I know many travelers have a love-hate relationship with the airlines and it couldn’t be any more true for American Airlines (AA) customers. I’ve been one of their top tier elites for years since I fly them so much and love all the perks, including free upgrades (when space is available), a dedicated phone line so I can usually get right through to an agent, free checked bags, twice the amount of points and more.
However, it really ticks me off when AA or any airline schedules more than what they can fly, overwork their employees, pay their executives way more than the workers who really get the planes off the ground and cut corners regarding safety.
I never thought I would write a post like this but after watching a recent CNBC interview with the head of American Airlines pilot union, the Allied Pilots Association, I’m now wondering. Dennis Tajer, who is also a 737 pilot with American Airlines, had this to say on CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box.’
Dennis blames the recent delays and cancellations as “a failure to plan by management.” Dennis says management received $13 billion from the U.S. government in payroll support but they didn’t train the pilots. “And now what we’re seeing is a failure to utilize the pilots that you do have and their backlog and training is epic. And now here’s the real problem. They’re trying to fly airplanes without the pilots available. They are pilot pushing and they are narrowing the margin of safety. Our fatigue calls have gone up tenfold, and this has just got to stop. It’s a very serious issue right now and I’m out on a trip right now and I had very little time yesterday to spare. Otherwise, I would’ve gone illegal and been unable to fly the rest of the sequence.”
Dennis goes on to say, “this is a failure of management to utilize the money that was given to them by the American taxpayer to have us ready for recovery and we’re not. They just did not have a plan. And now we’re starting to see them trying to cut corners in training. For instance, Guatemala City, which is a high terrain, very challenging airport. They used to have an experienced instructor go with us on our first flight there. Now they’re telling us, hey, why don’t you just take a look at this iPad course and you will be good to go. I think Boeing learned that’s not the way to train pilots.”
You should watch the whole interview as it’s only three minutes long but Dennis ends it with this: “You know, you gotta wonder why American Airlines right now, the US government, that books travel for our military members and federal employees has said do not book American Airlines because of the cancelation rate and the inability to rebook your flight. That’s stunning. The federal government is saying don’t book on American Airlines. They sold tickets that they know they were not going to be able to fulfill this summer. And today we have 82 of the 84 flight that have canceled for American are all coded because they could not connect the pilot to the airplane. That’s just not doing business. That’s just selling something that you don’t have.”
I have multiple flights booked on American Airlines and now I’m second guessing them. This is really disturbing to have the captain of their pilot’s union raise these red flags.
On top of this, Captain Sully Sullenberger, the hero commercial pilot who safely landed a US Airways (now American Airlines) Airbus A320 on New York’s Hudson River in 2009, announced yesterday that he would step down as U.S. envoy to an international aviation group on July 1. Reuters reports: “Sullenberger was confirmed in December as U.S ambassador to the International Civil Aviation Organization based in Montreal. He said in a statement that “relinquishing my role” was not an easy decision but did not offer a reason for his departure after just over six months. Last month, a pilots union distributed a statement from Sullenberger raising concerns about efforts by regional airlines to reduce new pilot requirements, quoting him saying they were “trying to weaken critically important pilot experience standards that are needed to keep passengers and crews safe.”
I’m not sure if I’m reading between the lines correctly but it sounds to me like Captain Sully doesn’t want to be around when things really hit the ground fan.
What has your experience been like flying American Airlines the last couple of months? Have you had an AA flight delayed or canceled? How do you feel about flying American Airlines after hearing from one of their lead pilots sound the alarm? Please share your experiences below so others can discuss.
YOU ALL HAVE TO REMEMBER, IN AMERICA, THE KING IS THE DOLLAR. AIRLINES LEARNT FROM THE BOEING MANAGEMENT, YOU CAN KILL PASSENGERS AND CREW AND GET $MILLIONS AND NO PENALTIES. SO HEY WE ARE HOME FREE! ALL FOR THE BOTTOM LINE AND WALL STREET. STILL WANT TO FLY?
AA is the worst airline ever.
They cancelled our flight going to Austin on the 7th August 2022 and no provision or compensation was available for young children of 19,16,14 years of age coming from the UK. We slept on the floor in the cold at Nashville (BNA)Airport with no duty of care from the staff or AA crew member. My parent is ready to take this up.
I paid extra to fly a day earlier for an appointment. But AA canceled that flight and rescheduled a day later. Then, late at night before the new flight scheduled the next morning, they canceled that flight also, rescheduling a couple days later. That would have destroyed my purpose for the trip, so I booked very quickly with another airline. I am continuing to work on a refund from AA.
