for some reason, the travel gods have blessed me with smooth travels my whole life.
i have flown hundreds and hundreds of times – to almost every state (minus the northeast and northwest corners) and to several foreign countries – and i have never lost a piece of luggage or suffered any inconvenience, sans a few weather or other delays.
i have never even imagined i would reach across a ticketing counter to punch someone.
but i almost did.
(almost).
this weekend was great. i flew into alabama, drove to atlanta, hung out with ragamuffinsoul and whittakerwoman, even ended up crashing on their couch friday night because it was too stormy to trek three hours back to alabama. i was in my friend lynse’s wedding, spent some great time talking to boomama, slept in, went to the airport, checked in for my flight home and…
no ticket is available.
um, i’m sorry?
i proceeded to the woman at the american airlines ticketing counter who also confirmed i had no flight home.
my confirmation number on my blackberry will prove you wrong.
she looks again. nope. gone.
evidently, a few weeks ago when i had called to bump my arrival flight up several hours, the reservations “specialist” forgot to re-confirm my flight home.
and thus it disappeared.
the woman got her supervisor, who got her supervisor. they told me to call reservations to straighten it out. i did. the lady on the phone confirmed the things i already knew and told me to work it out with the ticket counter.
so, back to the ticket counter i went.
however, in the 30 seconds it took for me to walk back, the most recent reservations “specialist” put my ticket back into the system.
(please note that my flight, at this time, had just departed).
a lady in a red sweater told to call another 800 number to work it out.
i said no. you fix your mistake. not me.
the next ticket counter agent (and i suppose the queen bee of them all, sporting a different blue sweater than the rest) said she saw my ticket in the system, and told me now that there was not a problem. i had simply just missed my flight.
excuse me?
there was nothing they could do but put me on the standby list with the other 837 standby customers for the next flight, six hours later.
she literally scolded me as if it were my fault.
it was at this point i jumped over the counter and began screaming obscenities.
ok, not really. but i was fiercely twittering my frustration (whilst forgetting my tattoo that says “grace” ever-so-visible on my wrist).
the previous ticket counter agent told her that there was, indeed, a problem, and the blue-sweater-queen-bee grumpily agrued with her a while. i kept twittering.
finally, blue-sweater-queen-bee went to another phone to fix it. twenty minutes later, she printed out some boarding passes for the next flight, and without a single apology handed me my tickets.
most of you don’t know me. i do not get angry. it is a very rare occurrence when i do. i probably did not handle this situation with as much grace and tact as i should have.
bobby already has a contract he has made with himself to never fly american.
i can now see why.
accept responsibility for your mistakes. apologize. perhaps even try to redeem yourself with a meal voucher or upgrade or something.
and as long as i can help it, i will avoid you, american-airlines-devil-people.
your worst travel story?
Comments
38 responses to “american airlines is the devil”
Sorry to change the subject, but something is wrong with that second link.
Anne, AA screwed me years ago in Tucson. I have had to go thru intense counseling for many years to get over it…not really, but i did have to practice forgiving the idiots over and over again. Like you, i have a long story on how they continued to mishandle my deal but i’ll share it another time. Hang in there and know that God will use their stupidity to work something good out in your life. : )
Thanks Jodie. Amazing what happens when you mess up writing a link. Sorry to anyone who had to see that!!
Hmmm, my best travel story. That’s easy! See if anyone can top this one…
My husband and I were suppose to leave PA on a Saturday to fly to Montana via Northwest Airlines. But when we checked in they told us our flight had been cancelled and the next flight we could catch would be the next day.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME? THE NEXT DAY?
So we go back to the airport the next day and fly from PA to Detroit where they have the armpit of all airports. In Detroit, our plane has mechanical difficulties and we have to wait about five hours (in a terminal with no air conditioning in the middle of the summer)to catch our next flight to Minneapolis.
When they start taxiing the plane from the gate in Detroit, the mechanical problem is still registering (something about the computer that controls the wings not working) and they pull back to the gate. About 45 mins later, they pull out again. Problem still there so they pull back in to gate. Now people start crying and begging to get off the plane, not wanting to fly in the death machine, but no one is allowed off.
