American Airlines is having problems feeding passengers, at least at two of its large hubs. Aviation watchdog JonNYC shared some of the details on Twitter of American’s difficulties getting catering out to planes in Charlotte and Philadelphia. While passengers aren’t necessarily being warned in advance to buy food and drinks inside the terminal before they board, they’re in for a surprise that their flight might not have anything for them once they’re in the air.
Flight told to take off with bare basics catering if needed
PHL: flights under 900 miles told to do same for now— unclear end date.
“Stress” on catering both places (and for I know, maybe others)
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) June 28, 2024
Through June 30, American’s hub in Charlotte is expected to have challenges with catering. Crew are being told that they shouldn’t request catering when they’ve been underprovisioned. Unless crew meals are missing, they should just depart. Other ‘no go’ items they can delay for are delay kits (emergency snacks for long delays), water and ice.
Similarly, Philadelphia is having catering issues, too. As a result they’re letting many flights under 900 miles go without receiving snacks and beverages. The Philadelphia hub’s focus is on flights of 900 miles or longer that cater meals up front. Similar to Charlotte, employees are being told not to take a delay to request catering – unless they’re missing scheduled crew meals, water, or ice.
American is going to make sure that their employees get fed, on those flights where crew meals are called for. But they’re going to take off without food or drink for passengers in hopes of staying on-time.
Some snarky person will comment that why should the crew eat when the passengers don’t get fed. Sometimes the crew will go 6 to 8 or more hours where the turns are late or so fast, that they can’t get off the plane during cleaning or wait in long lines at fast food to get food, so this policy of only delaying flights missing crew meals is not great, but makes sense.
The dumpster fire continues.
If they want Isom to step up his game they need to do better than a paltry $31mm
Another reason not to fly AA.This from an Aadvantage million miler!
how does AA manage to find a caterer that can’t deliver in not just one hub but two?
That happened to me on Sun Country in June. The plane deboarded us until catering got there and installed the food and drinks. AA should have done the same. We were about 1/2 hr late to destination. But well worth the delay. Thank you Sun Country. The had a good tail wind. Passengers first.
@Tim Dunn … If all catering consisted of unlimited alcohol and French baguettes , I would be cool . Imagine the crumbs and spilled sticky drinks .
Low wage illegal migrants mashing up entrees is not appetizing to me .
how hard is it load up canned sodas, cups and ice along w/ tiny bags of snacks? if they can get on planes to get water loaded – which they would be derelict not to do in the summer – why is it THAT much more difficult to add other things?
and still, the question is how this happens in two hubs that are hundreds of miles apart.
What a disAadvantage.
Another race to the bottom. Surely this had to do with penny pinching.
Had to be to cover all the Golden Parachutes @ the top
All at expense of the little people
Leona H
The AA spiral continues…it’s almost as if they are trying to run it into the ground. I’m forced to fly American as a 2M Miler while attempt to burn my miles – will be flying First SAN-PHL-SAN in July…they best have food and beverage or I’ll be getting a credit….between husband and myself have flown 5M on AA but no more…we just buy First or Biz on a competing carrier and stopped trying to maintain our AA status as the miles and free upgrades are worthless and the product has just gotten so mediocre…
@Plane
No, you can starve too. No comfort for us, no comfort for you.
@Dwondermeant … +1 . Yep .
Honest question …
Why after years and years of harsh and often comfort-impairing measures does AA continue to have departure time issues?
Threat of strike or no.
Catering or no.
Starting boarding early or no.
Proactively canceling seats of pax AA thinks might miss their connections.
Clear weather or no.
Etc.
There’s a systemic problem that AA isn’t addressing. Any thoughts on what that is?
@ralph’s systemic problem
how can anyone not see it?
it’s prima facie
the hulls have reached 125% design capacity
the terminals have reached 200% design capacity (charlotte possibly 300%)
the entire operation is scheduling itself to operate every piece of metal 2 and 3 times per day more than originally intended
it’s not any one thing that can be identified, and fixed
to feed the share price, the operation must make bricks without straw, and fly more hours than there are in day
abracadabra
Thanks for the heads up.
