There’s a lot of things that American Airlines could do better. I’ve long believed that there’s no airline in America – possibly even the world – with more potential to be a better airline than it is today.

• I’ve liked a lot of things they’ve done recently. The new cabins on their Boeing 787-9Ps are absolutely stunning. They’ve added some beautiful lounges, and have committed to grow the lounge footprint in Miami. They’re adding free wifi next year to their narrowbody fleet (and some widebodies) and adding high speed wifi to regional jets. And they’re working through some customer-unfriendly policies like collecting business class headsets an hour before landing.

  

• There’s still a lot of work to do. While their buy on board program lags the competition, they’ve added some items. The beef sandwich hasn’t been very good the two times I’ve tried it (once it was downright terrible), but the tapas box isn’t bad at all. I’d rather have a sandwich and salad than a box of packaged snacks, but the contents of the box are decent. Too many flights I’ve been on haven’t had it.

  

  

  And they have a number of policies that desperately need fixing, like not allowing most customers to be added to standby for a flight within 45 minutes of departure and refusing to through-check bags on separate tickets even when they’re separate American Airlines tickets (or when you book an AAdvantage award on a non-oneworld partner airline, and have to buy an American Airlines ticket because they weren’t offering award space).

There are too many frontline team members that don’t like their jobs and show it. But there are also fantastic employees who go the extra mile and put in the effort each day even though it’s not rewarded. I absolutely love so many of the employees at American Airlines.

But here’s where American shines for me: irregular operations recovery. Last year I shared one perk that most top tier elite members don’t even know that keeps me well-taken care of when flight plans go sideways. American Airlines will add a backup flight into your reservation, without having to change from your current flight.

I was on an American Airlines basic economy ticket this week.

• I knew that my plans were firm. And besides, I didn’t think it was worth spending an extra $80 to avoid the risk of losing $99 in value from the ticket if I did need to cancel and rebook.

• They still honor my elite benefits. I can select extra legroom seats and I’m eligible for upgrades. I earn fewer points, but I’ve practically requalified for Executive Platinum already and I’m not going to make ConciergeKey so that’s not a big deal. They don’t ban you from their lounges like Delta. does.

Flying out of Washington’s National airport my flight to Dallas was delayed. There was bad weather, and the airport switched to takeoffs to a shorter runway. We were a fully loaded Airbus A321 with extra fuel – too heavy for a runway 4 takeoff. We needed to wait until the airport switched back to the main runway 1.

So it was actually a blessing when thunderstorms rolled in! It meant a pause in operations, and when the storm passed they moved back to the main runway and we were able to take off.

• While I was on the ground I rang up American. I had a 90 minute connection there before my onward flight to Austin. I asked them to grab one of the last seats on the next Dallas – Austin flight and stick it in my reservation and not reissue the ticket.

• That way I could still try to make my planned connection – I just had a backup plan if the delay dragged on. Which is did – we sat for two hours. When we finally departed we showed an arrival 1 minute after my connection was scheduled to depart.

• While in the air, I asked American’s twitter team to reissue the ticket, giving up the 7:15 p.m. flight and confirming me onto the 8:00 p.m. That flight delayed to 8:55 p.m. But a seat opened on the 9:15 p.m. departure, and I asked the twitter folks to back me up onto that. They grabbed the seat.

• What good fortune, too, because within 3 minutes both my original 7:15 p.m. and the delayed 8:00 p.m. had cancelled, and both remaining flights were zeroed out.

My upgrade had cleared for my original Dallas – Austin flight. The Executive Platinum agent I spoke to on the ground backed me up in first class on that 8 p.m. And the twitter team backed me up in first on the 9:15 p.m. On a basic economy ticket.

I’ve always found American to be very accommodating of Executive Platinums during irregular operations. It’s not like when I was briefly a ConciergeKey member and they would oversell a flight to confirm me onto it (their ‘next flight guarantee’) and I could use their Flagship check-in and business class lounges on domestic trips, plus premium services agents would regularly meet me at the gate at hubs and meet me when I landed off connections during irregular operations.

But when I’ve asked for something they’ve been very helpful – and the ability to keep unticketed backup flights in a booking as insurance during delays is just such a great way to help road warriors get where they’re going.

I’m in the middle of traveling eleven out of twelve weeks, more hotels and airport lounges than I can keep straight. And it means a lot for American to have my back getting me where I’m trying to travel – even when I’m doing it on the cheapest fare they’re still valuing the whole range of my business, not just the ticket that day. It means a lot.

Once on the ground in Dallas I headed over to the Admirals Club in the D terminal because the vaunted new app was erroring and I needed my boarding pass.

I made the mistake of picking up an empanada there, dripping grease ruined my shirt – I didn’t eat it and changed shirts.

Actually @americanair has done this in their Admirals Clubs. https://t.co/mnX1dwEabT pic.twitter.com/iM6wfsHlJq

— gary leff (@garyleff) June 25, 2025

Here’s what the customer service line looked like – there was no line for help inside the lounge.

I used the Capital One and Amex apps to join the waitlists for both lounges. DFW was a mess, so wait lists for both were long – Capital One showed 85 to 105 minutes (!) and American Express doesn’t show predicted wait times.

Both texted at the exact same time 40 minutes after my request (which had been placed while I was still on the aircraft). By the time I had a boarding pass and had stopped at the restroom I went from the Admiral’s Club to the Capital One lounge next door for a snack and a drink and made it home.