About an hour later, we finally take off with everyone pretty certain we are being flown to our death. But no such luck! We land in Minneapolis about 11pm and learn that there are no more flights for the night. They put us in a hotel and give us food vouchers, which we couldn’t use b/c all the restaurants were closed, and we have no luggage.
On day three of our excellent adventure, we get up at 6am to go back to airport and try to catch another flight. Next flight is delayed several hours due to, you guessed it, mechanical problems.
My husband is leading a small mob of people in demanding free tickets; I am contemplating contacting Geraldo.
We finally get on the plane where they tell us that we’re not flying to our destination, Bozeman. We are first flying past Great Falls to Missoula to drop some people off. Then we’ll fly back to Great Falls.
That’s when we both lost our religion.
We finally arrived in Great Falls 50 hours after we were suppose to, and it took us about 5 days of our vacation to decompress.
We wrote letters to every top Northeast Airlines official explaining our trip and asking for a refund. Here was their response:
“If you read the back of your ticket, you’ll find that Northwest does not guarantee timely travel, only that we get you to your destination. Eventually.”
That was news to us. But since we know that now we will never fly Northwest again and we take the opportunity to tell anyone who listens our story.
Thanks for listening :)
There’s enough bad stories, like me spending the night in ATL a couple of summers ago for much the same reason as yours, with bad weather on top. But this past Friday while you were heading to ATL, I was heading into ATL a few hours after you – late leaving from San Juan, PR. But the flight, even though it was late, was nearly empty – about 20 folks, no one within ten rows of me. It was heaven. Then my flight home to CAE was full, but again I was in a seat with no one sitting next – best flight home I’ve had in years.
That was DELTA, not AA, fyi :)
about a month ago i had a round trip ticket on AA. 1 hour before departure I received a call informing me that my flight was cancelled. when speaking with a phone agent she informed me that if i wanted to make my scheduled engagement that I should have planned better and flown out the night before! she then proceeded to hang up on me. AA put me on Alaska Air to fly out. On the return trip the same thing happened! 1 hour before departure… cancelled. add to that a freak snow storm in the southwest and AA cancels all flights. i ended up spending the night in the DFW airport with AA providing cots to sleep on (but not enough for everyone). Oddly enough my wife departed Dallas on Southwest without a problem. No more AA for me.
We are not fans of American Airlines as well! We have had several bad experiences with them:( One time they put the boys in single seats and then Brandon and I together. We asked if we could have 2 sets of seats together (the boys were 3 and 5). They said we would have to ask around to see if someone would switch. How uncomfortable is that?? So, after thinking about it, Brandon marched back up there and asked if they could at least call the people seated next to our boys to see if one of them would be willing to switch. After acting like it was not their problem, they finally called someone and still had us ask. RUDE.
We have also had delay after delay for the weather while other flights were still going. They said it was for our “safety”. BOO.
We have vowed not to fly with them again. I hate to hear about your flight troubles but admit, I can somewhat relate.
I have also sworn off AA. Not for one particular incident, but rather for their continued rudeness and lack of helpfulness over the years. I will never again willingly fly AA.
I am wondering if AA checks their online reputation. I sent them a link to this post to help them out. :)
American airlines overbooked my flight back from vegas. I was put in stand by for the next flight… Which was overbooked so I was put on standby for the next…which by the way as also overbooked. This continued for over 8 hours as the standby list continued to grow I continues to lose the rest of my money on a cbination of airport slot machines and expensive airport stores. The most frustrating thing was that “preferred” customers had priority over standby customers…. So I just sat there watching frequent flyers take my seat flight after flight just be because they couldn’t wait for their own flight.
Sometimes I wonder if I am a “prefered customer” in my own way. Do overlook those with needs so that I can have my preferences.
Do our churches have “prefered customers” that get their way regardless of what’s best?
