I haven’t had a lot of luck with air travel of late. My flights always seem
to be delayed – and for some reason, when a flight is delayed more than
half an hour, it always turns out to be six hours at least. You lose a whole
day, your sleep patterns get completly screwed up, and, of course, any vague
hint of a bug you might have had getting on to the plane gets turned into a
full-on raging cold by the time you’ve spent 12 hours in a metal tube breathing
stale, fifth-hand, dry-as-dust air.
I’m in Argentina now, and my trip down here is a case in point. The kind of
people who say "you’re lucky" to someone with a terrible injury would
probably say the same thing about me: I was on the last plane out of JFK as
a major
snowstorm was blowing in to New York, and who knows when I might have been
able to leave had the flight been cancelled.
That said, however, the American Airlines experience left a very great deal
to be desired. On an evening when all flights out of the airport were significantly
delayed due to weather, they insisted on boarding us right on time, only to
sit at the gate… and sit at the gate… and sit at the gate a bit longer.
The announcements from the captain were mumbled, short, and unhelpful: something
about engines, power, de-icing, it was not clear at all.
After about an hour, finally a coherent message from the captain. The good
news: we were finally able to leave the gate. The bad news: a couple of standby
passengers who were meant to be on board turned out not to be, and so their
luggage would have to be removed. Of course, they had all the relevant information
an hour earlier, when we were waiting around twiddling our thumbs, but somehow
failed to act on it until the point when we were hopeful we might finally be
able to take off.
Eventually, the bags were found, the plane left the gate, and – I think,
nothing was made very clear to us – we started the first phase of de-icing.
Apparently there are de-icing "stations" at JFK: this is not a procedure,
like refuelling, that can be done at the gate. So various bits of the plane
got de-iced, and then we headed off to station number two, where the wings and
fuselage would get done. Except we never got there. What with heating and lighting
the cabin, and de-icing whatever they de-iced, they’d somehow managed to run
out of whatever battery power they needed to actually move the aircraft. So
we had to wait for another hour while someone could, in effect, give us a jump-start.
Then, the second phase of de-icing took at least twice as long as it should
have, for similar reasons to do with power. First one side of the plane got
de-iced, then the other, instead of them both being done at the same time.
More profoundly, the way we were running out of power created a big problem:
there now wasn’t enough fuel left to get us all to Buenos Aires. The captain
had three choices: cancel the flight, which no-one wanted; lose 60 passengers
to lighten the load; or refuel in Miami. In the end, the choice was made for
him: the crew had spent so long sitting on the ground that under union rules
they weren’t allowed to work the whole 11 hours to BA. So Miami it was.
It was exactly at this point that things really started to go wrong. Once the
flight had been sitting on the tarmac for a certain amount of time, Miami was
a certainty. In fact, the pilot more or less admitted we would have to refuel
there in one of his earliest announcements, while we were still stuck at the
gate. But let’s be charitable and say it took them a couple of hours to put
two and two together. The plane was meant to leave at 10:20, so by 12:20 American
Airlines should have been getting on the phone to Miami, organising a new crew
to replace the JFK crew, and generally attempting to ensure that we wouldn’t
need to spend any more time in Miami than we needed to refuel.
We finally took off, five hours late, at 3:20. The flight was fast and uneventful,
and we landed by 5:15. The crew, by this point, was very annoyed: rather than
working 22 hours New York – Buenos Aires – New York, they would
get paid for only nine or so, for the time spent idling in New York and the
flight to Miami. Still, they told us, not to worry: the American Airlines agent
would be waiting for us at the gate, along with the replacement crew, and we
should be on our way in no time.
Of course, when we get to the gate, there’s no agent there: no one in Miami
seems to have the foggiest notion what’s going on. Eventually, at 6:00, roughly
when we were expected to be leaving, an agent arrived, and seemed most surprised
to see us at the gate. After a bunch of scrambling around, it’s determined that
our nine-person crew from JFK is going to be replaced by a five-person crew
from Miami – they should be here any time. And, indeed, they all turn
up relatively quickly, except for the one who doesn’t. An extra crew member
must be found, which is likely to take an hour or so, and so at this point it’s
decided that maybe we should be let out of the airplane after all. We’d been
cooped up for eight hours, no one knows how long we’ll be stuck in Miami, and
the flight on to Buenos Aires is another nine: even American realised that it
might not be smart to make a 767 with more than its fair share of small children
stay in its seats for something over 18 hours at a stretch.
So we’re told that we can stretch our legs for half an hour. No longer will
groups of no more than four people at a time be accompanied to the phone booths
and back; rather, we can all enjoy the splendours of the American Airlines departure
lounge in Miami at our pleasure.
The departure lounge is a pretty grim place, outfitted with little more than
a Nathan’s hot-dog stand staffed by the surliest people I’ve ever seen in Miami
(although the fact that they were working at 6:00 on a Monday morning might
explain that bit). All the same, it’s an improvement over the interior of our
airplane’s fuselage.
Actually, scratch that. The surliest people I’ve ever seen in Miami weren’t
the hot-dog vendors, they were the gate Nazis. What no one bothered to tell
us when we were deplaning (yes, they really used that word) was that once we
were off, they wouldn’t let us back on again until they were good and ready.
No, they never said why. For me, it was no great hardship: all it meant was
that I couldn’t read my book, which I’d left safely tucked in the pocket on
the back of the seat in front of me. But for others, especially one woman who
had just got up to make a phone call and who had left two children on board,
including a four-year-old, this petty decision had huge consequences.
Everybody was cranky, remember: it was now 7 in the morning, and no one had
got much in the way of sleep. An 11-hour flight is pretty hard work at the best
of times, but now that another seven or eight hours were being added on to that,
most of them spent on board the airplane, people were getting angry. No one
at Miami knew anything; the only thing they told us was that they’d simply arrived
at the airport at 6:00 and really had no idea what was going on, where the crew
was, how many of them there had to be, when we might be taking off, when we
might be landing, or anything else.