I’ll make sure to bring very expensive snacks and soft drinks from the terminal onto my AA flight.
AA preaches that they care for people along life’s journey but in reality….. Well, they’ve proven over and over again that they don’t give two cracks about people at all.
Take the delay. Feed the people
Does anyone else find it interesting that these are American airlines two captive monopoly hubs? I think it’s a concerted effort by American to save money at their to least competitive airports.
Well well, what a coincidence that AA runs their own catering at PHL & CLT. Seems AA is falling apart piece by piece again this summer.
most recent / current shAAre:
PHL: 62%
CLT: 70%
DFW: 85%
Funny how grown men and women complaining about not having airplane food or drinks.
Fine dining in the sky is not the case anymore. Airplane food is nothing to write home about!!!!!
If this is so important to you then by all means eat and drink and be merry before you get on the plane. Or better yet bring something with you to enjoy on your plane ride. My friends the glorious days of flying is long gone.
I enjoy my flights with a bottle of water ,I purchase at one the many stores though out the termial
maybe grab a bite to eat. and I always travel with snacks. No headache worrying about if the airlines are going to feed me or not. Or if the plane was cater or not, if the Flight Attendants are going to do a service or not. Or if the Pilot say its going be to bumpy for the crew to come out to the aisle.
Once you grasp this concept your flying experience will be much better.
Enjoy your weekend.
And, today in this same blog, the Philadelphia airport is screwing the customers by adding a 3% surcharge to every purchase. What is wrong with these people? One might think that the AA stockholders would be up in arms over the total lack of customer service provided by American. One might think that the stockholders would be offering Isom to a burning stake over his lack of management skills. One might think that the employees would… wait a second. One might think that the unions would be raising hell…hmmm. The unions don’t give a damn about the company or the customers. They only think about…the unions padding their bank accounts. All the passengers (a/k/a THE CUSTOMERS) hear are excuses. Again, AA has become a sh**ho** company. Once the company goes bust, all of these troublemakers are going to head to other airlines. With any luck…the other airlines will see what these applicants did to AA and won’t have anything to do with them. Anyone remember “Total Bastard Airline” from SNL? “Buh bye!”
To be clear, crew meals are only for pilots per their contract. No meals are provisioned for flight attendants.
I believe the catering problems stem from massive call offs as catering in Philadelphia and Charlotte are the last American Airlines employee catering hubs and rumor has it they announced they are moving to third party vendors.
The CEO of American makes 30 million plus to run the company into the ground. How does US corporate management get away with these outrageous salaries while the lowest paid employees, aka flight attendans are given letters to apply for food stamps? How did Americans allow this to happen? In my opinion, management in US corporations are way overpaid and share very little responsibility when they destroy their companies little by little
Four million miler here who quit flying AA when the race to the bottom started. Arrogance (and insane compensation) in the C Suite results in insolence at the counter, at the gate, on the ramp and at the FA level. Customer service generates loyalty and willingness to pay premiums. Example: I finished an assignment in AMA early enough to get to DFW in time to connect to final destination early. Plane had empty seats. Denied boarding because of “the 35 minute rule”. Waited 5 hours for the next flight.
Another example of the ‘biden economy”.
Just so you know, the pilots are the ones getting fed, not the flight attendants. If I was a passenger, I would not fly AA because the upper management, run by former America West management) could care less about you, the passengers. The flight attendants have been hung out to die!! It’s time to get rid of this management!
This article is bad for the airline industry. You shouldn’t divulge that kind of information . Regardless I flew for a regional airline for a loooong time never given a crew meal let alone a lunch break sometimes never got to get off the aircraft for a 14 hour day and it was hell. The airlines take advantage of crew at the cost of passengers. And they are laughing all the way to the bank.
Catering Faculty’s are located off the airport grounds at most airports due to the high rent free m DOA at each airport. The crew meals refer to the captain and first office, flight attendants don’t get meals even after a 13 hours day.
Hey Gary why don’t you do a vote on the confidence of Robert Isom on how he is running American. I take a quick guess 100% vote of non-confidence.