If an experience like this will kee me from flying American airlines, what happens when the same thing happens in churces.
do it AJ!! let them know how people feel…i am not a frequent flyer…in fact, i prefer i35, but after reading stories….you can guess which airline is not going to get my money! thanks for the psa.
Anne, my cousin is a pilot for AA and he gave me the CEO’s personal email address after my flight to Kosovo was cancelled, I waited in line for 4 1/2 hours, and all the gate agents took their 30-minute breaks at the same time while 25 people waited in line, then finally got rerouted to Istanbul via Des Moines (I was supposed to go to London), arriving 22 hours late, and didn’t get my luggage until 96 hours after checking it in (Believe it or not, I have a MUCH worse story that involves having to ride a youth ski trip bus 29 hours back to Austin after United left me stranded in Denver after flying in from Tokyo.)
That’s all to say, shoot me an email if you want the address. I can’t tell you how cathartic it has been to politiely but firmly demand some compensation for my inconvenience.
Well, I could tell you about the occasion last August where the AA employees at Love Field were EXTREMELY ABSOLUTELY RUDE AND UNHELPFUL, canceling my flight to San Jose with no explanation, leaving every single at-gate counter unattended in the entire AA wing of Love Field so that I had to exit security and go back to the ticket counter in order to find someone – anyone – and then stonewalling my requests to be re-booked on one of the many SWA flights.
OR, I can look at the positive impact of delayed flights. On my first trip to Ecuador, I don’t remember the name of the Ecuadorian airline, but we flew a deathtrap of a plane from Miami to Quito. We lost air pressure, so they stopped us in Panama to fix something. After a few hours in Panama, it was too late to make it in to Quito, so they flew us to another Ecuadorian city, where we stayed the night, then flew to Quito on a different airline. Later we found out, if we had come in on our original airline, we would have had our luggage “confiscated by customs” and held for months or years. The local employees of the airline we booked were extremely suspicious of American missionaries, and would not let their luggage into the country. It was only because we were switched to a different airline that our luggage and racks of A/V equipment made it in. That’s the memory I try to hold onto whenever AA or any other airline screws me.
There were really no positives whatsoever to my AA delay in August, though. None.
Oh, I’ve had some ugly ones too… here’s the link to the blog of my latest adventure about a month ago:
http://jcatron.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=52
In the Irish blogosphere what tends to happen is people link to a particular post on the issue and that pushes the maligned blogger’s post up the Google rankings.
The offending company generally responsds in one of three ways. Does nothing. A very stupid company. Tries to intimidate the blogger. An even stupider company. Makes restitution. A smart company.
It’s one option but can be a bit blunt at the same time.
The only problem with being so extremely in the right is how much more difficult that makes it when you finally have to acknowledge having an “inner wolf” moment. (grin)
I’m sorry to hear about your travel frustrations, and I’ve no real woes of my own. I just wanted to let you know what a kick it was to “attend” your friends wedding. Got a bit teary over those twitters, especially the part when she almost dropped the ring.
Um… that’s pretty bad. Sorry!
The worst one for me was when I couldn’t get home in time for Thanksgiving. Sucked, but at least I was with the rest of my team. It was sorta fun in a weird way.
You should come to Portland for a visit sometime. That would take care of your “minus the northwest corners”. I promise to make it worthwhile :)
with a group of a dozen (smelly) people returning from three months in india. after multiple legs finally arrive at our destination…to get stuck for over an hour in the plane b/c there was no connect-to-the-terminal-thingy.
then wait another hour stuck in the hallway of the connect-to-the-terminal-thingy for unknown reasons.
oh, yeah, that was american airlines. i do NOT heart AA.
Personally, I think you gave them too much grace.
All my terrible travel stories involve Northwest Airlines and the Memphis airport.
My favorite was sitting in the plane at the gate in memphis for 45 minutes, waiting for the ground crew to find a pair of headphones so they could communicate with the pilot and we could leave. Which of course made me miss my connection.
