As American Airlines attempts to improve its operational reliability and technology, a horror story involving a friend unfolded at New York-JFK this weekend. It left me shaking my head…and genuinely angry.
My friend, let’s call her Jane, is an accomplished woman who has dedicated her life to philanthropy. She’s also a senior citizen, yet still travels the world independently…she’s what I hope to be when I’m in my 70s. This weekend, she was traveling to Buenos Aires on American Airlines…at least that was the plan. Her outbound was AA’s nonstop flight from New York JFK on Saturday evening.
On the ground in Buenos Aires, she had booked a connecting commercial flight followed by a charter flight to reach her final destination in the south of the country. Her American Airlines ticket was over $8,000 in business class (which was better paying 450,000 AAdvantage miles each way…) and she holds Executive Platinum status…she’s a very valuable AA customer.
Anyway, on Saturday afternoon she left her home in Pennsylvania and drove up to JFK for her evening flight. Everything showed on-time, right up until boarding. But what she did not know was that the JFK-EZE flight the previous evening had been delayed all day and AA decided, at the very last minute apparently, to use the aircraft for the Saturday flight for the delayed Friday flight.
So as boarding time approached and everyone lined up to board Saturday’s AA953, the gate announced the flight would be delayed until the following day at 7:00 pm. Because AA’s technology is so pathetic, passengers were instructed to line up for hotel and meal vouchers.
Jane just turned around and went home…on her two-hour drive home, she was able to call ahead and rebook her domestic connection and charter in Argentina, thought it cost her thousands of dollars out of pocket. She was upset, but all was okay…she would fly out at 7:00 pm and arrive early this morning.
Yesterday afternoon she drove back to New York JFK, where she found her ticket had been CANCELLED.
AA’s broken technology auto-rebooked her on the delayed Friday flight (that took her aircraft), but never notified her. It apparently happened 15 minutes before the flight departed. When she did not board, it marked her as a no-show and cancelled her ticket, including her return.
How do I know AA never notified her? Because all texts and emails go to me.
She tried to get back on her original flight…that she never changed and never wanted to change…but was told it was now sold out. Her seat was still unassigned, but agents over the phone and at the airport refused to overbook business class. Instead, they rebooked her in premium economy class on the Sunday night AA953, that was showing an on-time departure.
AA reservations and Twitter/X team were unable to help, saying the flight was under airport control. At the counter in JFK, even though she had a boarding pass for the delayed 9/19 AA953 flight in business class, a check-in agent took it and said it was invalid. Another agent seemed to take pity and picked up the phone to make a call to escalate.
But she hung it up with a smug look and said (verbatim), “We owe you nothing. This is an American Express ticket.” And walked away.
American Express did issue her ticket, but AMEX confirmed it did not touch her ticket…every change was initaited by AA and AA had control over the ticket…it’s the sort of mindless abdication that is classic AA…absolutely miserable customer service.
So this poor woman who paid $8K to travel to Argentina found herself delayed four more hours and kicked out of business class.
I cancelled her ticket and rebooked her on Delta Air Lines via Atlanta.
But AA: you need to make this right. She will be reaching out with expenses and you better take responsibility for this. The aircraft maintenance delays and poor technology are so typical for AA, but the horrendous customer service at JFK is beyond unacceptable and perhaps the biggest failure of Robert Isom’s tenure: too many employees are out-of-control and have no accountability to provide excellent service.
Shame on the agents at JFK and shame on American Airlines for so foolishly and needlessly ruining this trip.
And her story is hardly unique. I have two cringeworthy AA stories myself that I’ll share in the days ahead…so sad that AA falls so short.