To me airline food is right up there with hospital food. They might even be in the same league as MRE’s. That is if you get any food on your flight other than a bag of pretzels & maybe a drink. FLY NAVY!!! At least they had box lunches.
I just switched from AA to Delta and was surprised BUR to SlLC.on a big Airbus they had cups of water and Biscoff/sunchips. The way back in a tiny Embraer they had full can sodas.
Crews don’t get meals, especially on flights of less than 900 miles.
Please know…Crew meals are PiLOT meals, NOT flight attendants. Don’t get it twisted.
People are complaining about not getting a biscoff cookie or a bag or pretzels on a 2hr flight?
None of these 2m-5m mile flyers have club access? Sitting in the Centurion lounge in CLT right now, decent food and plenty of drinks options. Hell even the long delayed upgraded admirals club has snacks to go. Finding it tough to believe these outraged frequent fliers give a flying f@ck about shitty snacks on a regional flight. Either that or everyone skipped over the <900 mile part.
American Airlines ain’t what it use to be ….with one decision after another, this is their acceptable comfort level. AA isn’t even trying to pretend to be a quality airline.
Please be more specific. Pilots meals. Flight attendants at American do not get fed. Unless it is a long haul flight out / to phl and clt. Only.
I have never seen a Company that endures more self inflicted BS for no reason. As one employee told Me…..”they attempt to put 10 pounds of chit into a 5 pound bag and want applause, accolades and pats on the back for their Effort”. Doug Parker was never fit to run a Large Airline and Robert Isom is clearly out of his league. WTH is the BOD?
In the last two weeks I flew from Philly and Charlotte and both flights had beverage service and complimentary snacks as well!
Both were US airways Hubs…. Coincidence?
Dont load food in order to stay on time? Was on an American flt last week and pilot said having issues with changing caterers so no food on flt, PHL to ATL. People pay upcharges to get main cabin extra seats who perks are larger seats + alcohol. I am Plat Pro so my main cabin xtra seats incl liquor but for free. I would be upset knowing the upcharge fee would not incl the free liquor and they didnt tell me!
Um….crew meals really means front end/flight deck/pilot meals.
There have not been flight attendant meals since 2003.
These people sometimes fly 10 – 12 hrs over four legs and have no time to get off/food.
Crew meals – what a misnomer
What’s wrong at AA…a lot as of late, some is being way overhyped and sensationalized, especially on this site.
@ff2 is right on, don’t play the victim. get your water, soda, snacks, and move on. There is no “meal” on flights less than 900 miles anyway, and if you need to stuff your fat face, bring it with you.
Along that line, AA has a really great free onboard entertainment. It plays on your phone or device. It has great content and is super easy to connect to.
Stop bitching about seat back screens, y’all have your phones and earbuds with you. Shut up about screens.
Remember USAir? Yeah they sucked, big time. Well that’s who’s running AA.
PHL an international gateway vs JFK? YHGTBSM., PHL is a cheap hub for AA. It’s all about the costs. never mind that NY, biggest market nonsense, and higher revenue.
AA was the leading airline until Mr. Crandall left. Since then the MBA’s and CPA’s have rung everything out of it. I flew long haul for 30 yrs at AA, caviar, roses in first and business, best soft product in the sky. We flew more Europe and Deep South than anyone. DL and UA were WAY behind us.
Now, one shot drinks, no predeparture service, here’s your tray. The FA’s are more concerned with their break schedule.
It’s sad, as an EP, I still get upgrades almost every leg, but the last time I went across the pond, I used my BA miles. J class on an A380. Eh, not better.
Last J class long haul on AA was OGG-DFW. The service was awful. Mostly due to horrible FA’s, but the seat was great. Oh, and I had downloaded movies and shows to my iPad.
Who is lodged so for under a rock that they don’t already know American is the worst? None of this is surprising. For many reasons I never fly them even if they were half the price of the competition. That’s what they don’t get. That the flying public has not appetite for abuse at any price.