Or NWA being late, causing me to miss a connection in Memphis. So they put me and the other passengers up in a Holiday Inn down on the Memphis hooker stroll. The room smelled like feet and there was a huge family reunion going on downstairs that later spilled into the hallways until 4 am.
Then NWA didn’t send the shuttle to get us to the airport the next morning, and a bunch of people missed their flights. I was not one of them because I gave up on the shuttle and called a cab and made my flight with 10 seconds to spare.
Good times.
Anne,
First let me tell you that I thoroughly enjoy following you on twitter. Today during lunch my BB kept chiming and my roommate was like “Good NIGHT man, who the heck is that,” and all I could say was: “Aww poor Anne.” It was also fun to wake up in the morning after the recent tornadoes in OKC to have like 48 messages waiting on my phone and 20 or so of them were you.
Despite having never met you, and having no connection outside of flowerdust.net, I really enjoy your tweets. (Which when I think about it, sounds sort of creepy, but I assure you, it’s merely because it is nice to know someone, who is a leader who keeps it real)
I will say though that Saturday night, during the wedding, I was ready to through the Pearl across the room. :-) Just being honest. :-P
As far as traveling issues, I can honestly say I’ve never had any. Of course I will only fly two airlines, US and Southwest. Actually, US Airways has gone above and beyond for me on numerous times, even going as far as booking me a first class flight to Albany to be with my grandmother when I was discharged from the army and mid-way through my flight from my base to Tampa I found out my grandfather had passed away. They were so kind my bags went to Tampa without me, and they had them sitting on my grandmothers doorstep at 8:00 am the next morning despite the massive snow-storm that blanketed the region.
I’m sorry for your troubles today, but I highly recommend US Air (despite their ridiculous fares), and Southwest.
ATA Airlines red eye.
Me and my 2 year old in one seat.
Bathroom and chatty flight attendants directly behind us.
No 2 inch recline and a father/daughter combo sitting next to us cursing and arguing all the way from Cali to Chicago.
Well that does it, no more AA when purchasing my tickets!
2 Months ago…missed a flight due to bad weather in California to Tulsa. Had to get on another flight, get up early 4:30 and leave for my flight at 6:15 from Dallas. Fine. Got to my gate, canceled. Got another flight. Canceled. Got another flight, postponed and moved gates over 5 times. I missed the entire weekend I was supposed to lead worship for at our church. I gratified myself with glazed pecans…ate the whole bag. Didn’t even feel guilty about it either! Dang Fog!
So funny you ask…I just got settled in my hotel room and frantically blogged my worst flight ever. But the Heavenly bed at the Westin is making me quickly forget the day’s events. Now you can just relax and smirk at the fact that your crazy flight story gave you something to blog about. :)
My worst travel story involves foreign travel and several bathroom emergencies, some of which took place during take offs and landings.
I can think of no industry that is so customer UN-friendly than the airlines. The whole business from security on down to baggage handlers think that they exist for us instead of the other way around.
For what its worth, I apologize for my fellow human beings who don’t know where their paychecks come from.
So sorry for the bad ending to a good weekend. I was thinking about you today in church wishing you had more time in Bham – not realizing, of course, that you did.
I have so many bad travel stories, primarily with Northworst, though. The tops – my now 17 year old son was 9 and on a direct flight from Bham to Memphis (45 minutes) where his grandmother was meeting him at the gate. When he arrived in Memphis and began to deplane with the rest of the passengers, the stewardess rudely said to him “Sit down. I’m telling you not to move until I come back and get you.” Being a compliant child (God makes a few of them each year), he sat down to wait. All the passengers deplaned. The stewardess deplaned and went to the gate and chatted with the gate agent (Grandmom anxiously waiting for grandson notices all these details.) Child is last one left on plane; cleaning crew comes on; child still waits for stewardess. When the cleaning crew begins to turn the lights off, the child decides it is time to go whether or not he gets permission. As he exits the airway into the gate area, the stewardess, realizing her mistake, lambasts him for deplaning without her permission. Anxious grandmom witnesses all. Did stewardess apologize? No. When I called up the management food chain, did I get a single apology? No. A free ticket home? Nope. Nothing. Nada. That experience might be topped by the time Northworst cancelled our flight from Saginaw, Michigan and closed their counter leaving me with two young children and two EXTREMELY elderly and confused people (neither of whom I was related to or even knew) to fend for ourselves overnight. Another story for another time –
Just glad you made it home – wait, did you?
