Last month American Airlines fully rolled out a new tool called AURA, the “AUtomated ReAccommodation” tool to rebook passengers when their flights are cancelled or delayed.
But this tool does so predictively. As American describes it in internal documents,
AURA utilizes a concept called discovered inventory, in which it identifies passengers that are certain to misconnect and utilizes that available inventory for protecting other passengers who may need that space.
They take passengers off of flights who haven’t missed them yet, but where the airline is ‘certain’ they will misconnect, in order to give those seats to other passengers. “PRNG Update” in a reservation means that AURA tool has run:
As I wrote in May when revealing the plan, people occasionally have flights where it’s ‘obvious’ they cannot make their connection and then something happens at the last minute so that they do.
- The connecting flight gets delayed!
- And they run between flights and make it, just before doors close!
Now they might find themselves without the connection, even though circumstances lined up so that they could have made it if American hadn’t given their seat to someone else instead. American said this wouldn’t happen but it appears to be happening.
A reader shares their experience this past weekend flying from Portland, Maine to Chicago and on to San Diego in first class.
- Their first segment was delayed half an hour, and they share “it looked like I was gonna misconnect, even though the second leg was also delayed.”
- They were removed automatically from their connecting flight prior to touchdown at Chicago O’Hare.
- He “hustled from [gate] L10 to H16 …and made it there while they were still on Group 4. Of course my [boarding pass] no longer worked so I had to speak to the” gate agents.
- He was told,
[Y]our seat has been reaccomodated twice so it’s no longer available. We have an exit row or you can fly first tomorrow.
The passenger noted he’d “paid for first” and asked for his seat back from whomever was upgraded into it. That was declined. He asked for downgrade compensation and was told to contact customer service. At that point he was willing to overnight in Chicago to fly up front to San Diego the next day, and the agent was willing to provide a hotel room.
However another first class passenger, who wasn’t automatically removed from the flight by AURA, misconnected. He was given their seat and, he says, flew on the flight he’d originally intended. But this new tool will mean situations like this happen more and more.
American airlines needs do do better with connecting flights. Last week I was supposed to fly MIA-PHIL-MAD and they left me stranded in Philadelphia for three days and refused to pay for hotel or food.
This will definitely be a daily occurrence for anyone flying on AA. AA connection times are 35-45 minutes. If you are on regional to mainline you can count on this happening. CLT and PHL are the worst hubs to connect.
A couple years ago I flew PWM-PHL-IND. Connection in PHL was tight due to ATC and weather. I ran to the connecting gate and was told that aircraft for was already closed even though the plane didn’t move away from gate for another 35 mins due to ATC.
Gate agent was so rude on reaccommodation. I was told next flight to IND was the next morning at 11am. I could wait for that flight or she would send me to SDF and ‘I could find my own way home from there’….. WTF! No credit for rental car, meals or anything.
American Airlines lost a customer, permanently, that night.
Sure wish AA would get their SH!T together.
In the example in this story, the passenger had a first class ticket but was boarding in group 4? I call BS.
If you want things changed for the better forget the ones in political office, go for the candidates running against them that has a chance at winning or the current ones running for reelection and make them make a verbal comment that is recorded so that they could be later held accountable and be more motivated into working for change. If they are in office they won’t listen, it’s when their not with their handlers that common folks have a chance to be listened to. That’s how the politicians work nowadays. No money no voice and the handlers take the money and bring the ones that pay to the front while the average person stays away, while the poor stays away from the party being held. Work with the candidates starting out, and stress that this is a major issue that affected a lot of people, that’s where you will bring things to the news and might get a comment or two from others running and change for at least one in office will be a start. I know that it’s not much but it has to start somewhere doing something. We let the airlines bed down with the government in the past and the only way to get them out is vote against the scoundrels that works for them while in office.
“Caring for people on life’s journey…” /sarcasm
I recently had the same problem when my flight was delayed in Tuscon (no explanation given) and I was flying to Chicago for my next flight before going to Va.the pilot got on there late and then to door was closed so I had to make arrangements to get on another flight and they wanted to send me to NY. A lot of upset people and I was put on a flight to Charlotte arrived at 12;00 am and stayed in the airport all night and no compensation and nothing open but I was able to get something. Not pleased with American but their employees get the all the perks if they miss their flights. You have to give better customer service.
