American Airlines Passenger Finds Used Condom At Seat — Customer Service Shrugs

One Mile at a Time flags a report by an American Airlines passenger who says they found a used (extra large size) condom at their seat when they flew from Phoenix to El Paso.

Been a loyal million-miler for over 20 years, definitely have felt a decline in service and quality but my flight Thursday from PHX to ELP takes the cake. A used condom and wrapper in the seat, i snapped a picture of the wrapper but the FA got the condom itself away before my picture. I’ve never been in a situation like this and could use some advice. I spoke to a supervisor at PHX but she didn’t apologize or seem to care. Just wanted a picture of my picture. I emailed customer service and you are seeing their response. Any advice on what to do here is appreciated.

Here’s the customer service response that the passenger shares:

Given the onboard standards that we have for our aircraft, I can understand your disappointment with your uncleaned seat on flight AA3835. I regret that your flight wasn’t enjoyable due to this. That’s not at all the kind of experience we want you to have with us, however, I am glad to read that you were proactive and notified the flight attendant and gate agent upon landing in El Paso.

Please be assured that we take all of our customers’ concerns and feedback seriously. The comments that you shared with me today will be made available to our leadership team in Phoenix for further review and will be used to refine and update our practices. We want our customer journey to be the best in the industry, and we thank you for giving us the opportunity to drive change.

One Mile at a Time wonders what it meant that the condom was ‘used,’ whether it’s really possible to make full use of it on a short domestic flight in a standard economy seat (it is), or whether it wa a prank?

I was at the Ritz-Carlton Naples many years ago when they assigned a room with an unmade bed, and a used condom in it. Their response was at least a genuine apology and an upgrade. They genuinely did not know what to say, and acknowledged that even with the tangible apology, it was still utterly appalling.

Here American Airlines did not provide an acceptable response, because they (1) clearly did not deliver the basic product which is clean, sanitary transportation (2) apparently failed at the apology and (3) failed to make the apology tangible with some form of compensation.

The product you buy from an airline is not just transportation from A to B, but some modicum of sanitary transportation. And there shouldn’t be a used condom at your seat when you board. Maybe that’s the fault of the previous passenger in the seat (who knows what they were doing with the condom) but certainly this passenger did not receive the product that American led them to believe they were purchasing. Maybe the learning here is that they need to do a better job of cleaning between flights (‘the D in D0 stands for dirty’).