A comedian had first class tickets on American Airlines, but American wouldn’t allow him to travel in first class. He’s ranting about the experience, and it’s been watched hundreds of thousands of times in just two days.
Jim Breuer bought first class tickets for his family to Honolulu from Fort Myers, Florida. Coming home it’s a redeye through Phoenix in a domestic seat not a flat bed. They pre-ordered their meal. They have bulkhead seats in row 1. But their seats are gon. The flight is overbooked. American Airlines is looking for volunteers to take a bump and a later flight.
First class, though, wasn’t overbooked. But he and his wife were downgraded to coach, while two pilots sat up front.
I went, so you’re telling me you’re taking a paid, first-class customer, and you’re putting, please tell me at least that you have the decency to put me in an exit row or bulkhead. He goes, no, they’re taken. Of course they’re taken. They’re taken by American Airlines employees. which we got to see when we got on the plane.
…Mark in Honolulu, the supervisor. He knows my name. Mark knows my name. Because Mark took my money that I paid for, for my family, for my wife. I go out to work for me. He took it and gave it to one of his buddies that work for American Airlines. Why do I know that? Because I saw the guy pulled off and… Bro.
He was frustrated because nobody explained to him what happened. Nobody told him his rights or gave him options. And they “wait to the very last second” to spring it on him, when he’s stuck. “It was just, hey man, sorry you booked first.”
Now you’re in 18 A and B for the next six hours flying like this on your red eye. Suck it. If he said that, I would’ve had more respect.
…He goes, well, I can give you a $500 voucher. $500 voucher for thousands of dollars for two first-class tickets that I splurged to treat me and my wife before I’m going away for three months. My blood is through the roof.
- The customer’s perspective is this: American Airlines sold him a first class ticket. He paid the fare, they took the money, he’s entitled to first class. Having the seat taken away from him at the last minute, and being offered minor ducats and barely an apology is offensive. He’s right.
This is foul because the way I see it, you stole from me. You stole my ticket. You stole my money. American Airlines employee stole from me. So this shows me… You can book a first class ticket on American Airlines. You can book any ticket on American Airlines and they have no problem putting one of their employees in your seat and then lie to your face and go, it was overbooked. Lie to my face and offer absolutely nothing.
- American’s perspective is this: their contract of carriage let’s them do this. They can take your money, fail to delvier the promised product, and give you compensation equal to the difference between what you paid, and what they determine the price of the product they actually deliver is (not even what you could have purchased it for if that’s what you’d wanted, but the most someone else paid for it).
- It seems likely that a pilot did take his seat. On mainland domestic flights, deadheading pilots are at the top of the upgrade list at the airport. They get first class, but they don’t bump paying passengers. On Hawaii flights, if the airline decides to deadhead a pilot to the mainland, it has to be in first class under their union contract.
American decided they needed the pilot in Phoenix, and took away a paying first class passenger’s seat to do that. That’s the deal, but compensation for this ought to be significant.
This isn’t about one seat. It’s a customer who chooses American Airlines for their premium travel who won’t do that anymore, and who will tell everyone they possibly can not to do it either. It’s both the right thing to do to make good when failing to deliver what you’ve promised, and it can be in your interest to make the customer feel good about the transaction. Instead, this one was left stewing on an overnight flight in back when they’d spent thousands of dollars to avoid that very situation.
He stayed mad because he couldn’t even get a customer service apology for what happened:
I was a big fan of American Airlines. No longer, and I’ll tell you why. We’re going on day three and a half now of not one human being calling me.
…I still have the pulled hamstring. Which is, so my ass is killing, the pain is going down my leg, and literally the seats are like this, while all the American Airlines employees are in front of us with, you know, the bulkhead, and their, you know, their feet are lounging, and listen. They deserve it. I have nothing against the rest of the employees. I have nothing but love for all of them. But this guy, Mark, the supervisor, and the people up at top that have not gotten back to me, I have no respect for you right now.
…We land. I didn’t sleep one ounce, bro. I was sitting there for five and a half, six hours, just staring.
He was told by employees in the Phoenix Admirals Club that no, pilots don’t get first class bumping paid passengers. But that employee is wrong. They’re not thinking about the rules for transoceanic travel.