At this point, understandably, various passengers decided that they’d had enough.
They were in Miami, which has many flights down to Buenos Aires each day, and
rather than stick around this accursed airplane, they were going to hang out
in Florida for a day or so and then, somewhat rested, continue on to Argentina.
After all, for the elderly or the very young, an 18-hour plane journey is the
last thing you want, and if you can avoid it, you do.
I don’t know whether anybody actually got off at Miami, whether their bags
had to follow them, or what. No one saw fit to tell us peons what was going
on: all we knew was that the 7:00 deadline for us to get back on to the plane
had come and gone, and there was no sign of anything happening. Communication
was nil. The American staff started playing the sorry-we’re-clueless card a
bit too often: sorry, I don’t know. I don’t know anybody who knows. I can’t
help you.
On the plane, it was the same story: people who’d missed dinner on the grounds
that it had been served at 4 in the morning when no one wants to eat were told
that no, they couldn’t have anything to eat, and that actually, I, your flight
attendant, haven’t had anything to eat since last night either. Oh, and no,
I can’t get you immigration cards for Argentina or anything like that, because
the JFK crew put them somewhere and we have no idea where. And in general, sorry
if you have no service on this flight, but you have to understand: we’re very
understaffed.
On arriving at Buenos Aires, we just got the standard "welcome to Argentina
and thank you for flying American" message: no apology for being eight
hours delayed, and certainly no attempt to make things up to us.
This general unhelpful attitude is something I’ve come across before with American
(and I’ve only flown them on two other occasions). I had an American flight
from Los Angeles to New York once, which involved a change at Dallas-Fort Worth.
All flights in and out of DFW were delayed for some reason, but we were assured
that because everyone was delayed by pretty much the same amount of time, there
shouldn’t be any difficulty making our connections.
Of course the story changed when we got to DFW. Sorry, your flight to LaGuardia
has left already: for noise reasons, planes aren’t allowed to land there after
a certain time, so it got bumped up the list. Again, a failure of communication
from one airport to another: while on the Argentina flight it was New York not
communicating with Miami, on the New York flight it was DFW not communicating
with Los Angeles. Of course, if we’d known in LA that we wouldn’t be getting
to New York that evening, we would never have left at all, and rather spent
one more night in California, catching an early flight back to New York the
following day. But because of information failure, we were stuck in Dallas-Fort
Worth overnight.
It got worse, though: American decided/decreed that the reason we were forced
to stay in Texas overnight was weather, not general incompetence on its own
part, and that therefore they weren’t even going to put us up in a hotel. If
we liked, they could procure some army-style cots and maybe a blanket or two
and we could sleep on the floor of the departure lounge.
Cock-ups, of course, happen on all airlines, through their fault or otherwise.
But where other airlines seem to genuinely want to make things better, American
seems to be as unhelpful as possible. Virgin once gave me a voucher for being
delayed, even though they’d phoned me in advance to tell me that the flight
was late and I could turn up a few hours later. Even the low-cost airlines in
Europe, like Buzz, or in the US, like JetBlue and SouthWest, are known for their
customer service. But American seems to have a completely different mindset.
I think that the problem could well be the aftermath of September 11. American
has been inflicting wave after wave of job cuts, and evidently a lot of the
lost jobs have been the people coordinating its different operations around
the country. I worry, too, that others have been in more vital areas: I don’t
think it’s coincidence that the Rockaway
crash happened so soon after September 11, when morale in the airline industry
was at its lowest and thousands of jobs had just been cut.
People are nervous about flying these days, and maybe they ought to be, although
their reasons for nervousness (war, terrorism) are, I think, misplaced. The
chances of an airline passenger being the victim of a terrorist attack are minimal.
But the chances of the same passenger falling victim to incompetencies which
are a result of downsizing following general nervousness about a terrorist attack
are much greater. It’s almost as though being scared of a flying is a self-fulfilling
prophecy: the more people that are scared of flying, the fewer people flying,
the more layoffs the airlines need to make, the less safe flying becomes, and
the more justified a fear of flying is.
Still, I’m going to continue to fly American, just because of their leg-room.
I’m telling you, once we were airborne, I actually managed to stretch out and
get some sleep – in economy! That doesn’t mean I like them, though.
AA management especially the CSM’s on the ramp at DFW have a major nose problem. You have to be on dope to work there! Most are lazy ghetto coons and the others are whores who bend over and take it in the poop chute from some union crew chief who has some fat broad in a mini skirt bent over the computer and is pounding the $hit out of her and then telling the rank and file what a $lut she is!
The Ramp Supervisors at Dallas are too busy listening to Das Hammer talk about why Sears is THE place to buy tires, and checking out his hot bod to care about getting flights out on time!
Here. this shows how the employee’s of AAL feel.
This grass roots campain has drawn alot of attention but it is how we feel.
http://www.pupoff.com/index.html
American Airlines SUCKS bigtime. i was with my kid on a flight from Zurich to US and the flight staff was quite rude and uncooperative. i requested an extra blanket for my kid who was shivering due to AC generated cold and she acted as if i was asking for some big favour. utlimately she gave me an extra blanket after an hr by which my kid was on the verge of becoming unconscious and told me that some passenger gave it up for me in a manner as if he had sacrificed some years of his life for me . very bad service , they need to go back and learn some basic concepts of service first.
American Airline sucks and so does their management team. It is pretty sad when employees dont even fly them and go on the competition instead. Pre 9-11 , everyone liked their job, but now its just a good place to get free miniatures of liqour off the plane and burn your sick time while you mow yards for cash or go to your other part time fed ex job now that they pay more than AA. Anytime a passenger fells the need to ask me a question I tell them I dont know and give them the Presidents number so they can bitch out his secretary. I dont care about AA after they screwed my family over and tell the customer to fly Southwest. I could care less about losing my job at AA. Give me my 25 grand back and I’ll be the hardest working SOB at AA, but that is not going to happen so I try to cost them at least a grand a day legally if possible, just by doing my job safely. Screw you AA ! Im getting my 25 grand back one bag at a time!
