courtesy of American Airlines.
I expressed to her my reservations with staying alone in the airport at night, Thus, the airline needed to find her a room. My concern was that she might fall asleep and some misanthrope would steal her luggage. She found a lounge of some form that was behind glass where she felt more comfortable. It would not last long. At 1:00 AM a security guard directed her to leave since the concourse was closing. My wife then had to manage somehow in the main terminal, making all attempts at rest a fool’s errand.
In total American Airlines awarded my wife one hour’s sleep.
Fortunately she managed to depart for Albany in the morning. Still, there was nothing to be offered by American Airlines for all the discomfort their scheduling error and lack of accommodation caused.
The airline prides itself with the motto “The World’s Greatest Flyers Fly American” yet it treated one of these “greatest flyers” as if they were baggage that can simply bet left to sit on a bench without any respect.
No, if we were to fly American Airlines after this incident we would be one of the World’s Greatest Chumps to fall for that promise again. Our days of flying AA are over.
I hope saving a couple hundred dollars for a hotel voucher or courtesy ticket was worthwhile for American Airlines. AA, you bought for yourselves a great deal of negative publicity via direct advertisement to a market segment that flies frequently.
To others out there, I ask that when you fly think of how American Airlines valued my wife’s business by abandoning her in a terminal. I recommend selecting another carrier, at the very least to show support for my wife and make their lack sensitivity cost them many times over in lost revenue. Because judging by their actions, money what that matters to American Airlines.
By Darren Smith
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
Very sad that flying has turned into such a horrible experience. I have flown since I was a child – every two years we would come to the US to visit family. Pan Am and Delta were my favs. The stewards/stewardesses were all so kind to us and we always got to say hello to the pilots IN the cockpit! =) Now I avoid Delta – the surly personnel and lack of customer service is awful. And I won’t even get started on the TSA nazis.
Same thing to me too. No rooms available, No vouchers for another flight or food nothing. They just don’t care plane and simple.
I think that the Denver airport recently built a hotel attached to the terminal. It can easily take an hour to get transportation and check into a hotel, and a couple more hours to get back to the airport and through security again, leaving little time for actual sleeping in a hotel which is a few miles away from the airport terminal. An attached hotel could offer simple cheap bunks like in a traveler’s hostel where you put the sheets on the bed when you come and turn them in at the desk when you leave, coupled with a public rest room.
This summer I booked an American flight out of a small upstate NY airport. One of those American Eagle flying as American Airlines flights. The day my flight was scheduled, they cancelled the flight 30 minutes before departure. No hotel, no alternate flight, no ground transport to another airport, and no explanation.
“Try again tomorrow” was the best I got.
The next day (missing a day of work already), the same flight was four hours late, causing my to miss my connecting flight in Philadelphia. They did give me a hotel voucher, for a hotel that was 30 minutes away, not the Marriott located right in the airport–they don’t have a deal with them anymore.
I got two hours of sleep and took a transport back to the airport where my flight home was not only two hours late, but they changed gates twice and had to switch out planes.
All in all, two days of work lost. No make-up ticket, no refund or compensation of any kind, even though I had flight insurance (because they DID get me home, right?). No apology.
Never again will I fly American or any of its sh*tty subsidiaries.
I had to deal w/ a nasty, pompous United agent in Newark this past July. She did not want to give me a room and meal voucher because “the computer” didn’t say my delay was mechanical, stranding me in lovely Newark for the night. I know my rights, and it will not shock people here who know me I can be forceful. I was irate, but I controlled my anger and channeled it into being persistent. I told the agent the pilot on our delayed flight apologized to the passengers for the 4 hour delay, causing me to miss the connection. I asked her to make a call to verify this. She got real nasty, it was almost role reversal from the usual scenario. I could see a supervisor walking behind this bank of agents, almost like a pit boss. She was monitoring all, but I could see she was focusing on us. I remained persistent but civil. This supervisor called the agent into the back room. A few minutes later the chastened agent came back out, made a call and verified what I had told her about the mechanical delay. The agent then issued me a room and meal voucher.
A couple days later, I emailed a complaint. I had info on the agent and the sharp supervisor. I started my complaint praising the supervisor. I was given an apology and $200 voucher.
As a retired airline agent I can tell you that this is a customer service failure on all levels. Cancellations other than weather are the airlines problem. However this airline is more concerned with $$ than return customers. Their agents will not go the extra mile and that’s pretty much across the board. Consider this. You have former America West and US Airways employees forced to join Continental and AA employees and all of them are not willing to play as a team. AA management cannot care less. Look at how they treated TWA employees. Be aware of your rights as a customer. Write your complaints to the FAA with the DOT copied in. My son flies for AA. He cannot justify this kind of ignorance.
bet you wish you had written this all down and then waited 24 hours to read it again before you posted it. Professor, will you keep this moron as a guest blogger? he seems more equipped to work for Hillary.