Here’s what he wants. He paid for first class tickets between the mainland and Honolulu. He doesn’t want a $500 travel voucher. He wants a first class ticket between the U.S. and Honolulu. “And I even say I don’t need round trip. I don’t even need the round trip because [this happened] one way.” I have to say that (1) American Airlines isn’t going to do that, but (2) it’s eminently reasonable. They offered him a refund of the difference in fare between first class and couch which they calculated at $400.
At the end of the day there wasn’t anything nefarious here. American Airlines followed the rules. But their employees handled the customer service aspect of this poorly, and the airline really should do more there.
(HT: Travel Zork)
Yes, American Airlines bargained away the customers and gave it to the pilots. What if a restaurant offered to take food off of a customer’s plate and gave it to the employee as compensation. same thing?
Then they use the fact that they gave away the customers first class seat- to pilots – under a contract that they agreed to, as an excuse – when it should be offered as a confession
Complete malarky.
You can never claim to be a premium airline when this is how you behave.
Elite service providers just don’t have policies like this.
AA policy should be a full comp of the one-way fare. Until that happens it is unacceptable.
Anerican wonders why people compare them to Spirit or Frontier rather than Delta or United. I would choose to walk rather than fly American and tes even from Hawaii. My dad was an executive at American in the 70s so they had to earn my disdain for them and they have. Never again will ai fly them after my last miserable experience 7 years ago.
Most airlines will bump paid first class passengers (if there are no upgrades) out of first/business to accommodate pilots deadheading on a long haul. Presumably they were likely bumped because of no status. It seems as though the gate agent tried to be coy and would not give them an explanation, work to try to reaccommodate them (even on another airline) or try to solicit others with a downgrade offer, albeit on that flight it would have to be very generous to get someone to act. Possibly the gate agent had no choice as far as no offers and was told just to find two people to bump. But it was handled poorly.
” American Airlines followed the rules. ”
Their rules, not Jim Breuer’s.
Absolutely outrageous. No wonder they lose money.
Was he given the option of a later flight in F?
Was this Yup fare, I.e., instant upgrade?
Robert Isom the best airline CEOever got exactly what he told his employees to do. Never spend a dollar more than you have to. They only spent $500 in AA script instead of comping a ticket or recommissions the passenger on a later flight. Mark the supervisor will likely get a promotion for this as he is keeping within AA’s budget and keep costs low.
The flip side is American gets negative e publicity, likely loses higher value paying passengers as they are less willing to pay a premium for first class or won’t fly with AA. So revenue decreases faster then costs but hey at least Mark kept costs down as Eovert Isom told him and all AA employees to do.
I see why American gets their bad rap. He should have been treated better. He has a large fan base and we will get the info out.
On a side not, as a veteran I wanted to volunteer at the USO in DFW because they are short staffed for volunteers. I wrote American an email and asked if there was any way they could help with payment on the direct flight from my airport. So I could volunteer a couple of times a month. All I got back was not only no, but no way would we ever do anything like that. So much for assisting volunteers. Fortunately United has added a flight out of airport and I will give them my business over American.
American Airlines. Where F*** You Isn’t an Insult, It’s a Way of Life
On a one way flight from TelAviv to Rome I was once downgraded from Business to Premium on ElAl for the understandable reason that my row disappeared when the type of aircraft changed. I was rewarded with a business round trip voucher to any location in their system, which I happily used to Thailand.
Result=happy customer.
THAT IS REALLY OUTRAGEOUS. I KNOW THAT COMPANY EMPLOYES TRAVEL FC ON COMPANY BUSINESS WHEN THEY ARE CONFIRMED, BUT IF THERE ARE NO FC SEATS THEN THEY SHOULD BE CONFIRMED IN WHAT IS AVAILABLE.
A LONG TIME AGO BRITISH AIRWAYS OVERSOLD FC AND DOWNGRADED JOAN COLLINS TO BUSINESS. THEY KNEW THEY WOULD REGRET IT AND THEY DID — THEY NO LONGER OVERSELL FIRST CLASS BECAUSE SHE LOUDLY DENOUNCED BOAC EVERYWHERE SHE COULD IN PUBLIC.