AA does suck and so do their lazy rampers.I know an AA ramp guy here that does nothing but brag about how he sends his friends and family all over the world non-rev and how he non-revs to Puerto Rico all the time. I think the rampies at AA should stop complaining about their management and actually work instead of crying about how they have to fly coach when they non-rev. I’m usually way too busy to fly anywhere even though I can.
The AA ramp agents writing such horrible nonsense about flight attendants and management should be ashamed of themselves. By the way, ramp agents and their buddies do take up seats on AA flights especially when their girlfriends up at the gates hook them up with first class seats at boarding time!
I’m personally sick of finding non-revving scumbags sitting up in first class next to well dressed hard-working business people who paid for their tickets!
AA guys need to stop hooking up themselves and everyone else and let those seats go to paying passengers and then maybe ya’ll can get back some of that money you keep cryin about losing!
I believe the reason why AA/AE sucks is; there is no requirements for hiring a manager. There is actually managers working at LGA that do not have a GED. The salary is very bad, and it is hard to get a college graduate to hold a position at AA/AE. They hike the fair to the Caribbean and other third world countries, now, these people want to go back home to see their families, so they get a job at thew airline, this way they can go back home when they want for free. The problem is, these are the same people that are managers and supervisors, sadly, they have no customer service experience, and the passengers are the ones who suffer.
You have to be puerto rican and load dope on super 80’s to be hired by AA.
Southwest employees are too busy picking the coach class peanuts outta their @ss and drinking the company kool aid to fly non rev. They should be loading dope on airplanes to JFK and the Caribbean and they would be making more than 30 grand a year! I quit them to work as a CSX Rail employee in Maryland and make a hell of a lot more!!
After I was unduely terminated from AE, I was charged for uniforms that I had already paid for and was charged for “backpay” that I “owed” them. See, they front you your first paycheck(in my case it was a little under 400 dollars), but three years later they wanted my last paycheck back in return( it was about 1100 dollars). The differance is on my credit report as an outstanding debt now( along with a couple of hundred dollars for uniforms that had been paid for for about three months). Today almost 5 years after the fact, I get a call from my local hospital( I applied there last week, in the collections department), I owe them almost 350 dollars for a workmans comp claim that AA didn’t pay. 5 years later is too late to do anything about it! But I did enjoy Non-reving around the world in first class. First in a 777 from NRT to DFW, or DFW to CDG, or LHR to ORD is pretty freakin’ hard to beat
Dude, wear your uniforms to the bar. I hang out at the local airport bar in my uniform and bad mouth AA. nothing like talking shit to passengers in your AA uniform when your no longer an employee. I drink non alchoholic beer in a tall clear glass and it freaks passengers out!
The American Eagle guy should call Arpey and make a complaint. Call every day until you get results. It pisses his secretary off!
Then, go down to where all the homeless black guys live under the bridge and give your uniforms that have your name and American Airlines logo on them to all the crack heads! Its a real gas! I saw 4 homeless guys near the railroad tracks in downtown Ft. Worth wearing my old uniforms while drinking 40 ounces of malt liqour and eating from a dumpster!! One had a sign that said will work for food and wearing a uniform with my name on it at one of DFW’s busiest intersections! Now everyone KNOWS AA pays welfare wages! You should have seen the fat cats in their Jags and Lexus’ and the look on their faces!! LOL! I bet 2000 people a day see this bum!
Nothing beats the look on the tourists face in Cowtown when they see a homeless guy with an AA uniform hanging on a tree while he bathes in the Trinity river next to the stockyards! I even took pictures of it and sent them to HQ!
American Airlines dosent even know it, but they have one toothless hooker on 8th Ave. wearing my old shirt which she cut to show her cleavage and when this broad aint turning tricks, you see her stealing aluminum out of the railroad gondola cars to take to the recycler for cash! LOL what fun at AA’s expense! Maybe they should have treated us better!!
amerin airline do not suck it is beyond their control for things happening and all they do is try to protect their passengers
LOL @ the above post!!! AA must have hired another illegal immigrant to write the post above this one. Look at that horrible sentence structure and broken English! LOL!
AA probably pays her 4 bucks an hour , then calls the Border Patrol on pay day…LOL cheap B@stards!
So my daughter (who is almost 15) is traveling to San Fran to visit my brother. She arrives at LGA with her grandfather and a ticket (which we bought on-line) and is informed that she has to pay an addl. 60 bucks each way because she is traveling as an “unaccompanied minor”. We are told that this “service” is not optional and the agent/supervisor refused to even speak to me about the issue over the phone or to waive the fee. This is the most rediculous thing I have ever heard (she just got back from MN by way of Chicago on AirTran two days ago without any hassles). Shame on AA for not disclosing these fees when we purchased the ticket…not all airlines charge extra for this…how the hell am I supposed to comparison shop if I am going to get gouged at the counter when it is too late to make alternative arrangements?? Does this seem like “bait and switch” to anyone else?? YOU SUCK AA!!! –Reading the other comments posted here has more than confirmed my feelings–
It never fails to amaze me how parents complain endlessly about the unaccompanied minor fees. They are expecting us to take care of what is supposed to be the most important thing in their lives but then whine about paying a 60.00 fee. I regularly get stuck babysitting someone elses kids because their parents can not seem to make it to the gate on time to pick them up. Flying can be a scary experience for anyone let alone a child regardless of how often they fly. Making connections, misconnecting, or getting lost puts a great deal of stress on an adult let alone a minor. John B whines about the fee and it seems if the service were not mandatory he would be more then happy to subject his child to such stress and confusion all to save 60.00, I also bet that he would be the first person filing a lawsuit if something happened to his child. I hope he remembers for future reference that American Airlines is a business and as such they are attempting to make a profit. They do not have spare agents or flight attendents just hanging around to babysit all these minors that travel alone. By the way AirTran does charge an unaccompanied minor fee like all airlines. My guess would be that this cheapskate lucked out and got an agent who doesn’t ask obvious questions. Unfortuntately a lot of obvious questions are also safety and security related.