Fly a different airline.
This happened to me before my flights! I planned my trip thoroughly months prior and had all 5 seats together and 2 days before the flight, with no notice, AA moved my itinerary to 1 day later on the same flights! Hello, same flight, next day?!? Come to find out, AA had to cancel flights due to bad weather and decided to change people without their knowledge or permission! Luckily I was paying attention to my flights and was able to call and get back on the flight even though they gave away my prearranged seats! Tell me how this is legal! This is not something I like or want.
I was so used to passenger abuse by American Airlines (even though I was Platinum) that when I switched to United I felt like a VIP on every single flight. Still do.
@Nicole – the passenger made it to the gate while group 4 was boarding, that wasn’t ‘their boarding group’ (which was 1)
This happened to me when going from Nashville to Charlotte to Richmond. We were held hostage on the plane from. Nashville because there was no one “qualified “ to hook the ramp to the plane. It took them 20 minutes to find someone. When we finally got off they had changed our gate to the far other end of the airport. There. We’re 12 of us that ran all the way thru the airport only to be told very spottily by a gate agent that our seats were given away. The plane was still there with the doors open but we were all turned away. This was at 4:00 and we were rebooks on a 9:30 pm flight and put on standby for a 6:30 flight, where we had to Moe gates and walk the airport 4 more times. We got on the 6:30 flight that didn’t take off until almost 8:00. Still waiting to hear from AA customer service about compensation miles. They said 3 days and it’s been 2 weeks.
I was one who was removed while my inbound flight was on the ground waiting for a gate. We were flying home to BWI, and the rebooted us to DCA, Leaving us to find a way to Baltimore from DC. Never using American airlines again no matter the cost.
American used to be a great airline (operative word,used)
I owned a travel agency and recommended American all the time
NOT!!!!
American Airlines has terrible delay policies. I describe it this way: American will slam the door in your face as you hurry to make a connection they missed. Delta will keep their toe in the door, doing all they can to get you to your destination. Too often, I (and a large group of other passengers) have been left behind on a flight that sits in the gate as we arrive. Delta wins my business every time they have a flight option available.
This is off present topic but as a handicappedpassenger requring a w/c to get to the gate AND to board ley me advise ALL pazsengers needing asssttance DO NOT FLY AMERICAN! I was told on two seperate occasions that i had to walk down the jetway because w/c were not allowed in jetway. If I could walk up and down jetway, why would I need a w/c? Letter to AA CEO resulted in $50 voucher for my next flight! I sent it back.
This just happened to us this past Monday 7/3 on DFW-CLT-PWM…..35 minutes to change planes in CLT so when 5am DFW flight was delayed almost an hour, for a mechanical issue, AA auto-changed flight to PWM to next day, 7/4. Pilot got us to the gate in CLT 5 minutes ahead of original PWM departure, ran to the gate, only to find plane left 3 minutes early. Got AA to re-route us to BOS where our daughter in Portland could drive down and pick us up. Flight home was no picnic either….non-stop PWM-DFW had to divert to PIT to pick up fuel ….landed an hour late, and then waited another hour for bags. Used points for the trip so thankfully only cost me the upgrade on seats with some extra leg room…..worst trip with AA ever!
I will drive up to three hours after a direct flight instead of getting a connection. A delay in the first flight means the second one is missed. Having the second flight cancelled means you sleep on the floor of the airport. Even when it works, the layover wastes a lot of time. Connecting flights are a last resort for me.
Heck, the airline isn’t the USAF 89th VIP airlift wing with precise touchdowns within 60 seconds of scheduled arrival. It’s Archaic Airlines where they might arrive on the date that they are scheduled to. Some darn MBA revenue manager came up with this stupidity. ALL MBA graduates need to be fed alive to sharks.
The more things like this are occurring in the airline industries the happier I am to rent a car and drive to wherever I need to go. Plus I would rather take the time to see where I’m going.