AIR FRANCE DOWNGRADED ME ALSO WITHOUT EXPLANATION LAST YEAR. I ASKED POLITELY WHY AND THE BOY AT THE GATE IN BARCELONA JUST SCREAMED AT ME, “BECAUSE IT’S LEGAL.”
AA is no longer an airline. They are a bank that has some airplanes. All they care about is their credit cards and the spend amount by cardholders. The airplanes are an annoyance. Stop bothering them about flying.
The pilots “bitch” about AA not being premium, then they better start aligning words with actions and think customer first and not themselves.
What’s just as infuriating is that they’ll screw him again upon reimbursement. They’ll refund the first class fare that he paid, MINUS the cost of those economy seats. But not what they would have cost when Breuer booked them. No, last minute rack rate. So, rather than maybe $300 per seat (as an example), more like $700. Deducted from his refund. And it’s all in the contrat of carriage. It’s how they screw you hard and you have nothing to say about it.
AA should’ve refunded the full cost of the two return first class tickets, and comped them the economy seats home. If that was unacceptable to the paying customer, they should’ve offered guaranteed seats on the next flight home in first or biz class. AA stole their money. They have a lawsuit. You pay for a first class ticket, thousands of dollars, and get offered a non-equivalent refund for services NOT provided, that’s theft.
I learned something new. Domestically pilots can be in F/C ahead of upgrades but never bump a paying F/C passenger. “Internationally there is a different set of rules..
After American Airlines downgraded and bumped Jim Brewer and his wife back to coach so two pilots could travel in his purchased and reserved first-class seats, since seats were available on other airlines, I’d have told Jim to request American endorse his first-class tickets over to Delta or United, toss in a little extra cash and AAdvantage miles, and maybe a meal voucher—or at the very least, a complimentary bag of peanuts or other salted legumes for the inconvenience. After all, at American Airlines, nothing says “we’re sorry, we suck” like a tiny bag of snacks at 30,000 feet! Bonus points if they deliver it with a dramatic sigh, a Citi®/AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard® credit card application, and a napkin that just says, “Oops.”
secret sauce: never select the bulkhead or the aisle in F, and if all that are available is aisles, take the furthest back you can
and he should litigate anyway – file in california not florida or texas
and request immediate jury trial
also, how is hawaii international?
Do I doubt abandoning AA after decades as a loyal apologist for them? EXP and Key. Why not ask Mr. Brewer?
Didn’t know that Leo Mullin (of “no waivers, no favors” fame) is now at AA.
My last experience with AA will be my last. Delayed my flight for 14 hours before finally canceling it. I’ve had too many canceled and massively delayed flights. Plus they’re taking away the miles. Might as well just go United from now on.
Earned lifetime platinum many years ago on AA. They ‘were’ pretty good in the 80’s and early 90’s. But they got so so bad, I quit flying them and moved to Delta. Night and Day difference. Take my advice, give up on AA. They only care about a dollar, nothing else in the least. Wish ol Pan Am was still around,
I can’t believe that no one recognized him. His video this morning already has 200k+ views and he is is literally going on tour. His 31 minute angry rant will become a tight six minutes on the road.
Wait until he does Gutfeld and the podcast tour.
This is dumbassery incarnate.
This issue , and the process of selling first class upgrades for just a few dollars instead of upgrading a higher loyalty customer is why I totally stopped flying American. I cancelled my credit card, and will not fly American again. There’s too many other avenues to get where I’m going. American is off my list.
Of course they were able to pull up a booking and show the price difference of only $400 between economy and first class. Right?
Been flying for 69 years now. Watched it all go down the tubes. From First class as child traveling alone Seattle to Los Angeles in a twin prop DC something with a window seat, linen table cloth, real plates and silverwear (plated i’m sure) to first class in an uncomfortable first class seat on a 737 with lousy food on a plastic tray. Somehow the business model is either wrong or catering to a volume that is barely sustainable on a legal level. Yep I’m traveling again Monday and I’ll bet a gate agent is rude.
The policy should be that if they take your seat away, especially in a premium cabin, you get paid 5X the amount that you paid for that ticket. And if the airline does not do that, then the government should step in and create a law that dictates that.
