I doubt this will do any good, but it will at least allow me to get it off my chest. I have been a loyal American Airlines customer for over 10 year, choosing to fly AA for all of my business and leisure travel. However, the airline's customer service and friendliness has noticeably been in decline for at least the last 2 or 3 years. This last incident is the proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back" for me and I vow never to fly American again - no matter how much they can "save" me (is it savings when they rip you off every time with bags fees, delayed flights, canceled flights, change fees, seat upgrade fees, etc?) but I digress..
We booked a last minute flight for myself, my pregnant wife and my 3 year old daughter to fly from Dallas to Miami for a long weekend. I paid a premium for these tickets since it was last minute - but does American care about that? Of course not. We get to the airport at 6am, a full 1.5 hours before our flight and security is out the door. We dash to our gate, mind you with a wife 7 months pregnant and a 3 year, and get to the gate only to be denied boarding. The gate agent was so cold and almost hateful it was mind boggling. She kept saying things like "well, maybe someone should learn how to get up earlier" and "who doesn't know they're supposed to get to the airport early". First of all lady, we were here early and secondly, how is your condescending attitude helping us get on a plane?
Of course the next flight gets canceled due to mechanical problems - the same flight we were standby for. We try to get on the next 3 flights, running from gate to gate, pleading with the employees working the gates, but there are now 60 people waiting on standby on every flight, with no one getting on. Why? American Airlines oversold every single flight that day going to Miami and every single flight on the next day also (Friday). Every gate agent we talked to didn't want to listen, didn't try to explain options, didn't have enough time, didn't care... I tried calling the American Airlines reservation line to see if they could help... But of course their attitude was that this was all my fault and I had "zero options" Thanks for showing a little something for my loyalty to your company American in a time when I needed it most! I had never in 10 years missed a single flight or asked for a favor and when I needed one - door in my face. I understand that they were dealing with a lot of angry customers, but we weren't. We were just needing some answers and advice. Everyone we dealt with (with the exception of one ticket agent) were exceptionally rude, standoffish, confrontational and uncaring.
Tired and beat down, we decided enough was enough. We had been at the airport for nearly 9 hours and saw the writing on the wall. We weren't getting to Miami that weekend. The last few kicks of sand in the face were that while we were advised that we could keep the tickets we had purchased as a "credit" we'd have to pay a $150 change fee for each of the 3 tickets - $450 in total! Lastly, our bags that "were going to be on the next flight back from Miami that day" didn't arrive back in Dallas until Sunday - 4 days later!
Thanks American Airlines for nothing but a crappy day at the airport
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