Wow, all this hating on Darren! We talk a lot on this blog about the lack of accountability in government, etc. Why shouldn’t he be upset about AA refusing to give his wife a damn voucher? Until corporations are held accountable they will continue to gouge customers even while the “service” shrinks. The more we put up with this the worse it gets in every facet of life – insurance companies, airline companies, the outright lies by the MSM. I bet AA gets government subsidies from taxpayers as well.
Autumn, yes, Darren, along with his wife, have every right to be upset. No question about it. American Airlines failed. Failed big time. The other issue is, however, is what one does when faced with such an unexpected dilemma. We can’t control our environment, but we can surely control our respective responses to that environment. Does one dig his and/her heels in, opting to remain alone, as a female, in an abandoned airport, all night, sitting straight up in a plastic chair, terrified of closing one’s eyes out of fear of being robbed or molested? Or, does one comprehend that this issue will be addressed, at a later time, with more responsible parties at AA, and leave the airport for more suitable accommodations? Shouldn’t one employ just a modicum of common sense, hop on the nearest airport taxi and stay at a nearby hotel for the night? His wife, I assume, wasn’t destitute. Wasn’t broke. Hadn’t just had her wallet taken. She just didn’t want to part with the funds. Outrageous. At what point does the bizarre and inexplicable need to save a few bucks outweigh the need for a safe and warm bed for the night? No one is excusing the bad behavior of AA. It’s the odd and bizarre behavior that followed that many find strange.
I try not to fly anywhere and when I do it is by Southwest.
Do you have cites for that, PS? Or are are you making it all up again?
I don’t get it, Darren. Okay. So the idiot behind the counter, late at night, was an imbecile, who refused to give your wife a voucher. Yes, I would have been upset, had this happened to me, but not so upset that I would lose all rational thought and common sense by resorting to staying, ALONE, as a woman, in an airport all night, sitting up in a hard, plastic chair, just so I could save a few dollars. Seriously. Are you guys really so down and out that she couldn’t afford to take a taxi, to a nearby hotel, where she could take a hot shower and get some sleep in a warm, safe bed? How crazy must one be to try to rough it, as a lone woman, in an abandoned airport all night? Absolute insanity. The airlines could have been dealt with at a later date and time, where you could speak with the corporate office about compensation for your expenses. If your wife only got one hour of sleep, perhaps it is a lesson learned that one’s health and safety are paramount and are not negotiable. Learn to save your pennies elsewhere, where one’s life and security are not at risk.
Grow up! I’m sure your wife is a lovely person, and is an adult worthy of someone beyond a whining self-centered moron. Life is tough and AA probably didn’t know how absolutely privileged you are.
One of the hallmarks of civilization is that we strive to be better.
Darren articulated what many of us feel and have experienced.
If you accept the status quo, then good for you – the rest of us will progress.
Given your language/attitude, I suspect that you work at the Dept. of Motor Vehicles.
Yeah, Darren, AA is the only carrier to do this kind of thing.
I meant “if so,” not “if not” in the above comment. It’s half past 12 here in Wisconsin and I’m tired.
From the Department of Transportation: “Contrary to popular belief, airlines are not required to compensate passengers whose flights are delayed or canceled.” (http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/publications/flyrights.htm#delayed) American Airlines is hardly alone in their practices. If you applied your silly boycott to all airlines with the same policies, you’d never fly again.
Whiny Darren Smith is dead to me.
@Oxa, give the guy a break it’s his wife. The woman’s alone of all places D.C. A cheap hotel voucher should be the right thing to. Hell they nickel and dime you to death from carry on to a beverage a passenger should expect some help from the airlines. Would you feel the same why if it’s your wife or daughter?
“Whiny Darren Smith is dead to me.”
Wow Oxa – do you have anger issues?
We have read Darren for years – sometimes we agree, sometimes we disagree, but many of us welcome his columns and look forward to getting them.
Your loss – and as an aside I don’t think that I will miss your comments from Darren’s columns.
Did your wife buy one of the budget-priced tickets that included no guarantee of a room in the event that the flight was delayed or cancelled? If not, then what happened is unfortunately part and parcel of what happens when flights are cancelled or delayed. There are more expensive tickets that one can purchase that would offer the guarantee of a hotel room.
In 2015 when moving back to the States from Denmark, a very similar situation happened to me. Due to a delay, I was stuck on the East coast in an airport for a few hours in the middle of the night until the next connecting flight to Minneapolis would leave. I moreover had an overly-tired 6YO and a 10YO with me. Even more unfortunately, I misplaced my tracfone in the previous airport (there were a total of three flights we had to take between Copenhagen and Minneapolis, in order to get the cheapest price) and therefore I couldn’t call anyone. Fortunately I at least had my ancient creaky laptop on my person, so I was able to pay the fee for airport internet service, and broadcast on my facebook page that I had lost my phone and could someone please contact my sister (who was to pick me up at the airport in Minneapolis) and please relate to her that due to a delay with Icelandic Air I’d missed my connecting flight and therefore would be spending most of the night in whatever East Coast airport I was stranded in, with my overly-tired kids, and could they please relate to my sister that she should come back to the Minneapolis airport early the next morning at thus-and-such time.