Wonder what was in the terms and conditions of the ticket that the passenger purchased. . A customer should not have to be focused on what contract Airlines signed with its employees.
American’s pilots were the last of the big three to get this clause written into their contract. It started with Delta, followed by United. Here is the contractual section in the American contract.
2. Deadheading on Company Aircraft
a. Pilots who are scheduled (allocated or rescheduled/reassigned) to deadhead will be
provided:
(1) The highest class on board the aircraft, First or Business class, as applicable, on any of
the following:
(a) transoceanic International flights
(b) on flights to or from Hawaii and Alaska
(c) and on flights south of the equator (the countries that qualify as flights south of the
equator are Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay and Paraguay).
They richly deserve their very low ratings.
The ground/gate people are rude and thoroughly despise the customers. They don’t even pretend to care.
This is why AA and the BS excuses their agents dream up are to be avoided.
In a sense, this situation captures in a nutshell why AA has swirled relentlessly down to the commode since Parker took over. Isom is just giving it an extra flush to make sure.
Contract of Carriage?! It might cost us thousands in future revenue and millions including the brand damage, but we can so we do.
Unless it’s on someone else’s dime I can’t imagine why anyone would ever pay cash for a first class ticket on American. Almost everything about American sucks, their people, their operational ineptitude, their customer service, food and beverage, wifi cost, IFE…. They are bottom feeders in every way.
If they degrade the Aadvantage program, even to the point of being equal to UA and DL, it’s not hyperbole to say they are heading straight to bankruptcy. Which may be inevitable, but that would accelerate it.
The real problem is there contracts allow them to do it! They can always spot that Bull Shit when u complain. U have to post ur comments for everyone to see . Maybe with ur followers u might get
Payback?
Probably Not
Stogie commented on calculation of the difference in seat prices for purposes of the refund, but I want to state it one more time. I’ll skip the whole “bait and switch” issue.
When this happened to me, they initially offered me the difference between the first class seat price that I had paid four months in advance, which was low, versus the last minute walk up coach price, which was likely the peak price for a coach seat. This minimizes AA’s out of pocket cost. The just approach is the difference in cost of both tickets at the time you purchased your first class ticket, or the difference in price of the last minute walk up prices for the two seat types. Apples to apples, or oranges to oranges. In my case, I declined and was able to get switched to a later flight in first with a better routing, so no harm done. But I was surprised at the transparently unrerasonable initial cash price difference offer.
Oof. D-List ‘celebrity’ if at all. Best comment still goes to @Derek McGillicuddy because HE TELLS IT LIKE IT IS. ALL-CAPS.
I am executive platinum with over 300k loyalty pointz. This is piss poor. I would be livid. I understand the contrsct, but this is b.s.
My suggestion is to downgrade everyone one level, if you’re going to bump 1st class paying passengers. Move the 1st class pax down to business, and move the business pax back to the back. No reason a 1st class pax should be be banished all the way to the back of the bus. And they deserve compensation.
“At the end of the day there wasn’t anything nefarious here. American Airlines followed the rules.”
Really? That’s your conclusion? I’m sorry but that’s such a butt kissing, brown nosing ultimate conclusion. The only rules they followed were their own. Not common sense rules. Not rules that every other business is subject to. Not even basic rules that apply to contracts (you pay this much, we will give this much service. Period)
That you can’t say ultimately that this is completley unacceptable in any way, shape or form is beyond sad. Regardless of what their obligations are to other pilots and crews, you don’t take first class money from a passenger and then deliver a coach experience for it. Any other type of business that would be easy grounds for a lawsuit that would be an easy win in court, including the court of common decency.
They had other options- compensate him the difference between the base coach fare when he bought his ticket and what he actually paid for the seats; offer them the equivalent seats on a later flight and give compensation for the delay (e.g. meal vouchers at least), or (horrors) juggle their crew schedules so they don’t need to fly that pilot right away.
Or, after he got back from the shoddy service and experience, it should have been an apology on the phone as well as a written one, and vouchers for the full cost of the seats that they paid for (essentially a refund since they were not given what they paid for at all)
Plain and simple, this is absolutely unacceptable in any business. Period. End of story.