Jennifer in the above post is an AA Ho! She dosent babysit anyones kids except her puerto rican boyfriend’s 20 kids and thats when shes off duty and her husband is out of town on business! I bet shes the broad at DFW who lost that unaccompanied black lady with althzeimers disease and got AA’s dirty butt sued by Johnny Cochran!!!
FYI
Since there is talk of Airtran in the above posts, let us remember that they are VALUJET , only with a new name after their merger. They dont charge a fee for unaccompanied minors , because they have short flights to the Everglades.
http://www.flight592.com
FYI
Since there is talk of Airtran in the above posts, let us remember that they are VALUJET , only with a new name after their merger. They dont charge a fee for unaccompanied minors , because they have short flights to the Everglades.
http://www.flight592.com
Wow, what a mature and articulate response from my namesake. I can only guess you must be a college graduate. I would never presume to understand someone elses job unless I had tried it myself. The job of an airport agent is a hard one. Especially when dealing with obnoxious passengers such as yourself who rather than forming intelligent arguments choose instead to make personal attacks.
The way you are treated by an agent is in direct proportion to how you approach the situation. If something is within our control and our error we will do what we can to fix it. This does not include mistakes on your part that you perceive to be our error including but not limited to arriving to the airport late, packing overweight/oversize bags, booking the wrong date, choosing to make that stop at Starbucks even though your flight is in final boarding, and showing up drunk. I have changed nonchangable tickets for passengers who accept responsibility for arriving too late for check in. The ones who come running up sweating and shaking like a heroin junkie and have the nerve to act surprised when I advise them they are too late, then follow up by yelling at me… well they can sit on stand by for days for all I care.
I travel more in a year than most people do in a lifetime and I am more then willing to admit there are rude agents and flight attendents out there. I have had a fair share of them myself. By and large though if you treat someone respect and courtesy you will get the same treatment in return. Do not scream at the agent because you do not like a policy or demand a supervisor. Remember they are trained and being paid to enforce the policy. If you do not like it write to corporate. If it does not get changed that means the policy is there for a reason and is not as stupid or useless as you might think.
Oh and a hint to all, quit with the “I am never flying /insert airline name here/ again”. First of all if you are never flying us again why would we bother to try to make you happy now? Second there is someone at every other airline counter saying the exact same thing. Believe it or not our policies are all pretty similar. Yes every airline has their agents who are willing to give away the store so to speak or who do not know how to do their job. For the most part any airline ticket counter you stop at has a minimum check in time, baggage size and weight limitations, and no baggage service office will replace your bag because the wheel came off.
In response to the last post regarding AirTran/ValuJet. All airlines have their tragic moments. They can only function as well as their employees are trained and their equipment is kept up. Just remember the next time an agent doesn’t ask you how old the child is you are checking in for flight to travel unaccompanied they may also not be asking the next person checking in why their bag smells like gasoline. Or if those oxygen tanks they are checking in for their scuba trip are empty.
And finally to my namesake if your response to this is just more irrelevant childish gibberish, please post again. You are only serving to prove my point.
Typical gate agent response. Did you see her comment about Valujet? Geez, maybe if you werent supporting scabs and your own employees did maintenance instead of non English speaking Miami drug fiends who got fired by AA , youd be making more than 6 bucks an hour! Sad when a guy screws up at AA doing an engine change that kills many people in Chicago now is the President of a certain low cost carrier! The only thing that smells like gas is the service that you give. Service? Ha! Ive seen half the agents in MIA get rid of a paying passenger just so they can BS with some dirty Haitian thug mechanic and his entourage behind the ticket counter. This lady probably dosent ask questions because he boyfriend is transporting dope on her buddy pass! Typical Miami AA employee! No wonder you lost track of that lady. I bet Johnny Cochran had a field day with you. No wonder you took a 30 percent paycut! It was to pay Johnny!
No doubt about it, after reading these comments it, American does have the bottom of the barrel service and employees. Did enjoy reading about the ex employee dropping off his old uniforms at the homeless shelter though. LOL!
American agents are rude, I will agree. I am platinum on most airlines and if you go to ORD, MIA, or DFW , chances are the agent is on the rag no matter how nice. I had one complain after I gave her a 10 dollar voucher to my restaurant. I took her name and sent a box of Tampax to AA’s headquartes in Dallas with a specific note to Gerard A. that this agent needed the enclosed items. I own many nightclubs and restaurants and I do give UAL discounts to employees of United. I dropped the AA ones after my fiasco.
Simply stunning. Are you guys using some sort of translation tool? If so I hope it is free because the posts are barely legible. First of all, a clarification, I am not in nor from Miami. My grasp of the English language should have tipped you off to that one. American Airlines is a worldwide carrier, therefore they do not only employ people in DFW and MIA.
A second clarification, I do make more then $6.00 an hour. Quite a bit more actually but not nearly enough to deal with troglodytes like the above posters. Sending the CEO of a major corporation a box of Tampax to forward to a employee he had a problem with? I am fairly certain that commentary got the attention it deserved which was his secretary’s “circular file”. If it even made it that high.
As far as the agent’s response to your $10.00 voucher, I can only imagine that speaks for the quality of your restaurant.
I am not going to respond to some of the more provincial comments, such as “dirty Haitian mechanic thugs”.