a trip to kenya when i was a teenager. it went something like this:
louisville to chicago
chicago to dc
dc to heathrow
heathrow to abu dhabi
abu dhabi to muscat, oman
oman to bahrain (emergency landing because plane caught on fire.)
bahrain to nairobi
whew. it was a long 38 hours.
last march on my way home from south africa… we arrived in Washington, DC. and quickly realized we had missed our Kansas City connection flight because South African Airlines got us in an hour or so late and had the wrong time posted on their schedule. SOOOOO we had to figure out something else. Needless to say we were all aggravated and just ready to go home but we couldn’t. Our only option was to split up into 2 groups and head to St. Louis and from St. Louis, rent vans and DRIVE HOME. Otherwise we would have to wait until Monday to fly out because everything else was full. So, finally after 42 hours of traveling… we got home at about 7pm when I should have been home that morning at 10:30am.
Customer service is always getting worse I swear.
Most airlines will bend over backwards not to help you out. I just stick with Continental and so far have been OK.
Hi there, sweet Anne! It was so great to see you at Lynse’s wedding. So sorry for the travel confusion — but, I’ve SO been there– similar situation for me in returning from DC last summer — and, I missed my connecting flight in Atlanta. Returned home to Birmingham at a soggy 1:00 a.m. hour — instead of the planned 8:00 pm — I think next time I’ll rent a motorbike!
Wow, bummer!!! I actually just had a bad flight experience a few weeks ago when I was returning home to Paris after a trip to the States. My AA flight from St. Louis to Chicago was over 2 hours late, causing me to miss my connecting flight. I’ll spare you the details, but I have to say that AA actually was really helpful and re-routed me so I didn’t have to spend an extra day in Chicago…this allowed me to arrive only 5 hours behind schedule instead of 24. It was a rough trip from start to finish, but I made it and I was thankful for the helpful people at AA who re-routed me through their airlines (with a stop in London) when I was supposed to be on Air France to Paris and they couldn’t do anything for me. It could have been worse, like your situation!
I don’t travel enough to have a bad story, but my husband does. While I can’t relay his story with as much gusto as he can, I will share that he always writes a letter of complaint and always gets mileage as an apology. AA gave him 4000 bonus miles because they delayeed his flight due to a non-functional toilet paper holder. They gave him 15000 miles for a flight cancellation. I know you’d prefer to not fly AA, but if their screw ups send you to Hawaii for free, a little trouble may be worth it. :)
Wow, so sorry to hear about your unpleasant American Airlines experiences. I had a similiar situation with Delta Airlines; however, all seem to have flown this year is. . .you guessed it. . .Delta Airlines.
I love flying American, and I wished I could have flown American instead of Delta, but the company was footen the bill and that was the best rate.
The last time I flew American, I had missed a connecting flight and the group in front of me was yelling at the ticket agents and I just told the lady that I can fly whenever and lo and behold she put me on standby for the next flight and the only seat left was first class. That was at the tail end of so many cancelled and re-routed flights, so I feel your pain there.
Hopefully next time will be better.
I was on my way back home. In Dallas on a flight that was supposed to leave at 7pm. It left at 2:30 am. Problems like this happened twice in DFW. I had to work the next day at 8 am. I got home at 3:30 and my folks were picking me up.
I hate DFW.
Well, from your next post after this one, it sounds like you had a much harsher “inner wolf” realization than I imagined with my cute little response. Seriously, all I was picturing was your HF(Heavenly Father) sending you to give a talk on patience at the church all these AA devil people attend. Ignore all us harsh, goofball wannabes. Your HF loves you bunches.
I hope you are feeling better. And remember, read what I mean, not what I say! (grin)