I feel for this guy. And I just got offered $1200 voucher to take a later flight on a CRJ145 for a 50 min flight. They couldn’t have offered at least $1500-2k in vouchers.
Robert Isom has to go.
Unions are trash… and American is just as bad..
Me I would just dispute the charge on my credit card
Take a look at an AAL stock price chart, going back to 2018, vs DAL and UAL. That will explain everything.
What I don’t get is there are large sleeping quarters on these planes. Why didn’t the pilots use them? There literally beds! And they couldn’t all be occupied! The guy who is Also a pilot for big airlines gives tours of the planes he transports. They have big sleeping areas!!!
@Terry D RN – this is not a widebody aircraft, it’s an Airbus A321 serving HNL-PHX
I hope there is a lawsuit. It would be interesting to see how it comes out in court after a full ventilation of the facts.
Not sure why anyone flys anymore? It’s no better an experience than a bus in the 80’s, and the airlines treat you like sh!t.
American Airlines is hands down the worst airline in the US. They once called the police and threw me off a flight for merely stating that I was upset but I was being bumped off the flight when I was there an hour and a half early.. I didn’t even raise my voice. They refuse to refund me my ticket because they said the police were involved. Because one of their unreasonable ticket agents called them. 3 months later I get a letter from the ticket agent apologizing because she had anger problems. Still didn’t get my refund and to this day I have never flown American Airlines again
The big issue wasn’t the bumping so much as how it was handled. They should have bent over to make it up for him.
There are 2 options to remedy this permanently
1–AA blocks 1 or 2 F seats on every flight. Those are for pilots. At TOD, if no pilots need them, 2 seats for upgrade.
Or, the passengers get a complete 50% refund on total $ spent. Right down the middle. I dint care if the out bound connection is cheaper, They signed the contract, they can deal with the ramifications of revenue loss
All I can say is that I gave up on American at least 20 years back – they were better then than they are now but that is not to say that they were acceptable even then. If the choice comes down to American or nothing then I guess nothing would always be the better choice.
Yeah… AA has been a crap airline for a while. I realized that when during a period where they were negotiating with the flight attendants’ union, me and another passenger were blocked in the lavatories for 30 minutes after the FA’s moved the drinks carts in front of them so the doors couldn’t open. Fortunately I’m not claustrophobic. The rot in that airline goes deep. I really don’t know why people choose to fly American. United only has about a 50% flight completion rate, but at least they compensate you when they deliver you to an airport 1500 miles away from where you were supposed to land. Alaska stranded me in Dallas for three days (thanks, Alaska!) And I would rather fly Alaska or United than American, and that should tell you something.
There’s something in the water in D/FW, it took perfectly fine airlines like AA and SWA and turned them into turds.
I’ve never had any issues when I fly foreign airlines, but our airlines here are repulsive. This is the one industry ripe for disruption and foreign ownership should be not only allowed, but encouraged. We apparently can’t run an airline using common sense and civility.
Not too bright to piss of a professional comic. One he’s going to do a bit about this until he dies. Two, he flies day after day after day. Do you really think he’s going to spend a frigging dime at American?? Any travel he had booked on them was changed that day and they’ll never see another penny from him.
My wife and changed our flights from Maui to LA and had to ho to economy plus from 1st class due to availability. We got $700 each. How AA thinks $500 is the difference is crazy. At row 18 how likely regular economy. I hate AA.
Jim Breur ain’t paying thousands of dollars personally for first class tickets…
I’m not sure how this game is going to play out. The union contracts were negotiated with the airlines to allow deadheading pilots to ride in first class. They did this at the expense of the CUSTOMER who legitimately bought that seat. One might think that the airline would not be able to bump a passenger and put the pilot in an open seat. However, that would prohibit passengers legitimately allowed an upgrade. Something is terribly wrong with this scenario. My Dad always said, “The customer is not always right. But, he’s always the customer and can jolly well take his business elsewhere.”
Never AA, they are bullies and they don’t care about their customers. They have a view point which doesn’t work in the rest of the civilized world, so does southwest. I wonder what they have in common?
