Kicking off Labor Day weekend didn’t go well for passengers booked on American Airlines 1831, the morning flight from Chicago O’Hare to West Palm Beach. By the time travelers showed up around 7 a.m., the aircraft was already out of service for mechanical issues.
- Passengers say that updates were almost nonexistent.
- Gate agents eventually told people to try customer service, but when they got there no one was staffing that desk – there were just rows of empty podiums.
- As I revealed in the spring, American was cutting airport customer service hours with shifts before 2 p.m. at O’Hare eliminated.
American Airlines Customer Service Counter (Phoenix)
One passenger decided to handle things directly — grabbing the PA mic and making an announcement across Terminal K.
“Attention Terminal K. American Airlines, this is the third time requesting somebody here for customer assistance. We have people going to West Palm Beach. We’ve been here since 6:30 this morning for an 8:30 flight that continues to get delayed and nobody’s giving us answers as to when we’re going to be leaving. Please send somebody here. You can’t be that inept.”
@johnnyjet Frustrated ORD Passenger Takes Over PA.
Fellow passengers cheered, and the stunt actually worked: airline staff materialized soon after, and more agents followed.
The solutions they offered, though, weren’t very good. It was a peak of peak travel day and flights were full. One agent suggested rerouting people through Phoenix to get to Florida. Passengers were headed to West Palm Beach and nothing was avialable there or into Fort Lauderdale or Miami either.
American, meanwhile, tried to soften the blow with $12 meal vouchers. At O’Hare, that doesn’t even get you a Tortas Frontera sandwich.
A cuban sandwich, chicken milanesa, or choriqueso sandwich at Tortas Frontera each runs over $16, plus tax. Even the kids chicken and cheese is $12.50 plus tax. And don’t even think about adding chips and guac – the $12 voucher wouldn’t even cover that as a standalone.
My suggestion for those $12 meal vouchers, then, is to just add them to your Starbucks card.
Proving…once again…that even though it looks like to us FFs…most people DON’T have lounge access.
I don’t understand why at AA gate agents seem to think telling passengers what’s going on is forbidden and is a deep dark secret that only airline employees should know. Also, if you’re at the gate and not sure if boarding is getting ready to commence you likely don’t want to leave the gate, go to the lounge, where you may or MAY NOT get any better information, including your flight is now boarding. So, you stay at the gate frustrated by lack of information.
This something that AA management should know about and either they don’t know or they don’t care, both of which spells a management team more concerned about how AA can be more like Frontier Airlines.
“go to the lounge” = “let them eat cake.
Id say that American hasn’t quite arrived at the more premium level they claim to aspire to. Perhaps hiring a competent leader as CEO would help.