My only thought is these posters are the equivalent of overweight old men who yell at athletes on TV. None have ever done any of our jobs or at least not well so their observations should be taken with a grain of salt.
Jennifer and her drug loading fleet service boyfriend stole the golf clubs out of my bag , and it cost me 300 bucks to buy them back on Ebay! Dirty AA thief!
It never fails to amaze me how parents complain endlessly about the unaccompanied minor fees. They are expecting us to take care of what is supposed to be the most important thing in their lives but then whine about paying a 60.00 fee.
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Ohhh Please! you could have taken my “15” year old niece home and let your black neighbor screw her for all I care! I just wanted to get the psychotic nutcase back to her mother in XNA.
She is old enough that she’s banging a 27 year old toothless dope head in Gentry so WHY do I have to pay you to babysit her? that’s assinine and theft! thank God now she’s 17 and I don’t have to deal with her nor do you.
the babysitting age needs to be lowered to 10. after that the airlines can’t STEAL extra money from me. Period! IF my kid gets out of control simply wallip the crap out oh him and make him mind. but my kid is good and I’m not a panzy divorced loser who can’t solve his problems and runs to a Satan worshipping black robed thug called a JUDGE to resolve my maritual issues. (God is my judge)
The airlines will never lower the age because of all the money they make forcing sky whores and counter HELP (agents) to assist us paying folks.
rest assured Lucas flies with his parents. you could have lost my niece somewhere and no one would have cared!
I want to commend AA Fleet Service CC Graham Clark for retrieving our items and helping us tape our lives back together. our bag was damaged at DFW and Mr. Clark alerted us to the situation and upon arrival in Cleveland we noticed we only lost a pen. Thank you for your excellent service Mr Clark! You should be promoted for your caring attitude.
Making connections, misconnecting, or getting lost puts a great deal of stress on an adult let alone a minor.
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That’s because your airline has UN-reliable equipment. My nieces flight was re-located as well. I hear this crap going on all the time when I’m in AA’s terminal. seems like the? “On Time” machine is the taped together broke down machine that can’t even leave the gate.
AA **USED** to be a reputable airline now they are a pathetic disgrace.
I think Fred Sanford is at the Helm running the airline.
If Graham helped you with your bag because he needed some money out of it. His crew hates him and he is a racist and hates white people. He is a back stabbing sob and If I were you I’d be checking to see if I still had my wallet!
Graham Clark? that black SOB goes to the Adventist church, has 2? daughters and tried to screw my neighbors wife! She used to work at Kroger and everytime I had to pick up some late night item he was always in there trying to pick up Marsha. (She’s WHITE, blnd/Blu 5/5)
Typical false church image often projected by the US black men. their good church going people always looking to help a woman out (W,Y,B,A,O,M) it doesn’t matter because there’s one thing on their mind. SEX…..
Graham is a nasty PIG and the church should eject him!
Graham is a typical lazy @ss. He hangs out upstairs while his crew does all the work downstairs loading flights. He goes up there to try to pick up women flying thru at the coffee house, mcdonalds, or wherever he sees them upstairs. He flirts with gate agents who are trying to work and cant stand his worthless hide. He goes upstairs and goofs off then portrays a caring image of an AA employee who is there to help so they will write in and give him a nice letter in his file, all the while the poor low seniority crew who has no choice but to bid with him gets stuck loading 767 containers full of heavy bage while he tries to screw around on his wife with white women. He even calls the tower on his crew to get more flights so he can screw around upstairs. If your wife is flying thru DFW you had best go with her and kick his sorry @ss when he tries to hit on her while your checking in. I wouldnt doubt he is using your missing nice pen to sign AA paperwork. He is one racist low life who is the reason AA is losing money. If there is a good person on his crew , rest assured he will work their tail off while he shields his lazy friends from work.
All I can say is this forum has degenerated to a cesspool of irrelevant, incoherent, and inane ravings. It is safe to say to the lunatic fringe that gathers here that no one at American Airlines really cares if you ever fly us again. Far better that you are someone elses headache. To the actual adults who have had a real problem with American I suggest you write a letter or email consumer relations because I doubt anyone at HDQ in DFW pays attention to this nonsensical drivel. That said you can now carry on with your petty character assinations on people you do not know.
Nice try in the above post Jennifer. American has NO customer service anymore after 9-11. I am a res agent and I like my job , but there is no way to complain to AA about bad service except thru generic email or to write, and good luck if they write you back. Once there was a time when AA cared about passengers and had a phone number where you could talk to a live person and get a complaint resolved. Now , it will sit in a pile of paper til kingdom come. I get 20% of my calls a day on how there is noone to talk to face to face or by telephone anymore. Pre 9-11 agents could waive rules and customer service was king, now, price is king and your getting greyhound service because of it. It makes me sad to see AA degenerate so. I know one agent who when off duty gives the secretary to the President out because she is tired of being yelled at for bad service. Our job is to sell tickets, not be a passenger punching bag.
I have traveled on AA twice a week for the past 4 years. I can say with absolute authority that they are criminally incompetent, self-absorbed thieves. They routinely cancel flights due to “weather” when other airlines continue to operate normally. When a cancellation of this nature strands a passenger waiting for a connecting flight, AA doesn’t even provide them lodging — or anything else. In fact, that passenger will not even have access to their own luggage if they checked it. AA cancels flights using the weather excuse so that they can pack more miserable customers on fewer airplanes. Their staff members are uniformly rude, arrogant, obnoxious, and often abusive. If I had any other viable choice from where I live, I would be flying some other airline. American Airlines management AND their asshole employees forgot who the customer is a long time ago.
Northworst just adds fire to fury…. don’t fly these A#$Holes…..
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Northwest Air Apologizes After Cost-Cutting Advice Irks Workers (Apology NOT accepted!)