Flew American August 10th from ida to dfw supposed to go to buf. Flight was canceled after 4 hours of delays and 8 gate changes. Rebooked us for 2 days later stuck in airport overnight because ALL hotels were full. Missed concert which was purpose of flight and finally got out next day but to different destination. It was miserable experience
We flew from Sydney and had a 1.5h layover in Dallas to Lima. We travelled with 2 small kids and the airline lost 1 of our big luggage with full of children’s chlotes and necessary items. It has been 3 weeks now and still couldn’t locate the bag. We had to spend quite a lot money to rebuy everything for the boys and they refused to pay back until they get news of the bag. What a crap Airline and their policies are the worse. Leave the customer and small kids in foreign country without any support to help them out I never experienced that. We are looking other way now to get compensation. People I highly recommend not to fly with American Airlines they are just not worth the risk as if you have issues you are alone with your problem :(
Flew with AA r/t from MSP to West Palm Beach with a connecting flight in CLT. Quick trip from 7/28-7/31. EVERY AA flight was delayed. We ended up on standby on a later flight out of CLT going. Our car pickup business was closed so had to book Uber to our hotel. The trip back from CLT to MSP was about 5 hours delayed causing us to miss our Delta connecting flight home so we had to spend an overnight either in the Msp airport or get a hotel. We opted for the intercontinental hotel connected to the airport d/t convenience and an early fight out to our home airport. Last minute hotel booking cost us 250$ for the night. All airport restaurants were closed by then so we grabbed something to eat at the very overpriced hotel restaurant. At least it was open. AA couldn’t care less and offered no voucher or anything…gee we are sorry would’ve been nice…as we only booked with them to Msp which was true; however, living in a rural area home airport option is limited to Delta only. Also to rebook delta cost extra $$ bc their price went up ?. The gate agents at CLT kept “teasing” us by saying 15 more minutes which turned into making us go to a different gate 5 hours later. Honesty would have been nice so maybe we could’ve gone out to eat while waiting.
Flew with AA July 2022 from Ft.Meyers, FL with connection in Charlotte and ending in Charleston, SC. No problems or delays.
Enough fear mongering. “Is it even safe..” of course it’s safe. What a corny article.
By my latest calculations I have spent more than 3.5 years of my life in airplanes. I am simply not at all concerned about the comments made in this article. The free market will determine the future of A/A and if there are repercussions to their actions the consumer will respond and they shouldn’t respond to some speculated fears. I have been at the top status with A/A for more than a dozen years and I feel they do a great job.
We flew AA from Miami to Philly on Sat, June 11th with “only” a 45 minute delay and the return was O’Hare into Miami, over an hour delay. We tweeted and wrote in, they gave us all 7,500 FF miles each. Not bad.
Flew on AA (well actually it was a JetBlue flight but purchased through the AA site and numbered as an AA flight on my ticket) out of MSY on June 30. After arriving at the airport 2.5 hours early as instructed by AA (or JetBlue?), for the flight that was scheduled to leave around 620pm, it was delayed twice, and I was holding my breath. But we did finally get out–and it arrived in JFK a couple of hours later than planned. I was just glad to get home. Nobody was wearing a mask though–not even the flight attendants which I really don’t get but…I kept mine on the whole time. It was a long day, but it could have a lot worse.
In late June I was scheduled on an AA red eye from SoCal to connecting in Charlotte with an 830am arrival in Philadelphia. About 4 hours before departure I got a text about a delay. A few minutes later when the second text delay came through I realized I would miss the connecting flight. I called AA and rebooted on an early morning flight the next day through Dallas which would still get me to Philly mid-day. I printed and downloaded a boarding pass. I went to the ticket counter the next morning to see about a refund for the seat upgrade I had paid for to Charlotte and was told I was not booked on the morning flight, but that AA had rebooted me for the redeye that night. I explained that I had called, spoken to an agent and rebooted through Dallas and had a boarding pass and extended my boarding pass. The agent said, “That is worthless. You are not booked on this flight. Don’t even try to show it to me.” Eventually I got on a flight to Dallas with a connection which was supposed to get me to Philly late afternoon. After boarding and sitting on the connecting flight in Dallas for an hour, we were told there was a mechanical problem and they had to find a new plane. After gate and terminal changes and waiting that spanned several hours, they started boarding our new plane. After calling boarding group 4, the line stopped and backed up at the gate. They then announced that the Cree had timed out and everyone had to get off the plane while they tried to find a new crew. Surely they knew before boarding that the crew did not have time to complete the flight to Philly. After more waiting, a crew was found and we eventually took off. I arrived to a deserted airport in Philly at 2:30 am for a flight on which I should have arrived the previous morning at 8:30 am. Aside from all that, my main question is, how did I manage to be issued a boarding pass for a flight on which the airline claims I was not booked? Isn’t this yet another safety hazard?
