American Airlines is bringing back the ability for passengers to add themelves to standby for a flight with an agent. Last year they implemented rules that required most customers to:
- be AAdvantage members in order to stand by for free
- use self-service channels only (AA.com, mobile app)
- do so at least 45 minutes prior to the new flight
Platinum Pro, Executive Platinum, and ConciergeKey members could still run up to the gate 15 minutes prior to departure and get added to standby. For anyone else, they were out of luck.
That was a huge frustration because sometimes digital options wouldn’t exist for flights, or the system would error out. Golds and Platinum members were allowed to standby with a checked bag – but the website and app wouldn’t allow it, so they could never use this benefit they’d earned.
As part of a more customer-centric focus, one of the key things I’ve been suggesting American should do is reverse this policy. Now the airline shares that all customers will once again be able to be added to standby in-person with an agent.
Beginning tomorrow, July 1, all customers are eligible to list for same-day standby with an agent up to 45 minutes prior to departure – regardless of AAdvantage® membership or status. The policy is only applicable to domestic flights and segments.
We are continuously looking for ways to enhance the travel journey for our customers and this update gives all customers the convenience of a flexible itinerary, space permitting.
I have clarified that Platinum Pro, Executive Platinum, and ConciergeKey members will continue to be allowed to stand by up to 15 minutes prior to departure.
This is unequivocal good news for American’s customers, and a key policy reversal – an easy win that removes a real pain point for customers. Too many have been turned away when seats were available to get where they were going and this should help alleviate that problem.
It’s yuuuuuuge!
Isn’t this costing them tons of money to have internal meetings , planning, project management etc to make a move to change something then a year later change it back? Shouldn’t people be getting actively fired in project management and leadership positions at AA for this?
sorry but this will backfire badly.
Adding the ability to be added to the standby list within 45 minutes should be allowed – but not at the gate. flights should be boarding or within minutes of boarding at that time.
flights should be nearly boarded 15 minutes before departure.
allowing someone to come running up at the last minute to be added to the standby list is not going to turn out well.
from an operational standpoint, the cutoff should be 1 hour for everyone except top tier and 30 minutes for them and no standby additions at the gate once boarding has started.
On July 18, at 5 AM, the 2nd leg of my TPA-CLT-HPN AA flights was canceled. My first leg was scheduled to leave TPA at about 7 AM. On the AA app there were no seats available on CLT-HPN flights until July 19. Using the Exec. Plat call center I was able to secure a new set of flights: TPA-DCA at 7 AM, and DCA-HPN at 5 PM. This would result in about a 5-6 hour delay in my arrival at HPN. At the TPA checkin counter the AA Agent was able to put me on standby for a 1 PM flt DCA-HPN. My checked suitcase would go on this flight regardless if I had to wait for the 5 PM flight. I landed at DCA a bit early (about 9:15 AM) and saw on the departures board that the 9:15 AM DCA-HPN flight was delayed till 10:15. I hustled over to the departure gate and got there about 9:40. The jet bridge door was closed. I asked the agent to be put me on as a standby for the 9:15 flight as it wasn’t going to leave for another 35 minutes. Initially the agent denied my request but when I said I was Exec. Plat., she immediately said, “Oh, you are qualified” and she gave me a new boarding pass for seat 9D and I boarded and had the whole row to myself. We actually left the gate at about 10:30 (the delay was due to HPN being fogged in with less than 1/4 mile visibility). I thought my suitcase would arrive on the 1 PM flight. Imagine my happy surprise when I saw it on the luggage conveyor belt at HPN when I just finished getting my car reservation So, I actually arrived to HPN, with my suitcase, about 2 hours before my ORIGINAL booking. Needless to say I am pleased how AA treated me on this travel adventure.
@Tim Dunn — It’s overall good, though. Whether it’s 45 minutes or an hour cutoff, they can try it, adjust later. (Separately, I know Delta’s motto by heart, ‘Keep Climbing,’ but, for the life of me, couldn’t recall American’s… ‘Let Good Take Flight’… bah!)
Good.
This was one of the worst policies they ever implemented, completely customer unfriendly in every way particularly to frequent fliers and people affected by IROPS. I hope whomever thought this was a good idea was fired.
Gary,
where is the story on the Supreme Court’s denial of AA’s petition to overturn the lower courts’ rulings on the NEA?
@Tim Dunn — While I personally liked the Northeast Alliance, I’d imagine the court found the topic moot now that B6 is practically realigning with UA. Besides, at this point, the 6-3 court is busy stripping away citizenship and ensuring we have a king, so it’s all relative. Which reminds me, be sure to ‘bow’ to his majesty when in ‘court’!
Will be interesting to see how this change fares versus the relentless-but-futile quest for D0.
My money is on D0.
The 45 min rule is beyond dumb. Let people get to their destination. Guess AA “going for great” happened to forget “why you fly”
They’ve also stopped restricting SDC to aadvantage members recently without any announcement that I have seen.
Gary, love to see this, but I have a follow up. During IROPS, AA has this infuriating policy that you can’t standby for a flight flying to a different airport than the one you’re ticketed to. For instance, say I’m on a 4 o’clock flight to JFK that got canceled. The next one isn’t until 7, and has a long standby list. However, there’s a 5 o’clock to LaGuardia that has a much shorter list that I would have a better chance at getting, and avoid having to face the possibility of an overnight. I should be able to standby for that flight and solve my problem, right? Wrong. Even if the airports are only a couple miles from each other, AA won’t let you standby to a different airport. It’s an absolutely infuriating policy that has screwed me over several times. I don’t know if this problem is unique to AA, but I would certainly feel a lot more comfortable flying with them if this issue was fixed. So I’m wondering if this change also means they fixed that problem?
Tough to see how getting more passengers to their destination earlier – avoiding potential delays and problems on later flights – could be construed as either bad service or a problem. Good for AA on recognizing that they made a bad decision and reversing that decision.