Aug. 16 (Bloomberg) — Northwest Airlines Corp. is apologizing to workers offended by company suggestions on how to save money, including buying jewelry at pawnshops, getting auto parts at junkyards and taking shorter showers.
The list, entitled “101 Ways to Save Money,” was part of a booklet for employees being laid off as bankrupt Northwest reorganizes
I’m on Food Stamps and selling nickel bags of marijuana now that AA has fired me.
Can an employee please post Arpey’s number at Centreport on here so we can call and complain??
Not that AA cares after they tried to sue one caller here recently for complaining.
For someone who travels as much as “The real business traveler” I am surprised at their ignorance as to how airlines operate. Most major airlines operate on a hub and spoke system. If American cancels a flight because they are having bad weather in DFW, obviously Delta is not going to cancel theirs because you would most likely be connecting through ATL or SLC. Other reasons for weather delays and cancellations are not necessarily where you are flying to but where the aircraft is flying from to turn that flight that has been cancelled. A weather delay has a ripple affect on flights sometimes for a couple days. To think that an airline would cancel a flight just to squeeze more people on to an airplane is illogical. Any type of delay or cancellation costs the airline money.
That said why don’t you go ahead and fly another carrier so that way when they have to cancel their flight due to weather and you are helped by their criminally incompetent, self absorbed employees you can make a post on their /insert airline name here/ sucks webpage. They all have one as does almost any big name in any business you choose. Simply proving the point that wherever there is business there will always be unhappy customers.
And Jennifer is still an AA ho! She probably is getting pawed by Graham right now while his wife is at work!
I am glad that as a Southwest passenger I have never encountered any “Jennifers” or “dope loading” ramp employees. AA is a bottom feeder carrier compared to SWA. Great fares and better service. Too bad they dont go international, but they do at the very least have English speaking employees unlike AA.
Yesterday’s ordeal flying with AA has convinced me to never fly with them again. I have never been more frustrated and angry. I still am. It wasn’t so much the inconvenience of late flights and missing connecting flights and being forced to wait 12 hours without any explanation, but the absolute lack of concern and rude, indifferent employees.
Hey Fred in post above…..Thats because all the “bros” ahem african american employees called in sick to celebrate the hurricane Katrina anniversary with a 3 day party full of liqour, pot, and all the King cakes you can eat.( You see, at AA , a 3 day in a row sick call still counts as 1 occurence.)
While they were bitchin’ about Bush, FEMA, and the G men blowing up levies (LOL!), your butt was stuck at the airport with all the rednecks who had to pick up the slack!
I like AA, me and my family fly them many times. they also hire my wifes sister.
They are diverse and praise her Muslim culture.
Your “Muslim Culture” brought down 2 AA planes on 9-11!! Praise it my @ss!!Most AAers hate your kind would like nothing more than to give you a swift kick in the butt when you face east! They hire your muslim family not because of “diversity” , but to get the feds off their case to meet their quotas! Theres a lot of big wig jews over at headquarters , and I really doubt they respect you or your family!
They should serve roast pig cooked hawaiian style on all AA jets so if muslim extremists ever try to bring down a jet , it will mean no virgins for them because they died with swine!
Airline Travel in the United States
My wife and I recently returned from a week’s vacation in Tortola, British Virgin Islands. It could have been a perfect week in paradise had it not been for the shameful performance of American Airlines. As I recount the events of our trip home, I want to emphasize that none of the delays / mistakes had anything to do with Homeland Security or potential terrorist threats. It had everything to do with poor communication, lack of urgency, and reactive vs. proactive decision-making. If many people perceive that the airline industry doesn’t care, it is situations like this, that give merit to those perceptions.
Sunday, August 13th was a clear, hot, humid day in Tortola. My wife and I had flight reservations on American Eagle Flight AA5071; departure time 3:35 pm for San Juan, Puerto Rico. Unless Puerto Rico was home, you had a connecting flight out of San Juan to your final destination. In our case, we had the 5:53 American Flight AA0792 to Baltimore BWI. We felt comfortable that the 1 ßΩ hour lay-over in San Juan was sufficient to make our connecting flight.
We were aware that there was increased security at the airports following the August 10th arrest in England of terrorists plotting to bomb airplanes bound for the United States. With that in mind, we arrived at the Tortola Airport three hours before scheduled lift-off. We immediately saw that the airport was very busy. American Airlines had huge, long lines. We were not aware at the time, but they had cancelled their 1:00 flight, and two other flights were delayed (including ours.)
The line moved very slowly. There were only two employees working behind the counter and there was nothing in their actions or body language to indicate urgency. No quick movement; 3rd parties would come to the counter and the employees would have short conversations, smile and get back to their customers. It was easy for us to observe, we had three hours before our plane was scheduled to take-off. As we stood in line, we became aware that others were not as fortunate. It is troubling, the lack of empathy / sensitivity, the airlines show toward their customers. Regardless of the problem, “Get back in line, and we will deal with it when you get to the counter,” is the standard answer. Problem is, when you finally get to the counter, there is no willingness to deal with the problem.
After an hour and a half in line, we were able to check-in our luggage and get our boarding passes. As we were stepping away from the counter, my wife asked if the flight was on time and we were told that it was running 20 minutes late. The counter employee never thought it important to tell us that our flight was running late — knowing we had a connecting flight in San Juan! Still, that left a one-hour layover and we would probably be OK. Next, we moved to the security checkpoint and on to the waiting area for boarding. There, we found out that our flight had been delayed one hour. Time was now critical, most flights board approximately 30 minutes prior to take-off; our safety margin was gone. We also found out that we would have to collect our luggage and go through customs; then re-check our luggage with American prior to boarding the plane. Many of the passengers began cueing up at the check-in desk to get assurances that American was working on alternate plans, holding connecting flights, making arrangements to ensure passengers would not be stranded. The employee behind the counter was clearly overwhelmed. She announced the crowd in line that American Airlines was aware of the situation, and making adjustments for all connecting flights to ensure we would reach our final destinations. Some passengers wanted to believe that this was the case and sat down, others persisted to no avail.