This happened to me as well on American before my first leg departed the system rebooked me on the second leg out of ORD. I really had to make the connection or switch to another airline in ORD to make it to my final on time. I called the EP desk right away and asked them to put me back on the original flight. They did so without any issue. When I landed in ORD the gate agent for my second flight called me and asked how far away I was as they were ready to close the door. I had to run from the end of L to the end of H but they held the flight for me! Doesn’t always happen, but there are good people working for American that go above and beyond.
@Craig….no doubt there are good people that work for AA and other airlines. But they were no where to be found last Monday. Those good people are hindered by bad policies that don’t hold connections for at a reasonable amount of time. And now, as soon as AA thinks you will miss a connection, your seat for next leg is gone. AA knew DFW flight was late due to their issue, knew when the flight would arrive in CLT, could have held flights for connecting passengers affected and every single 2nd leg flight that could have had a toe in the door for the DFW flight left on-time, or in many cases, early. In hindsight, a longer layover would have solved the problem.
Never, ever, ever, ever again.
I think that happened to me and my husband last December. Although our original flight left on time and was set to arrive 10 minutes early, there was no gate available when we landed so we were late about 30 minutes to get out of the plane. We ran to the gate to board our connection and made it there while the gate was still open. The gate agent said our seats had been reassigned and we couldn’t board. We made to our final destination with a 12 hour delay. I reached out to American for compensation and all they offered was a 200 dollar flight certificate for a ticket I paid 1700 dollar for.
A real issue if in fact you end up missing a connection you could have made. But in the example above flier was offered a seat on the flight and could have had his first class refunded. It must be awful to have to suffer in an exit row vs first class. I totally get the problems if its international and / or you really are bumped off the flight but no sob story for having to rough it in coach
This has been happening for years now. I use to work for them and seats were given away 15-20 mins before flights left. This was done so the plane could leave on time.
This happened to me on June 27th in Philly. AA gave away my seat, even though I made it to the gate in time. Next flight was 7 hours later.
The same thing happened to our party of 6 last month. 10 people delayed slightly due to AA, ran through DFW, gate was shut in front of us and the flight left early. We arrived at our destination at 3 AM. It sounds like this is common practice and I can’t believe it is legal. Horrible horrible horrible service. They also gate checked my carry on, of course, since they found a flight to squeeze us into random available seats. Then they proceeded to rip the wheel and bottom off of a brand new hard sided carry on.
Not just American, other airlines seem to have adopted the same practice.
I flew Spirit from Kingston, Jamaica to Houston and and my layover was 1:45 minutes in FLL. We had a 60 minutes delà putting my connection at risk. Before boarding, I received a message that I was re-booked on the later flight. Interestingly, my original connecting flight was delayed by 90 minutes. Moreover, I had to collect my luggage, exit and go to ‘rebooking’ and lost my business seat I had prepaid for. I arrived 9 hours late in Houston.
Many years ago, I was living in Chicago when I started my road warrior career. The only two “business” airlines were United and American with hub at ORD. I chose United, and a couple of million miles later, I thank my lucky stars I chose United. AA is no longer a business airline, they are basically on par with Spirit or Frontier. What idiot planners at AA think a 35 minute connection time at CLT and PHL is a good idea?
While I would never fly AA this happened to me on Delta recently. I was flying ATL-SEA-HNL and we were late leaving Atlanta. When I arrived in Seattle my nice lie-flat seat on the A330 had been given to another passenger as Delta predicted that I would not make the connection. Instead, I had to wait for 2 hours for a regular seat to Kona and then connect on Hawaiian to Honolulu. I was pissed. I book first so that I can comfortably sleep.
To try to avoid these situations I won’t book with less than a 2 hour connection, preferably more time. Then just hang in the Admirals Club. Yes, it makes for a longer trip but less stressful.
I am million miler and Exec Platinum on American and I avoid leaving too little time between flights even when I have had the experience of making a tight connection before and when I know they will pull out all the stops to accommodate me on my weekly business flights.
If and When I book an offered flight with a 40 minute connection I realize there is a good chance I will miss the connection. American warns customers of the possibility in bold red letters.
