American Airlines Had A Terrible Customer Service Day Across Its Operation On Saturday

by Gary Leff

Saturday’s 4 p.m. American Airlines flight 2333 from Phoenix to Newark was delayed overnight, with a new 6 a.m. Sunday departure time, after confusion over seat assignments on board led to a group of passengers being removed from the aircraft. Ultimately everyone was deplaned as part of the passenger removal – a common technique post the United Airlines David Dao beating – as a way of avoiding confrontation with a single passenger.

Ultimately it appears that though everyone was brought back on board, the crew timed out, and so everyone was removed from the plane a second time.

Saturday turns out to have been a very bad day for American Airlines on social media, as passengers went online to complain about an unusually large number of frustrations. For instance,

  • The captain of a Philadelphia – Seattle flight banging on the lavatory door, accusing a passenger of smoking in the bathroom (when, apparently, that wasn’t happening):

  • A disgusting blanket on a transatlantic flight.

  • An abandoned check bag on the tarmac that nobody bothered to stop and collect.

  • A passenger kicked out of an emergency exit row seat.

Along with various and sundry minor annoyances all after passengers off of American Airlines Philadelphia to London sat for 10 hours on the ground in Gander.

In general I see more social media criticism of American Airlines, which also flies more passengers than competitors. Cabin crew aren’t as friendly overall as at Delta, and aren’t trained in de-escalation as at United. Although there are amazing exceptions!

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. Expect it to only get worse with the contract negotiations. People need to just not book with them until things smooth out. I would fly Spirit right now before American.

  2. Sigh, really sad to hear these true stories about my favorite airline. Kudos to Gary for his honest and accurate reporting, especially since I can surmise that he generally favors AA as well (based on his frequent accolades for the Austin Admirals Club Team, and you can’t use the club if you aren’t flying American). Hope H2oman is correct and it’s just contract negotiations, which as he says should smooth out once complete. Here’s an extra hurrah for the AA Employees who stay kind !!!

  3. If any of this is true (and I suspect that it is…as reported), this is what you get from a company whose management is inept (you do what WE TELL YOU TO DO and we will make money), a union shop that thinks only of the union (a cash cow for the union) and not those who PAY THE BILLS (commonly referred to as “passengers” and cargo) and union members who forget that their actions reflect not only on themselves but the company for which they depend on a paycheck. Every company, unionized or not, has to remember that the customer is NOT always right. However, the customer is always THE CUSTOMER and that customer can take his/her business elsewhere. It’s a lot easier to keep a customer happy than to find a new customer. But…many of the customers look at price and price only. Well, you get what you pay for…crap service from a crap hole airline with crap hole employees.

  4. Why should they care? The government will just bail them out again, and again, and again if something bad happens.

  5. Was thinking of flying AA from NY to Paris instead of BA to Paris via London. After reading Gary’s post and the comments, I think I’ll stick with BA. It appears that most of the awful events that Gary has been describing recently happen on american (lower case) airlines. I’ve tried to stay away from U.S. airlines, and will definitely continue to do so.

  6. But, yes, let’s pay AA pilots an “industry leading” rate and their FAs $95 an hour because they have earned it through their exemplary service.

  7. FAs need better training and a better attitude. If there is a mixup on seat assignments, be prepared to explain and be prepared to tell whichever passenger is getting moved why they are picked and not the other party. Be prepared to give the inconvenienced passenger a voucher or something. Once an FA gave me an explanation of why me. It was that I was the more reasonable passenger.

  8. I just completed a domestic AA flight that had a sick passenger. The entire crew of FAs could have been nicer and more professional.
    As I was seated nearby, I was amazed at how many passengers tried to pass through the treatment area instead of simply using the rear lavatory.
    In my experience, the vast majority of negative interactions I see while flying are caused by the passengers not the crew.

  9. I hope we will see the post when AA’s crews provide the exceptional service they are capable of. AA used to be the paragon of good service. Call what’s happened to it bad karma or maybe a hex, but I look forward to when somehow it returns to being the airline it used to be.

  10. I’m confused about the exit row tweet. I see the ‘exit’ sign but that’s a bulkhead seat on an CRJ, no exit at that row.

    Was the FA giving a whopper that it’s an ‘exit row’?

  11. American Airlines is USA’s worst airline. They don’t take responsibility for their mistakes and the US Government and FAA should do something about it. They are being empowered to commit these atrocities to customers who are paying them
    by not being held accountable. They lack empathy and ethics.

  12. Maybe I just lucked out, but, my AA flight on Saturday from JFK to LAX was great. Great service, attitude, smiles, and food. The flight was smooth and actually arrived early.

    Checking bags was a breeze and for once the checked bags were delivered to the baggage claim carousel in less than 20 minutes … a rarity for LAX.

    Safe Journeys.

  13. Flight attendant sharing how they “feel?” Sorry, not a permitted time for them to speak. SHUT UP AND POUR THE DRINKS.

  14. AA only contracts to take your money. Anything delivered after that is gratuitous and any delivery failures are to be expected. On that note, AA doesn’t believe you should expect anything more…you accepted their adherence contract.

  15. Its always some young white female who tries to be woke and defend some hysterical crazy person because they are black and thinks that makes them progressive.

  16. Management of AA has broken the trust of its employees and with cumbersome rules and regulations meant only to help management. They have destroyed distribution with the travel industry all in the name of saving a dime in order for management to gouge the traveling public directly. What’s next. Book away when you have a choice.

  17. Based on the number of passengers flown everyday and @6700 flights per day you manage to find a few instances when things didn’t go quite right. So glad you all live in a perfect world. There are literally millions of thing that have to go absolutely perfect. You never mention the zero cancellations days they have. Stuff happens deal with it.

  19. Entitled passengers are most of the problem, example the guy that said “SHUT UP AND SERVE THE DRINKS”. What an idiot. He should walk.

  20. Completely bizarre take, Gary. The REAL story this Holiday weekend for AA is their record breaking operational performance. Can you tell me the last flight they’ve cancelled? I can’t find one on flightaware. Has that every happened?

  22. @ Chopsticks it’s because they don’t cancel anything hardly every anymore… they put it on rolling delays so they get that completion factor. It should be illegal. It punishes customers and crew more than anything.

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