American Flight AA5071 landed in Tortola at 4 pm and began boarding ten minutes later. Passengers hurried out to the plane in an attempt to speed the turn-around time; hoping to get the plane off the ground earlier rather than later. But it was not to be; we watched the baggage handler slowly load one bag at a time — walking back and forth to the baggage mover carrying one bag instead of two. We sat and watched, and when he was done, we sat and waited. We asked the stewards on-board what the hold-up was; explained the need to get to San Juan for our connecting flights. But Flight AA5071 was being held to see if there were any passengers to fill vacant seats. So we waited, and at 4:45 we began take-off for San Juan, Puerto Rico.
During the flight, many passengers tired to get updated information about connecting flights and gate number for flights, but the flight crew was unable to get any information. All passengers had to go through customs, pick up their luggage, take their luggage through customs, then recheck their luggage with their connecting flights before boarding. Given the time remaining, I would have to accomplish this in thirty minutes or less.
When the plane landed, we raced through the airport to customs, completed the necessary paperwork and moved through to baggage claim. My wife tried to leave the area to speak to an American Airlines representative; to see if flights were being held or alternative arrangements made. None of the passengers could do this until they had picked up all of their luggage; so again we waited on American Airlines. It was thirty minutes before the first bags showed on the revolving carousel. There was no-one from American Airlines in the area, passengers could only wait and hope that something was being done behind the scenes. After we got our bags, we were able to get through customs quickly to cue up in a line at the American Airlines service desk. It quickly became clear, that no advance preparation had been done. There were three employees working the desk, every passenger had to explain their circumstances before possible solutions could begin. In our case, the employee was happy to book us on a flight to BWI leaving Monday at noon — arriving approximately 4 p.m. at BWI. We explained that we had to get back Sunday night; both of us had to be at work Monday morning. No flights were available. We had to suggest checking flights to other airports with connecting flights to BWI — any method possible that would get us back to the area in time. We were willing to fly all night if there was a way to achieve this goal. Nothing was available. After repeated attempts to find combinations that would get us home — the employee offers that there is a flight leaving San Juan in 1 ßΩ hours for Miami that she could get us on. She cut us a ticket (no seat numbers), and we were on our way.
I would like to make a couple of observations at this point. Clearly, American Airlines was dealing with a difficult situation, but they did nothing to minimize the impact on their passengers. They had at least three hours to plan and react to everything that was happening. They had the ability to see how many passengers would be impacted by these delays. They could have looked for / booked connections where available to get passengers on their way. They could have had representatives in customs talking to passengers — letting some know that while they may be getting home later than planned — they would be getting home that night. They could have prioritized passengers; those that had a chance to move on could have been called aside and expedited on. A representative could have met with us and explained that there was no way to get us home tonight and explained what they were prepared to do and options available. Passengers may have been upset, but would have seen that they were trying to help. The employees behind the counters were not empowered; they had long-since run out of compassion. While I think the quality of their service personnel needs improving; I place the blame on the leadership at American Airlines.
The flight to Miami was uneventful. I had hoped that when we landed at 10:30 p.m. we would have a chance of booking a flight on to BWI. I wasn’t sure if American Airlines had checked other available airlines — and frankly, counter assistance at AA failed to convince us that they were trying everything possible. Upon landing, we were directed to a carousel for baggage claim. Sadly, as bad as things were, they were about to get worse. Miami has many luggage carousels but on August 13th, they chose to load 4 flights onto the same carousel. Assuming the average plane holds 50 passengers — you have 200 people trying to get luggage from one single carousel!
The American Airlines representative was overwhelmed. The luggage carousel was full of luggage that continued to go around and around; because passengers couldn’t get to their luggage, the carousel wasn’t emptying so no more luggage was being placed on the carousel. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to place one flights luggage on the carousel at a time; or better yet USE ALL OF THE CAROUSELS THAT WERE AVAILABLE!! The AA representative, unable to deal with the mess; simply walked away. In his absence, passengers moved into the roped off area attempting to find their bags. At one point, the desk phone rang and my wife answered. She told the caller that it was chaos and AA needed to get some people down here to organize and assist. The caller hung up. After 40 minutes the representative returned and announced that our flights luggage was being sent to another carousel. We were directed to the other side of the terminal. At first I was happy until I realized that the carousel we were directed to already had five flights queued up on it. More chaos. The American representatives, there were two, stood behind their podium and stared at their computer monitor — desperately trying to be invisible. They were no use to the passengers at all. The passengers however, began working together —pulling luggage off the carousel and passing it over the crowd to owner. As the belt emptied, I had to go to the two representatives and ask them to call someone and let them know to put something on the carousel. Over the course of 15 minutes, the carousel jammed and stopped five times — the representatives never looked up / never reacted. Useless. It took us 1 ßΩ hours to claim our luggage and there was a lot of people there when we left. It was well after mid-night; we were exhausted. We never checked on other flights, we got AA to give us complementary hotel reservations and called it a day. At 1 a.m. we were calling business associates to make alternative arrangements for work on Monday.
Our flight on Monday had some minor irritations — more indications of an Airline industry with unprofessional, poorly trained personnel. By 2 p.m. we were on the ground at BWI heading for our car. The nightmare was finally over
I’m not writing this seeking an apology from American Airlines. I will tell you that I will never fly American Airlines again. If they are the only airlines servicing my destination, I will either drive, boat, walk or swim before considering American Airlines. There is a huge disconnect between the company perception / advertising and the real-world experience that passengers endure every day. Mine was not an isolated occurrence; in the weeks since my flight I have heard numerous stories of shameful service by the airlines — many involving American. If a restaurant, retailer, business or politician performed as poorly — they would be out of business inside of a year. Airlines are convenient, a necessary evil, to get from point A to point B in a short amount of time. I’ve lost all sympathy for American Airlines and the airline industry in general. They buy, pay for, slick commercials promising service, timeliness and safety — they should invest that money in their people. Teach, train, empower, lead and innovate — let their passengers be their advertisement. Until then, they should be honest. They should tell you that if you expect anything more than arriving alive then you’re setting the bar too high.