I had purchased the budget-priced tickets on orbitz or something like that. After all, it is expensive to move back home to the States from overseas and every little bit of savings helps. When our delayed landing resulted in a missed connection, I was fully aware that I had no entitlement to a hotel room, because I had purchased budget tickets. My kiddies and I eventually hunkered down on the floor, and I stayed awake with the help of energy drinks while my little ones snoozed as best they could on the floor in the airport concourse.
When I was in line to arrange the next leg of my flight (before hunkering down on the airport floor), some bullying jerk was ahead of me at the customer service desk. Although he and his wife had purchased budget tickets, he felt entitled to a hotel room nonetheless, and was bullying, insulting, and badgering the desk staff, demanding that the airline pay for a hotel room for him and his wife, while the frazzled staff kept telling him that with the budget-priced ticket, he had no right to a free hotel room. Finally I’d had enough of his bull$h!t and hollered out something quite close to “hey, quit abusing the staff and holding the line up, the rest of us have places to be and things to do, and your obnoxiousness may well cause someone else to miss a connecting flight!” The bully sheepishly walked away, I moved up in line, and (without being a jerk) was able to arrange for seats on the next connecting flight a few hours later.
These things happen with air travel. Don’t get your undies in a bundle over it. Delays and airport dozing are part and parcel of the adventure. For example, over the past three decades I’ve ended up having to spend nights in train stations and airports in Paris, Amsterdam, Athens, Seattle, Copenhagen, London, Toronto, and wherever it was on the East Coast it was that I was stuck with my kiddies back in 2015. The more one flies, the more likely it will be that one will be delayed and need to stay in an airport. If you don’t want that risk, then cough up the extra money for one of the more expensive tickts that will guarantee a hotel stay should your flight be delayed or cancelled.
And lastly… about a quarter of my ancestors came to this side of the big pond back in the 1600’s. Roughly another half came in the 1700’s. And about a quarter came in the 1800’s. What my ancestors endured in leaky old tubs for weeks on end while crossing the Atlantic makes your wife’s travail pale in comparison.
andrea:
If you are going to use the experiences of your ancestors as the standard, then you are the ideal customer for the airlines.
Back then, when they had to go, they hung their rear ends over the rail. If you suggest that cost saving measure to the great folks at Ryan Air, they will embrace you – and meet you standards.
Progress comes because we demand better – think back to your ancestors during the 30 Years War – do you really want to hold that up as a valid standard?
I tend to respond to delays somewhat circumspectly — my grandparents arrived here (from Denmark) in the Lusitania in May 1912. They were delayed in Liverpool because the ship they were supposed to travel in was overbooked, so they got bumped. It was, of course, the Titanic. A whole lot of descendants dodged a bullet on that one.
andrea olmansøn:
Jeg er nysgerrig. Taler du dansk? Hvor boede du i Danmark?
Porkchop – Jeg kun tale lidt engelsk. Vi boede i Køge.
I mean, jeg kun tale lidt Dansk. Jeg er træt og bør ikke forsøge at skrive på dansk.
so, my brother worked in the airline industry for years. I learned so much from him – he started out literally in the belly of the beast – gassing up airplanes and then worked his way up to being a service manager for baggage handlers / custodial stuff. He says that many of of the pilots are drunks — they get off the plane and either head for the bar or the gym. More scary though to me is that maintenance on those planes is done in 3rd world countries with zilch regulation for safety/mechanical issues.
“He says that many of of the pilots are drunks — they get off the plane and either head for the bar or the gym.”
Quite an extreme there, wouldn’t you say? I know lots of drunks that go to the gym, so maybe you’re right.
I love anecdotal stories from someone inhaling petroleum products all day.
Great stuff, thanks for sharing.
and yet another testimony on how much AA sucks
wow, sorry to hear about your wife’s experience. Overall AA has gone down in terms of customer service. The only worse airline I can think of is Delta. Once the corporados came in they destroyed in those once fine airlines. Now the staff is disgruntled and hates the customers. But apparently stockholders are happy. When I fly it’s SouthWest these days.
“Once the corporados came in they destroyed in those once fine airlines. Now the staff is disgruntled and hates the customers.”
Capitalism at its best — squeeze the rock, maybe something good will happen.
Everything must be cheaper, so that we can complain about how everything is so cheap.
Sniff, I need a hankie to hide my eyes from the obvious.
I had problems with American airlines last year sent them a letter they sent me a voucher good for a year just used it this past week things were great very pleased with them they apologized the 380.00 dollar trip only cost me 50.00 great trip so far
The exact same thing happened to my wife last month when her Amercan Airlines flight from Orlando to Phoenix was delayed and her connecting flight to San Francisco left Phoenix 15 minutes before she landed. She landed just after 11 p.m. and there were no other flights available to San Francisco until the next morning. No rooms were offered or available so she ended up trying to sleep in the terminal with the constant interruptions of cleaning crews vacuuming. In the morning instead of putting her on a direct flight to San Francisco that was available, they made her first fly to Los Angeles. What should have been a 7 hour trip turned into a miserable 23 hour trip without any compensation at all. Never American Airlines again.