The union contract is completely unjust to the paying customer. I would like to see the DOT and Congress summon AA executives and AA union hacks in front of congress to try to justify their crappy policies and high volume disproportionate customer complaints. Senators Josh Hawley and John Kennedy can rip into and ridicule them. Since the word “American” is part of their corporate name, I feel they represent our country and should be held to the highest standards in passenger satisfaction.
Hello Gary Leff,
Thank you for running this travel blog. It’s a great place for travelers and the travel industry to share thoughts and ideas. I have a question that others may also have: Why are your articles typically emailed to my attention a day late compared to everyone else? For example, I received this article today 2/21/2026 and most of the comments were posted 2/20/2026.
“Union contract” .Two words that pretty much tell it all. Q: Since when has any union ever given two hoots in hell about a paying customer? A; Never.
The airline biz is peddling credit cards and putting bums in seats is a necessary evil. Anyone expecting even a minimal level of service or courtesy is deluded
What complete BS. AA should block from sale 2 first class seats on EVERY flight required to accomodate the contract that THEY agreed to. Then, if not needed by pilots, upgrade the first 2 on the upgrade list.
@dfwsteve
it’s not the union’s responsibility to allocate the seats
gsw made the decision to ignore the cause and effect because it’s not an every-day every-flight problem
the entire company is operated from the perspective of ‘there are no irrops, there are no problems’ and anyone saying anything to the contrary is marked a heretic subject to immolation, or the blood eagle treatment if they can’t simply terminate you for ignoring the newspeak of the corporAAtion
someone with money and nothing to lose needs to litigate their coc and don’t let them fold, make them go to trial
since 1978, unless i am mistaken, no 121 coc has never been litigated, on the record, in a public court of law, above small claims
@SANgreg
this is the way
This is awful!
I personally would rather walk than fly with AA ever again.
I have had a couple of terrible situations with AA. One was with a flight attendant, I thought she was very pretty. She was older and had this beautiful silver hair, I loved it…she was standing at the front of the plane greeting people. This airplane was set up differently than any plane I had been on before. I snapped a photo from the back of the plane. This flight attendant comes storming down the aisle and informed me I did not have her permission to take her photo and I needed to delete it immediately. I told her, “I didn’t take a photo of you I took a photo of the airplane set up.” Well, there’s no sense in arguing with a flight attendant. We all know where that would’ve gone. So I deleted the photo. What she was not smart enough to understand was that photo was still in my deleted file. But more than anything, she was no longer beautiful….she was nasty and ugly. I called AA and told them. I’m not sure that it did any good. I didn’t fly with AA very often and in fact I do my best not to fly with them.
Pretty sure the previous administration tried to institute better more straight forward compensation for passengers for nonsense like this. It would have forced AA to think twice financially about doing stuff like this. Three guesses what happened to that when Jim Breur’s guy ascended the presidential throne? So yeah, thoughts and prayers Jim and welcome to coach lol.
Same people who cheered the death of that legislation are here blaming unions now, I see you airline exec plants in the comments…nicely done.
Censored my comment. Awesome
Honestly did not even realize people flew American Airlines anymore…or that they had a business class. I have heard nothing but horror stories from my peers so I just categorized them as budget.
Jim, just reach out directly to AA’s Chief Customer Experience Officer directly. While you never should have experienced this, she can remedy it and make it right.
Im beginning to wonder if they should change their name to either American’t Airlines, or Unamerican Airlines.
Same airline, different situation, same outcome. Booked premium economy Dallas to London 9 months before trip. Flight late to Dallas due to weather. Booked on next flight to London in coach. 8 hours with no sleep and feeling like sardine in can. American says I’m only entitled to $150 refund. BS. Spent hours fighting with them. Ended up getting fair refund but think about how much money they’re making if customers don’t fight their low ball offer. Never flying them again if there are other options even if I have to pay more.
Well, Maybe he’ll get some new material for his act. AA will spend $10 to save a $1. They should at least offer him a f/c seat on a laterr flight. ISOM is ruining AA
I flew Delta from Dallas to Hawaii first class and had bulkhead seats. What did Delta do? They refunded half my fare. Delta is a premium airline. I personally find AA to be a second rate airline about the level of Southwest.