Blaming the unions at AA is ridiculous as they ate the ones complaining how bad it has gotten at AA. Management is at fault as they line their pickets and fund their golden parachutes
Can confirm
Judging by the AA delay/cancelations at JAX for CLT, PHL, and DFW flights, and now THIS – WTF is going on at American Airlines???? I work at JAX, and every day, it’s AA.
First it’s 900 miles or less or 2 hours or less. Second, coffee, tea, water and juices are available. Yes, this is not great, but no one is going to strave or dehydrate. Most if not all coach passengers on AA bring food to begin with since BOB is very limited and BTW, BOB not available on flights under 2 hours/900 miles to begin with.
This is temporary and hostly, my last 3 hour DL flight, they ran out with 10 rows remaining for beverages and ice so. . . . at least we know and AA CLT and PHL need to get fixed but that will wait until they can get the old USAir ways people out of the mix, the true problem. AA just needs to let passengers know, but short of that this is not a crisis.
We have bigger issues in this world then if I am getting pretzels and a coke or if I can wait 2 hours. But Robert I needs to go and get someone in place who can run an operation of this size and provide consistant passenger service.
Isom, Seymour, Byrnes and Wells are in way over their heads. Pure incompetence and they treat the passengers worse than the employees.
They surround themselves with yes/men/women who tell them everything is OK while “Rome burns”. The AA BOD are worthless because they are backslapping friends with Isom and reap too many rewards for doing nothing.
Your best bet is to contact the new CEO of The Vanguard Group and Blackstone who are the major shareholders. I hear they are not happy and want them gone. Not an easy task.
BTW, when Isom is fired, he gets another $23 Million to walk. Not a bad gig after getting $31 Million in 2023. Vasu who was terminated was paid $12 Million in 2023 for acute failure and acting like someone who needs meds and a psych ward.
The entire operation is a disgrace because no one has any direction or guidance. It is not the employee’s fault when Managers are hired off the street and paid less than anyone else. Managers.are fired on a daily basis.
The big boys at Skyview HQ could be much wealthier if they ran a responsible operation with a quality product. But they are too stupid to realize that.
The thieving and lying is more enjoyable for them. A sadistic game every single day.
If you met them, you would see how vulgar they really are.
Ah yes, View From The Right Wing is again finding a way to blame workers for corporate greed. Crew meals are 1) contractually required and 2) very necessary given the difficult schedules AA is running their narrowbody crews on. But let’s whine about that instead of addressing the real problem – American is a major world airline being run like a regional LCC hybrid based in PHX. There are easy fixes for this, but hand wringing and blaming employees is easier.
Crandall may have taken away the olives and refused to paint the aircraft to save money, but he would NEVER have tolerated flights routinely dispatched without catering. AA is an embarrassment to the industry and has to be fixed ASAP but that means CEO, BOD, and all MGMT from US and AW have to go. Totally clean house and bring in someone with skills like Bethune as CEO. Oh and give Wall Street the middle finger until things are back on track for several years.
I am sure the crews are rejoicing at AA. They get to sit behind their seatbelt barricaded galleys and do nothing. Because, you know, supply issues. The entire system is a mess. And the consumer is, as always, the benefactor of mismanagement and the result in lazy bitter employees.
@N1120A. I don’t know of anyone arguing crew meals and the concept. But the directive that planes can depart without passenger meals, but not crew meals, is telling.
What does it tell? the hierarchy is: Shareholders, those in the C-Suite, management, employees and lastly, paying passengers. That’s a recipe for disaster if you ask me.
Isom is gonna need a bigger PowerPoint…
I flew for a regional, I brought food from home. I flew for USAiways Express, United Connection, and American. American was the worst contract. Even the owner of our airline was fed up by the deal after a while. Crew meals? I saw that in the USAF. I’d be dipping Fritos in potted meat on my flights. We did quick turns it was quick, 30 minutes.
That said, I used to have issues with ordering catering at LGA, but they were so swamped, I could understand. Before my wife clipped my wings, I transferred to St Louis and started operating with American. Even back in 2006, it sucked. They wanted to charge people for a bottle of water on a flight. Oh, and charge for blankets and pillows. No pun, but that shit didn’t fly. I miss being a flight attendant some days, but the way it’s going now, my old lady did the right thing of making me get a “normal” job again.
