Comments

1. Sad about how dougie poo and his ilk ruined an airline

2. @Gary – So denied boarding compensation wouldn’t apply in this case? What compensation would apply?

3. It sounds like it wasn’t overbooked per se, since everyone had a seat – just too heavy or unbalanced? If unbalanced, I wonder why they need to remove people instead of just rearranging them. Either way, a great case for not jamming in so many seats on a plane.

4. As a CSA in a past life 1) never never board a flight until W&B issues are resolved; 2) it’s not your money so don’t be stingy with compensation when you’re desperate; 3) never never make your airline’s issue the passengers’ fault; 4) FIM baby FIM

5. Is AA handled by AA employees in LIH? Or are they handled by HA or another vendor?

6. They should have threatened to cancel unless 10 people drove to Phoenix! I wonder if removing bags/mail/cargo would have put them back within the envelope.

7. Why didn’t they up the compenstation anti? $1000?

8. AA was once a great airline. After U.S. Air acquired it, it’s standards fell below U.S. Air’s already abismal performance,
   I avoid them whenever possible.

9. What can you do if you are involuntarily denied?

10. Funny how your negative AA articles. this one included , names only AA, but you don’t name
    the 2017 “Dao” airline, UNITED
    And you don’t name Delta for their recent Overbooking snafus
    You highlight only AA
    If their is ever anything positive you post concerning AA, its always with a negative slant, and is always shared with something positve about the other carriers in the same article.

    Maybe you make more money on bashing mainly AA, but it doesnt reflect positively on your blog.

11. Sucks for people on the flight but AA had no choice in the matter. If weights and balances said too heavy they had to off load weight. One option, which I’ve seen in other cases, is remove cargo or luggage to get down to the allowed weight. In any event, while I understand people being upset, I don’t fault AA. They sold the seats and almost certainly something changed (maybe more cargo loaded than originally estimated or a manifest was incorrect). In any event they couldn’t take off with the extra weight. Sure they could have bumped the offer or physically taken someone off the plane (which would have been within their rights) but other than that I don’t see what they did wrong. Sorry but S**t happens sometimes and you deal with it. The sense of entitlement of some people that the world will be perfect and everything will be changed to meet their needs is crazy. BTW, this could easily have happened (and has before) on DL, UA etc so not an AA specific issue.

12. Maybe a cash collection could have been taken up for the passengers who would have to be accommodated later. The $500 in travel credits sounds inadequate.

13. Too bad the FAA doesn’t mandate the old Rule 240 be reenacted. Also, make sure when booking tickets, etc. that the credit card has trip cancellation/delay coverage. Book directly with the airline and hotel using that credit card. This eliminates the 3rd party getting involved.

14. How I wish we implement EU 261 rules here in the United States. When airlines are looking at thousands of dollars in cash compensation payout, they would carefully consider overbooking. Also, the offers to voluntarily give up a seat would suddenly become far better.

15. Actually, this flight left 18 hours late, not 3, causing everybody on board to have to scramble, after midnight, to find lodging and transportation. It finally departed after 3:30 pm on 1/7.

16. Deregulation sucks. Plain and simple.

17. Jake,

    Airlines are still heavily regulated as far as safety is concerned. (Thus, the pilots timing out and the weight and balance issues.). The areas that were deregulated led to a massive decrease in airfares, making air travel affordably to many more Americans rather than just the upper middle class and rich. Surely you are not opposed to opening up air travel to people of lesser means.

18. No mention that I see of how this was resolved. But they took off 3 hours late, so…?

19. In our experience as frequent flyers, American Airlines has consistently delivered poor service for the past two years. This is nothing new and, therefore, not surprising.

20. I was a passenger on AA flight 697. This was my experience.

    -AA gate crew announced to Gate 10A passengers that flight 697 had more passengers than room on the flight, and requested 7 volunteers to take a later flight before beginning the boarding process.
    -Boarding began and once everyone was on the flight, the gate agent came on board and announced that unless remaining 6 passengers volunteered to get off the flight, that the plane would not be taking off.
    -An hour past our original takeoff time, the pilot threatened to have security remove paying customers if final volunteers did not come forward. We were informed that there were no available hotels, and the voucher offer never increased from $500.
    -2 hours past our takeoff time, still no answers. High levels of anxiety from the threats of the captain and ground crew. I had a panic attack and began crying. That made me even more fearful of being removed from the flight.
    -3 hours past takeoff time, captain announced flight crew had timed out, and we would be returning to gate. The flight was now postponed until 3pm Sunday afternoon.

    -Next day. Flight was delayed 45 min. Flight crew was extremely unhospitable and one attendant was downright rude/hostile for the duration of the flight. No meals on flight, and ALL food for purchase had run out by the time my row (19) was reached. Another attendant informed several passengers that she was suffering from a UTI which was highly inappropriate. Attendant Louise was incredible.

21. Why do they never go for the obvious which is just to keep increasing compensation until they get volunteers. $1000? $1500? $2000? $5,000? There should be no such thing as involuntary denied boarding. The airline should just have to pay a market price to get the volunteers they need.

22. Two possible solutions to this problem; as customers board weigh each person, when weight limit reached no one else allowed on board. Yeah not a great idea? Okay then how about airlines take out all those seats they added to planes to create revenue? Makes more sense! Duh….

23. @R Salvi – so you are OK with fares going up to compensate for fewer seats? Personally I’m fine with that but people need to understand when they whine about pitch or seat width (which BTW hasn’t really changed on most aircraft for many years – people as just fatter and don’t want to accept that fact) that they trade that off for lower fares. Airlines are businesses and will price their product to make a profit (or in the case of airlines more like break even on flying). Simple economics that fewer seats equal higher fares. There is no proverbial free lunch but people are so self-centered today they only want things their way.

24. I was on AA 266 (LIH-LAX) a week ago, this is so odd.
    Our flight was overweight and required 5 volunteers, but we were initially offered $500 in travel credit *and* hotel rooms.
    Like with this flight, the gate agents boarded us with off-loads still remaining.
    The two or three folks who volunteered after already having boarded received $1k in credit, along with hotels for the night.
    Why passengers on 266 were offered hotels and those on 697 weren’t is very odd.

    We weren’t significantly delayed waiting for volunteers, but despite that we ended up arriving in LAX over an hour late because the ground crew completely neglected to load *any* bags until after the boarding door was closed.
    Captain said it was the first time that had ever happened to him.

    Lihue ops are a mess.