The times I have purchased a Business Class seat and lost it due to connection problems I have received a refund of the difference between the Business Class fare and the seat I was given. Not the most pleasant occurrence but unavoidable due to extreme weather.
Spoiler alert: I’m not trying to justify what AA is doing or anything that appears to be a cavalier attitude. You can’t put standby passengers onto a plane instantaneously, so you can’t wait until the time the door closes to put them on unless you want to delay the flight. You have to do it at least a few minutes earlier, and that leads to what is described in the article. That part of it is zero-sum game: you take the chance of either canceling the seats of the people who unexpectedly actually make the connection or telling the standby passengers that they can’t fly. Of course, the former are going to be furious, but how do you think the latter feel if they find out from others that they were not allowed onto the plane even though there were ten empty seats? To be cynical about it, they are less likely to find that out than people who had their seats canceled are to find that out, and to be fair about it, having a confirmed seat gives you a greater entitlement not to be canceled than being on standby when there happens to be an empty seat. The decision which way to play this is the airline’s, and they are playing it to maximize the number of seats they fill for revenue, which should surprise no one, and in the hope of making a greater number of people happy even if a few are very very upset.
Even if you could argue either way regarding standby passengers, one thing that cannot be argued is the matter of upgrades. I recently flew on another airline, and the last several upgrades, in at least a few cases first from regular economy to premium economy and then from premium to business, were not given out until everybody was already on the plane and the door closed. That way, no one who actually made the flight found that his or her seat had been given away. (The airline has less of a financial incentive regarding upgrades than empty seats.)
Happened to me and my wife in early May. 3 hours before our flight departure from the Turks and Caicos islands, I get a text that said our incoming flight had been delayed and we had been rebooked on our connection in Charlotte. I tried calling AA but 3-5 hours prior to someone talking to someone. Our original connection was 65 minutes in Charlotte. The text moved us from row 2 in first class to row 36 on the new flight. “Funny thing” (NOT) the original connecting flight was delayed and we could have made the connection with time to spare. Spoke with a ticket agent in Charlotte, and they said there was noting they could do. When I got home I saw that AA had credited my account with 2500 miles. What an insult. They ruined the after glow of a great vacation. Will never fly American again if it has a connection.
It is time for legislation that deters this via strict enforcement with heavy fines to the airline and direct compensation to the customer for flight delays, cancelled flights, etc. The airline industry for some time now has been getting away with “screwing the customer” and the customer having very limited to no options for restitution. I don’t give a _____ about contract carriage! AA in particular needs to be sued and if they can’t figure out how to use AI (or any other method) that doesn’t cheat the customer then sue again. The on-time metric that is intimated as their reason for this is also a crock of _____. If that is the true motivation then there would be no need for the measures and methods they currently use to miserably under achieve it. The problem is the airline industry and their ridiculous policies and games played. The customer is not the problem.
Yes!! This exact instance happened to me & my husband last year when flying from Chicago to Turks & Caicos, through Charlotte – first class. We bolted for our connecting flight, with about 10 other passengers, got to the gate to find out that they gave away our 2 First Class seats and booked us on another flight the next day! All other passengers still had their seats. They were able to get us on the flight, in random economy seats. After months of contacting AA, we finally got our points back for the difference but they disregarded my balance disorder which requires me to fly towards the front of all planes to minimize symptoms. And the entire situation was exhausting and frustrating trying to battle to get back what was owed to us.
American bumped me from first class the first time I ever splurged on it and refused to pay me for the lost fare. They also put me in economy on a flight that had many guest class seats open when the flight took off. Shit customer service.
New?! This exact practice happened to me plus 5 in my group as well about 15 additional people on my flight from BTV to Washington National on July 15. We were all on our way to Sarasota. Our flight from BTV was delayed by American because gates weren’t available in Washington. We got to our gate in Washington on time anyway, but they closed the doors early and reassigned the seats despite their own fabrication. And we watched our plane remain at the gate for the next 30 minutes. We were fortunately (and I question that description) rebookec to Tampa but incurred additional (and expensive) car rental fees to get to our original destination. Part of our group also lost their car rental and had to rebook that at a higher price than the reservation made months ago. I call BS.
