A New Reason for American Not to Offer Predeparture Beverages

There are two things American Airlines believes affects premium passenger perception of service: flight attendants referring to them by name, and offering predeparture beverages.

American Airlines flight attendants are inconsistent about offering beverages prior to push back. And there’s no consequence if they don’t. If they don’t consider themselves to have time, they can skip it.

One flight, though, finally had a good reason not to offer them — and even to skip most inflight beverage service too.

I shared a flight delay on twitter yesterday since my interaction with the gate agent was rather odd (and led me to speculate that the issue was security-related).

And it drew this response:

Slogan, “D0: It’s Time to Go!”

This isn’t the first time American flew without any working lavatories.

And back in September American continued a Hawaii flight with only one working lavatory and that one “was overflowing” after a passenger flushed a diaper down the toilet.

On Christmas Day though an American Airlines Dallas – London flight diverted when just 4 of the 12 lavatories were non-functioning. Flight attendants declared this a security threat since it meant more passengers queuing for the remaining lavs.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Is this post about beverages or bathrooms? Confused. Did this post make s left turn mid thread?

  2. I’ve actually encountered this announcement 2-3 times this year on American – “Ladies and gentlemen, please remember to use the restrooms in the terminal prior to boarding, as the lavs on board are not functioning.” These were small AA Eagle regional planes, and usually the flights in those cases were so delayed that passengers were willing to put up with it. I definitely had to refuse drinks in-flight to make sure I had enough bladder room to make it to the other airport.

  3. I can picture a gaggle of FAs congratulating each other on their courage to decide that pax waiting in line for a bathroom are a security threat.

  4. The idea of planes flying without toilets is scary. Seriously, make seats narrower as people get wider. At the same time, reduce bathrooms as people get older and become less camel like. Stupid.

    Hmm, maybe if there are no bathrooms, they could stock the plane with adult diapers and turn the heat up to 90 so people sweat it out.

    Yuck. Maybe AA is working on becoming Agony Airlines.

  5. Hey could American just remove the lavs on the Max planes while they are “in the shop” and add some more seats?

  6. Who cares about lavatories and predepartures or broke seats etc etc etc ,is all about close the doors ,and they complain don’t have premium passangers !!!REALLY

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