Comments

1. Not being sarcastic but pointing out truth. An airline may sell you a specific seat but the product is the flight. No way they owe the guy a fell refund. Best case cash diff between business and premium economy but bet he got more value, even w broken seat, than PE. $50 is low – maybe $250-$500 would be better. However anything they give is PR, not reimbursement, since they have wide discretion within the contract of carriage regarding seating

2. I got $1,000 (CAD) when my Air Canada Dreamliner seat didn’t work right. Thankfully, it did recline to the fully-flat position, as well as the fully upright position, but you couldn’t make it do anything else.

3. To me,it sure sounds like this guy got screwed by the airline company, especially since they gave him a defective seat. If I had been that guy,I would of demanded another seat on the flight due the one I was given was defective and if they didn’t give me what I demand,then I would expose their Shady ways

4. They owe a refund. They advertise “lie flat bed” on their website when booking the flight. This would then be false advertisement. The passenger should sue AA.

5. Since the passenger bill of rights came to fruition-it seems AAMERICAN Carriers have tried to skip out in reasonable compensation. I’m all for the new Delay/Cancellation compensation being bandied about by the dept of transportation! I was on a 5 hour delay this past weekend, usually my airlines is very pro-active on compensation for issues under their control. BUT because this was a dual issue, (Mechanical & sever weather) I’m hearing nothing from them on compensation.

6. I am not surprise with how AA responded. I too had an incident some months ago, my First class seat transcon from JFK-LAX was broken, complained to AA, and received a miserable 10k miles which is not even sufficient to redeem a coach seat one-way for the same sector…go figure. AA has completely lost it, if they want to win back customers.

7. Serious question for the 2000$ seat.
   If upon discovering that the seat is not working you notify the crew that you choose to leave the plane, are you entitled to any refund (even partial) ?

   I know that if you leave the plane the crew has to give you back your checked luggage for security reasons, delaying take off. In that case can the crew guarantee you a full refund so you don’t t leave and don’t delay the flight ? Or do it has to go through Customer Service?

8. The decline of AA continues. If you want paying customers, excel in customer service. When customer service fails, people will always look elsewhere.

9. Gil West was at Delta when they ran a great operation, but also while they destroyed loyalty. They were the pioneers of miles devaluation and the endless depletion of benefits for their frequent fliers. With him leading Hertz, we might see a better run company that doesn’t have customers arrested or dump billions of dollars into cars that nobody wants to rent, but I don’t expect anything good on the loyalty side.

10. JAL F seat was malfunctioning while flying on AS award, luckily another window seat was open so I moved. Purser still insisted on giving me 30k miles. $50 is a big middle finger.

11. Agree that full refund may be too much. But at the very least refund the difference between premium economy and business.

    This “you’re only buying transportation from A to B” is baloney.

    You’re clearly buying what they advertise, a premium experience in a lie flat seat

    Retired gambler: Honest question

    Would you be ok if you bought a front row seat to a Sporting Event or Concert only to later find out that they had erected a massive pole in the way so you can’t see it?

    After all, you’re only buying the ability to go to the concert.

12. @JRMW – Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying this is right or that I’m the one stating you are only buying transportation. What I’m stating is that airlines basically sell the product of taking you from point A to point B. They can change equipment, downgrade your seat, not have food/drink, lose luggage, etc. but are typically protected from any major recourse. As for those that state to sue them understand that Federal law actually protects airlines and makes it very difficult to take any course of action against them.

    I’m not saying I agree they should sell a product and not deliver it but that is basically the law as well as how the contracts of carriage have been interpreted by the courts. Again, I think as a good faith gesture AA should have given him 10,000-20,000 miles and maybe a $250-$500 flight credit but they are under no legal requirement to do so.

    As for your question – I would not like it if I purchased a ticket and subsequently it was an obstructed view. However, the fine print on the ticket allows this to occur and certain stage setups will have blockages that aren’t apparent in the ticket layout for the venue. In the case you mentioned I doubt the ticket purchaser would get any compensation at all.

13. We used miles for an upgrade from economy to Delta One on Delta AMS-PDX, and Mr BNJ’s seat wouldn’t recline (or move at all). They tried fixing it, and when it didn’t work, we were moved to another pair of seats one row ahead (lucky us that it was a pretty empty flight). It was maybe 20 minutes of very minor inconvenience while they tried to reset/fix it, and we got working seats that were still together in the end, but the purser insisted that we each get 25K for our inconvenience. We were pleasantly surprised, especially because our upgrade were only 49K miles each.

14. I’ve been on a number of different AA flights in business class and what they all had in common was age. The seats weren’t broken, per se, but every one of them had an outlet that was too loose to hold a phone charger. I have to remember that when I fly AA business class I have to bring a cable with a USB -A connector. It might not seem like a big deal, but if it’s widespread, it’s a sign of lack of maintenance.

15. Sorry AA no. Transportation from A to B is a coach seat. Say for this argument $500. The other $1500 is for the enhanced seat and service. They owe him the difference between at least T (if not Y) and J.

16. Business class travel is full of risk: the lounge may be closed, the seat may be broken, you may miss boarding for business class, you might not be all that comfortable, you might not get an amenity kit, you might be seated next to a loud, brightly lit galley, the food might suck, there may not be much of a welcome drink, and you may be involuntarily downgraded due to a change of gauge. At the end of the day, is it worth risking thousands of dollars on a product that might not be as good as hoped? Save your money, fly in the back, and treat yourself to a great hotel room at destination. Air travel just sucks these days.