Wayne Fish
August 2006
WELCOME TO AMERICAN AIRLINES IN MIAMI….WE DONT SPEAK ENGLISH, ARE ON COKE 24/7, AND JUST PLAIN DONT GIVE A SHIT! OUR EMPLOYEES HERE ARE ALL FROM SAN JUAN OR SOME OTHER SHITHOLE LIKE THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC AND ARE ONLY HERE TO GET LAID, MOVE DOPE, AND COLLECT A PAYCHECK WHILE OCCASIONALLY GOING OUT ON INJURY LEAVE. NO, WE DONT GIVE A f*^%!!!!!
THE EX DALLAS COWBOYS GUY DOES SECURITY HERE FOR AA…THAT SHOULD TELL YOU SOMETHING!
THIS PLACE IS LATINO HELL AND EVEN THE RADICAL MUSLIMS COULDNT TAKE OVER THIS CHAOS!
I would just like to say that “American Airlines” are the worst company to fly with. I was in El Salvador goin back to Canada, VIA Miami, San Francisco and then home. We had been delayed in El Salvador for 6 hours because of too much booked passengers ( I guess?) and since we had to wait so long, one of the agents said “Don’t worry, you will get a free hotel room for your inconvenience”, and free food tickets?, anways…this was told to only the ppl that were not only goin to Miami but travelling further. We said….ok cool! We got to Miami at 12 am and we should have been there at 7pm but, cause of the delay….we were late….everyone started to go to the ticket counter for customer service and to our surprise….We don’t get a hotel room!!!! It was a lie of course! The woman at the desk said,”We only do what we are told!” and I said ” Well then your company must tell you to lie and wash ur hands of any one’s problems huh?” she didnt know what to say…there were many angry ppl there and she said….”Sorry, I know how you all must feel but, due to weather problems with ur flight we cannot give you a room…if it was our fault for the flight you could have gotten a room and since it was not….we cannot compensate for that!” Bye now and have a good night….she fucked off then……Oh was i mad…because i have 4 kids and nowhere for us to wait 16 hours for the next flight….Why? Because there were no hotels around for us to even get a room at!!!! after that we went to San Francisco and we missed our flight because our plane was late and we had to go through security and so much other bullshit! American Airlines fucks many people around and they don’t give a shit! there has to be something done about that…because they are gettin away with so much and it costs ppl money….costing us big money to be fucked around……still they know you’re delayed and yet they dont go ahead and try to book you so its convenient for you……I mean they are literally stealin business….not buyin it!!!! This is my first experience with that “airline” and last!!! I should have used Taca or United…at least they stick with their Intinerary…… It’s outta me…I bitched, I complained….but now what? BYE! AA sucks…**
http://www.pupoff.com
FIND OUT WHAT EMPLOYEES THINK ABOUT AA!!
http://WWW.PUPOFF.COM
http://WWW.PUPOFF.COM
The REAL UN american airlines as told by employees!
Dear Passengers,
Quit whining all the time.
As a 20 year veteran airport customer service representative I am very tired of hearing whining and complaining passengers all day long.
If I went to your jobs and acted like many of you do at the ticket counters, in the gate areas and on the airplanes I would probably be arrested.
First of all, read signs and quit expecting us to treat you like little kids. You can’t find your way to a bathroom? Can’t read a boarding pass? Act like you are “entitled” to a certain seat on the plane. You don’t own the plane, you just rent A seat for the duration of the flight; remember that!( You buy a space, not a specific SEAT) You wanted cheaper fares? Well, join the
other former Greyhound patrons who are now flying. You wonder why that 300 lb woman/man with a handful of teeth and body odor using multiple seatbelt extensions is sitting next to you? She can now afford it is just like you and thanks to you. Let’s NOT forget you already ran Trailways out of business and we won’t allow you to do the same to the rest of us!
You complained when food was served and now you complain that it is not served. Can’t figure out how to go through security checkpoints?
Do you want me to “Map Quest” it for you? Never read any sign anywhere in the airport and then say “nobody told you where to go?” I’ll
tell you where to go. You come with a bad attitude when everything is on time and you’re late. What did you want? Us to hold the plane for
you? You’d be the first one to complain if the flight was held for someone else and is late. You get mad when the flights are full and
then when the flights are half full. You want us to complimentary place you in first class out of the kindness of our hearts. So I guess I can go to the supermarket and fill up a cart and then ask for a “complimentary grocery shopping” This is a BUSINESS! So there are people PAYING in first class for that seat, but OK! I’ll gie it 2 u for free! The object is to make MONEY!
Last time I checked this is an airline. If you want to move call Van Lines. They are the ones with the trailers.
Besides you don’t need to bring everything you own for the weekend.
Yes, sometimes we do have some attitude. It’s probably due to dealing with some of you idiots who fly today. We are NOT babysitters
or Psychiatrists. We did not have an “attitude” when we started in this business so I wonder where it came from? Use some common sense
and quit acting stupid. Bring your BRAIN to the airport. You seem to want to bring everything else. Our pay is downsized and our staff is
downsized so guess what, we are not happy campers on the other side of that counter. Remember that when you ask for the fifth time in five minutes
when are you going to board the flight . . it’s still half an hour before
departure as it’s ALWAYS has been.
Oh yeah, contrary to what you might think . .WE DO NOT CONTROL THE WEATHER But here is a number that does…1-800-MOM- Nature she might just answer!
Respectfully:
Your Airline Agent….