New?! This exact practice happened to me plus 5 in my group as well about 15 additional people on my flight from BTV to Washington National on July 15 2022! We were all on our way to Sarasota. Our flight from BTV was delayed by American because gates weren’t available in Washington. We got to our gate in Washington on time anyway, but they closed the doors early and reassigned the seats despite their own fabrication. And we watched our plane remain at the gate for the next 30 minutes. We were fortunately (and I question that description) rebookec to Tampa but incurred additional (and expensive) car rental fees to get to our original destination. Part of our group also lost their car rental and had to rebook that at a higher price than the reservation made months ago. I call BS.
I stopped flying AA. they have lost their way, forgotten who pays the bills. I was abandoned in Dallas upon return from Europe, last leg cancelled because the pilots timed out. The told me it would be two days before they could get me on a flight home and offered no accommodations for my layover. I was already booked to Europe again, the next week, I ask for consideration because of continuing delays, they refused, screwed up my next trip, waited two days for my bags.
@ Victoria Gibbons employees don’t get any perks. We have to get our own hotels, pay for our own food, my husband and I don’t get rental cars we find hotels with shuttles. I have a hotel reward program that we’re gold members of. The only employees that get get “PERKS” as you call them are employees on work travel. Pilots, flight attendants, overnight away from home base, and mechanics away from home base fixing aircraft.
What are your rights as a passenger when you have confirmed boarding passes (screenshot or printed so the airline can’t take them away electronically) and you reach the boarding door before the flight has closed? I would call that an involuntary denied boarding if they don’t let you claim your confimed seat or an equivalent seat.
This isn’t new. Years ago this happened to us on American connecting in Dallas. We also were first class the whole trip. Our seats had been given away to stand by passengers and they wouldn’t let us on.
Screw AA. I haven’t flown them in several years and avoid them like the plague. The original AA has been gone for a while now. It’s really US Air/America West using the AA name. And the awful mgmt comes from those airlines…
I actually found the new system helpful. I flew in June 2023, out of VPS – Dallas- Tucson. The system knew what I didn’t and asked me if I wanted to rebook. Thank God I did.
Our flight out of VPS had to turn around due to a mechanical issue, before take-off. Once, we were ready to take-off we were told there was a weather issue in route. Grounded even longer.
Once we arrived in Dallas, there were no gates available. We were stuck on the flight line once again.
While others waited in a horrific line for flights, I had been already booked on the last flight out. Aura was helpful in my situation.
I am going to Europe in a couple days and I left myself 7 hours in Phl. They oringinally booked me on the last flight of the day and so changed it. Summer is the worst and all you need is 1 bad storm to mess up your plans..Always leave plenty of time between flights even tho it might take a couple hours longer..30 minutes just doesn’t work !!
AA is the worst of them all. Delays, lack of information and rude employees. I shall never fly with them again.
This just happened to me American Airlines flight from Houston to Milwaukee, I had a connecting flight to Dallas, I was at gate A25 , my flight was scheduled to leave Houston at 6:29 pm, my flight was delayed, there was so much chaos going on at my gate only one gate agent, so my flight to Dallas was so delayed over 2 hours so by the time ppl boarded that flight to Dallas it wasn’t going to arrive until 10:40 so that meant I missed my connecting flight ! So I had to reschedule my flight until Wednesday due to daughter’s work schedule. I file a complaint to American Airlines and explained what had happened and that I should be compensated for all the chaos and delays causing me to reschedule my flights. AA sent me an email crediting me $25!!! So I resubmitted email back to AA and informed them i will not accept this $25 credit , it’s a slap in the face ! AA can do better then this!! SMH I really thought AA was the best out there but now I can’t say the same today.
This happened to me in DFW. I stopped flying American and was a AAdvantage Executive Platinum frequent flier after they did this once to me. I switched to United 1K and never looked back. If you can’t hold your commitments to your customers based on what they paid you for, you won’t earn my business. Plain and simple. Don’t give away seats unless the doors to the plane are about to close and the passenger isn’t there.