Whoever sat in the F/C seats that Mr Breuer and his wife would otherwise have sat in is completely irrelevant. Further to that, there is no way for him or Mr Leff to know the exact reason why they were denied a seat in F/C. It sounds to me like the entire flight was overbooked and that AA followed the DOT’s rules governing such a situation. Under those rules all that Mr Breuer and his wife were entitled to was the difference in the airfare between the two classes at the time the seats were booked. It appears that American did offer them that or gave them the option of $500.00 vouchers for a future trip.The $500.00 vouchers were likely of greater value so they probably should have gone for that and accepted American’s apology for the last minute downgrade. I don’t blame him for being disappointed at the downgrade, but AA complied with the DOT’s rules and even exceeded them with the offered vouchers. In retrospect, perhaps they should have thrown him some aadvantage miles as well since the downdgade apparently happened shortly before departure.
BTW.. an airline’s need to deadhead crewmembers is often something that arises only very shortly before a flight is scheduled to depart. If that was the case here there was little chance for the airline to let him know in advance which might have softened the blow a bit and also allow he and his wife to prepare for their journey in main cabin. In the end, it is the practice of overbooking that is the root cause of what happened to Mr Breuer and his wife.
Why would you bump someone with the kind of public access Jim Bruer has?
That tells me they are STUPID!!!
I think it was political. For that reason and the horrible past experience I just had with A A in the past, I will never use them again.
Normal business world. Customers first employees second manager’s third.
Airline business world.
Managers first employees second customers third
AA calculated the difference between coach and First Class at $400? What a joke! That is a lie and they know it.
I just did DFW to SeaTac on AA. I was in MCE. Had a pilot sitting in front of me. No excuse for an airline to steal a paying passengers first class seat for a deadhead. I guess it also depends on the crew too because before that I was on a regional jet from CLL to DFW and I had a very thin laptop backpack as my ONLY carry on. In MCE as well. A noob flight attendant wanted me to move it to under the seat in front of me on a not-even-remotely full plane. As a matter of fact that bin stayed empty the entire flight. The reason why? She wanted to make room for other passengers in the MCE bins for those losers that carry on bags that are too large for regional jets. You’re not supposed to cross cabins, and thats what gate check is for. FIrst time for me and I must have flown out of CLL like that at least 50 times in the last 10 years.
We need to stop using tax money to bail out failed businesses. American Airlines has a horrible product that isn’t competitive and should not exist. All of their horrible customer service workers need to be out of work and find jobs in other professions that maybe they can do adequately. I think the cs reps in Phoenix (I’m looking at you Katie, sticking us there overnight with no compensation or even a food voucher with my wife with two full price first class tickets, because you guys suck at your jobs) will probably just have to starve to death. I can’t imagine they could possibly do anything productive in life. American is the Greyhound of the skies, with poorer quality service.
AA has been horrible ever since the ex CEO of America West ran them (Parker I believe). He was a horrible, horrible person focused only on squeezing every dollar out of every plane every time. They have never recovered from him, and their employees absolutely hate their jobs and make sure YOU know it, and I won’t fly them unless I have no choice.
I’ve been flying AA the past few years after United did something similar to me…I don’t know why they stole my seat, but as I was waiting in line to board, they changed it from first.
I hadn’t been flying AA since 1986. Back then, they lost me as a customer over a can of soda. That was back when planes didn’t fly full, business fares were expensive, I flew every week, and losing me meant an empty seat.
It’s disturbing to read these things, but what airlines aren’t doing this? And was there nobody on the plane who got a free upgrade to bump instead?
I suppose the safest thing to do is fly business if this can happen in first. As long as I get a separate seat that lies flat on a long flight, it’s not worth the risk to fly first.
I don’t book FC ever. I booked FC with TWA and I got squeezed out with no compensation. None. Then they lied about it.
After that FC means nothing anymore.
And for those ripping on AA…..it’s deserved. They came out with Super Q economy fares to compete with…..Allegiant. Huh? You think I am going to price shop Allegiant to AA? AA wants get down in the mud with the ULCC ankle biters? Good riddance
They should tell him to kick rocks, just like they do to us, part of the unwashed masses they despite, but love our money.
When you pay for a service that service should be provided; otherwise, consumers are subject to the whims of any provider and your rights are null. It should be law to refund this man.