This past week my daughter had a similar experience on AA which boarded, deplaned, delayed and then cancelled a flight to the east coast, offering rebooting on the same flight the next day. She simply walked over to the Southwest terminal, booked a flight to her destination leaving an hour later and asked for a refund on her AA rountrip.
I am done with American Airlines.
We booked a trip June last year to Barbados for our anniversary this year with AA first class seats. My husband had never been internationally so this was to be an epic vacation. We drove to Dallas Thur night to catch our flight only to be told it was canceled, and we could not fly out until Sunday, two days late for our trip. On top of that, the airline we would be flying out of did not have first class seats. We had to ask for a hotel, and was told to email customer service to inquire about a refund for our seats. In which, we received a “courtesy credit” of $125. The upgrade cost way more than that.
We missed our prepaid activities for those two days. Then, my luggage with all my shoes was lost, and did not show up until later that Monday.
We had two and a half days left of our trip. Which was really hard to enjoy with all the issues, phones calls, and no appropriate shoes for a day. We were not looking forward to the return flight that again we paid for first class upgrade so he could have the experience, and for rightful reasons are concerns were validated.
The return flight initially was on time. After arriving at the airport we were informed it would be delayed for 30 minutes due to refueling issues. However, we were over an hour late leaving. Once we landed at JFK we did not have a gate so we sat on the tarmac over 30 minutes waiting for a gate. The pilot announced he called ahead to a supervisor to see if he could help those of us with connecting flights. That failed!! Now we’re over an hour and a half late. Of course, with international flights there’s customs. A 10 minute run from a gate from the other side only to get to customs and was told there was no connecting flight line, and to wait like everyone else…rudely. By this time our flight was boarding.
I began chatting with AA about our options and of course there was nothing they could do. Over an hour in line for customs when we got to the front there was a line for connecting flights (thanks TSA for that lie). We get to customer service she said we need to run let’s go they have not left yet she radioed ahead. We were running, got delayed waiting at security only to get to the gate and the flight had left on time.
Now we’re in another line waiting to find out how we could get home. We stood in that line for one hour and 43 minutes. We were the second in line as two lines opened up only to be told by an AA associate to move the other end. WTH!!! We were in that line 45 minutes. Luckily, the associate was very nice she worked diligently to try and help us. There was no flight out until the following evening at 8pm. By this time it’s after 10pm. We asked to be placed in a hotel there were none close so we’d have to pay $86 round trip for an Uber. Nope! She kept checking for us a hotel with a shuttle It’a now after 11pm, and she was working on the flight. As best we could get was a rolling standby for 5am for a booked flight and no first class.
After all of that and staying in the airport almost three hours in line for subway we made the 5am flight separate seats, and we received a “courtesy credit” of $125. Our anniversary trip was not a trip my husband says a journey I say a heartbreaking experience. Thanks AA five emails later to get the other $125 credit for my husband.
I flew just 3 weeks ago from Daytona Florida lay over in Charlotte going to pa and got stuck flying around Charlotte for 45 mins then we had to land at another airport because we were running low on fuel and then went back to Charlotte… most people missed their next flight or their next flight was delayed because of rain … It was crazy they tried telling me they didn’t have another flight from Charlotte to pay for 2 days that all the ones before that are booked…I flipped out as they paid my hotel room place was a dump I wouldn’t even sit on the bed forget lay on jt… I ended up calling and they got me out the next day that the people at Charlotte airport just didn’t wanna give me a ,700 dollar seat for next day cause my ticket was 179 …won’t ever fly again with American
My last two international connections were screwed up by AA. One due to ground staff shortages followed by a maintenance issue, the 2nd due to a pilot shortage and the incoming flight was 4 hrs late. I think twice about booking another AA flight this summer. The old 2 hr layover buffer no longer works, 4-5 hrs are necessary and will still not guarantee success. I am about to fly Delta this week; not confident that they will be any better.