@Stuart shareholders are not first: have you looked at returns? It’s all about C-Suite. Shareholders come after them, in random order.
Hello?! To you ignorant, selfish a- holes who can only think of yourselves, there are those of us to whom a drink, snack may well be VERY necessary. I’m talking about diabetics and hypoglycemics, possibly others!!! DUH!! Wake up and stop being so fugging worried about calling people fat, inappropriate, pigs, etc. Next, you’re going to tell me to bring my own. Good luck getting anything past security. Buy it in an airport shop…sorry, my bank loan was denied or maybe I could afford to. Pull your head out n think of someone besides yourself, for once!! I have rather unstable sugars so even if I eat at the airport, I may STILL have a medical emergency in the air!!!! Which do you want: give me a soda n a tiny snack or a medical emergency in the sky…you pick??!!! I’ll wait.
Please clarify .
Flight Attendants DO NOT get crew meals.
ONLY THE PILOTS
Let’s be honest. They do this in PHL or CLT because they’re both really shitty hubs and they can. People don’t have a choice.
You would never see this in ORD or JFK or LAX. Places where it really matters. It’s a business decision and someone made the calculation they won’t lose customers in these PHL and CLT markets.
Hmmmm, PHL and CLT, both USAirways holdovers. It’s called garbage in/garbage out. All the hubs which were formerly USAirways are crappy, as is the service on former USAirways routes. The mindset of USAirways employees has not really changed to include an emphasis on excellent customer service.
As I understand, AA FA’s don’t get crew meals. Pilots do and they’re contractual, hence don’t leave without them.
Meals for passengers aren’t contractual as such, you only pay for travel from A to B per the contract of carriage, so I guess that’s why they’ll leave without customer meals and not crew (Pilot) meals. Is it ideal? Absolutely not, but I guess they’re prioritizing on-time performance vs customer amenities.
At least Delta and United generally won’t leave with missing First Class meals.
On the plus side, think how much more value they can return to the C-suite, whilst not having a viable FA contract. Amazing!!
Remember the days, whenmeals were on just about every flight? Remember the days when everyone on a red eye everyone got a pillow and blanket? Remember when passengers didn’t yell, scream or beat one another up. For you too young to remember routes like PHL to PIT or PIT to CLT had full hot meals omelets, soup, etc. And airlines still made millions in profits. Ahhh the good old days of air travel, it’ll never be the same.
This s. I’m trying fine another too travel. I been a loyal customer to AMERICAN AIRLINES
@Stuart “But the directive that planes can depart without passenger meals.” The directive refers to “flights under 900 miles.” On domestic flights, other than transcon flights (none from PHL or CLT), AA does not offer a meal service in Y. F gets a meal if it is >900 miles. Thus, all of the affected flights might go without soda or snacks for any passengers, but no meals are missing.
@Nrvfly Slow down, I don’t see anyone here dismissing the legitimate medical needs of passengers. I don’t know the details of your condition, but I’d recommend you explore TSA rules more. I suspect there are a lot of things that you might need that will be allowed through screening. I’m rather surprised someone with these concerns doesn’t always travel with “backup.” And, there are medical exceptions available for items through TSA. I sure wouldn’t let my health depend on airline catering not fouling up. Best of luck with your challenges.
I stopped caring about status.
I stopped caring about miles.
I stopped caring about bonus.
I am now a free agent, AAirmiles, they have a place but Alaska is my preferred, but not at a premium. Price of business class is my first priority.
This frees you up.
If there complaints about the product then change to another.
The problem is that the destination on rivals might not be convenient. One would a prior be forced to fly on AA.
My inquiring mind wants to know how much the food caterers in Charlotte and Philadelphia charge American Airlines for NOT delivering food and beverages to the aircraft.
