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.
From Panamá city, Panamá AA has a flight to Miami going at 600am. Fresh Crew, all has been fine getting there to MIA the last 18months, 9 or 10 trips. Coming back was mostly empty planes with 30 passengers, pleasant. Last flight out of Miami was a comedy of errors. Packed full plane, long weekend, and some bad decisions by AA. As we taxi out for take off to PTY, warning light on rear door. Back to gate. Wait for repair. Fixed, but repair guy bumps plane with scissor lift, wait for inspection. Wait longer. Ok everyone deplane take carry on bags with you. Get to lobby, announce preparing meal tickets. Cancel meal tickets. Get back on plane show boarding pass. Some refuse, get arrested. Lady behind 1st class, leaves bag in isle, no room in overhead. Attendant will move bag to rear, lady refuse to allow it, says how will she get it at end of flight, her in front bag in rear( good point) Call police in to arrest her. Two of us step in and make space for her bag, police come in to get her, attendant cancels arrest. I told the two ladies flying with in my row, this is better than any movie we could watch, if only we had screens on the air bus. You can’t make this S-it up
I fly internationally several times a month on business and I promised never to fly AA again about 20 yrs ago. Rude, mean, unprofessional, and unhelpful staff is an indication of the culture of a company. Quite honestly, it’s the European and Asian airlines that have hospitality down as an art form. By the way, although I’ve had a few major delays ths year, no cancellations so far.
Flew Chicago/Key West May 24 and had no problems. Actually arrived ahead of schedule! Flight back same thing but waited for gate roughly 30 min. Also traveling to Las Vegas end of month and no hesitation with American.
I recently booked AA to go to my nephew’s birthday and graduation in CA. I didn’t make it to either. AA kept trying to get passengers off the plane out of Portland, then finally said air traffic control was rerouting us so we had to get more fuel. That caused me to miss the Charlotte flight and they wouldn’t get me food or hotel vouchers since it was supposedly not their fault. The rebooked flight would arrive too late for the graduation, so I stood through a massive line (freezing hungry thirsty and aching) to try to get something sooner. Got one still the next day but I might have got in during graduation. After freezing all night with nowhere to sleep, I got on that plane and after a long wait, the pilot said we didn’t have a copilot. Waited maybe an hour+ for them to try and get one, then he announced flight was cancelled. Another massive line to rebook and I wasn’t seeing it happen automatically on my phone. I found somewhere to sit dejectedly and thought how I was going to have to live there. Finally got my rebook message. By that time I wasn’t even functional enough to get the digital boarding pass. I just had to hand over my phone to staff and ask for help. Thank goodness I planned long enough trip to at least see my family. AA was ridiculous.
I was part of a travel group for an alumni thing to dublin Ireland. We started in Phx then got stuck in chicago for 2 extra days and 1 night in Philadelphia. Took about 3 hours being in line to finally see someone. Was originally told we couldn’t get our checked luggage, then they said we could get it only to be told we couldn’t again since everyone working the luggage area had left since we were waiting around for so long to get our vouchers for the night. They almost even sent our luggage direct to dublin before we could even go.
Also, once we got to Philly they ran out of rooms because of so many more canceled flights that we almost didn’t have a place to stay(travel company ended up helping but very last minute). They already displaced us several days but weren’t even prepared to room us having two prior days notice on it all. Unacceptable. They did that to us.
The long lines happening at their customer service desks is appalling and I hope they at least try and relieve the time displaced for people there.
I travel for work. I’ve had numerous horror stories with AA. The best was finally getting to Springfield IL at midnight due to numerous delayed flights. No luggage, no car rental place open and even got locked out of the airport. And no taxi!
Shame on you! I’m don’t with AA.
This episode was last spring.
I am American Airlines advantage member since 1995. On the 26th of July I took AA flight from DFW to Toronto YYZ Airport. Being an advantage member I have the benefit of 1 free checked bag but was surprised when they charged me $30.
I am flying AA late Aug to Boston then the London. I very worried from all of what I’ve heard that I will be delayed and lose time off my trip & already scheduled activities.
I am trying to stay hopeful so let’s pray all goes as planned but with all the notices I’ve received of changes since booked i have to admit I am not the optimistic person I try to always be.
I booked AA flight from Palm Springs to Ft. Lauderdale the day before a booked cruise. I arrived at 3:30 am for a 6 am departarture, saw in line for an hour and was told by the AA counter agent that the flight was already full and I had no seat. I was told there were no more flights to Ft. Lauderdale that day and my option was to book for the next day or rent a car and drive 80 miles to the Ontario CA airport. No other options were discussed or offered. Over two hours later, after waiting and insisting on speaking to an AA manager, I was given the option to fly to Miami and pay a fee of + $206 dollars. I dod this to ensure I would make this cruise, but it necessitated my paying $56 hor an Uber from Miami to Ft. Lauderdale. I found out later that I should have been offered compensation for being bumped off the fight.
Do not fly American Airlines. We were supposed to arrive in LAX on Saturday 6/25 and didn’t get our flight because the Pilot in Chicago O’Hare Airport was extremely late and in turn it delayed our next flight from O’Hare to LAX who waited as long as they could for us then left minutes before we got to the new gate because when we landed we could not get off the plane until everyone in the front seats exited the plane. The pilot should have known that due to his being late we needed to be the 1st off the plane to catch the next flight. Unorganized. There was others that also missed their flights because of the late occurrence by the Pilot. Then American Airlines set us on a flight leaving at 3pm the next day. We did not accept this and insisted on a flight to Santa Ana around 8am on Sunday (we had to stay in the Airport all night so we wouldn’t miss the flight) in which our luggage arrived with the LAX Flight that we missed. We requested American Airlines deliver our luggage, after being misled for 3 Days, I finally got the name of the luggage delivery company which turned out to be incorrect information. We went to the location given to us and person there gave us the correct address on 11160 Hindry, Suite M, in Los Angeles where we finally located and picked up our luggage. We didn’t get any sleep while waiting for our flight. A total nightmare. We do not recommend American Airlines. Be aware.
Just flew AA 2 days ago. Three flights. All delayed considerably. Had to rush to make connecting flights, and getting info from AA staff was frustrating.
(Also, the food was horrible.)
I may be in the minority here. I’ve flown American twice this year with no trouble. Once to Florida and once to Cancun. All flights were on time, no lost luggage, smooth transfers. My daughter and I are flying to Greece the first of September on American and I’m keeping my fingers crossed!