Ken,
Gary can confirm but I believe the delivery of beverages to AA short domestic flights in PHL and CLT is done by AA employees, a legacy of USAirways labor contracts that remain UNFIXED a decade after the merger. other hubs have catering including beverages done by a caterer
Who knew it was so difficult to find a can of Coke or Sprite? Seriously, these are basic commodity products you can literally get anywhere. I am baffled how a caterer – whose main job is to procure stuff- can fail so completely at its primary and simple basic function.
Hmm. I see the AA employee comment above. My basis point stands, and if that is true AA needs to fix that contract.
Since it seems that the US Airways culture became predominant at American Airlines. ( We’re looking at you Doug Parker.) Why didn’t they just keep the name US Airways?
On 6/24, I was on a flight from IND to ORD and the lavatories were both out of service They knew this before they left.
Stuff like this is going on even with flights outside of PHL. Last night I took the 1230 am red eye from Georgetown, Guyana to Miami, a full five hour flight. I was booked in business class. Now maybe too much to ask for even a snack at that that hour but what did I get on the whole flight ? Half a glass of warm water without ice served to me a minute before roll back and then taken from me less than 2 minutes later. Nothing offered for the full 5 hours of the flight! Flight attendants hid frim business class for the full flight. I would have thought that at a minimum before landing coffee would be offered which was important to me as I had a 2 hour drive across Alligator Alley (at the early hour of 0530). And there was never anyone to ask. Only time you saw a flight attendant during the flight was when one blocked off access to the forward restroom with a cart so the pilot could go potty in peace! The same pilot who at the beginning of the flight reminded all the passengers that if you offended a flight attendant you were offending him personally and you would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And yet after 20 minutes of delay nothing was heard from him otherwise! But he made sure you knew he was the boss.
My point here is on a 5 hour flight not one soft drink or cup of coffee could be had. And yet on a recent 45 minute flight from Amman to Beirut I was given a 3 course lunch (either Western or Mid-East cuisine) with a wine list to boot!
Gene, sounds like terrible service. I assume the “so the pilot could go potty in peace” line is in jest as you realize they block access for security reasons.
So here is the deal at CLT and PHL. SkyChefs prepares the meals. The Commissary (staffed by AA Ramp Union Workers) works at a separate building and responsible for packing all beverages and other catering goods. At the appropriate time, the Commissary leaves their facility and drives to SkyChefs to pick up the meal carts. Trucks then depart for the airport and all items are loaded on the airplane by the Commissary. There is clearly a staffing problem at the commissary that is causing these problems which are negatively impacting the onboard service passengers expect and deserve. All other AA locations have food, beverage and other items prepared and packed by the designated caterer. Given the size of CLT and PHL, both of these cities should disband their Commissary operations but then you have union issues. The customer is on the short end of the stick at CLT and PHL.
@johhny What is a $31mm?
Another example of why PHL is the red headed step child of AA hubs
AA has been trying to take away catering from the union ramp emoyees at these 2 hubs (the only AA ststions that do their own catering) for years. By intentionally providing poor catering service out of these locations and getting co aunts, they can justify subbing it out.
One has to think about the length of a 900 mile flight and the time it takes to depart, land and taxi. I have taken 100’s of these flights in the past and don’t expect any service on a flight this short. This issue is being blown out of proportion. Buy a bottle of water, while expensive on the other side of TSA, $7.50 is better than having a crisis for goodness sakes. If a short haul flight w/o snacks is too expensive, take a long haul bus and see what service you get?
Christopher,
and this is why AA is failing. They use their customers as leverage in a process of negotiating w/ labor.
and Gene wonders why DL charges so much for its services including premium cabin mileage awards.
Same thing happened to us on a flight from Washington to Key West on June 24. What is it with American that they can’t seem to manage the basics of the business they’re in?
This just happened to us leaving Philly for Phoenix on Sunday. Plane coming in was late so we were late boarding and most of the plane (from the hands that went up upon landing to let them off first) had connections that were getting tight. On the tarmac ready to go and pilot says we have to wait for catering and it will be another 20 mins! Im sure given the choice, most would gladly forego their cookie and soft drink to get there on time but we had to wait and I’m sure many missed their connection.