Rodrigo writes of American Airlines, “In the last 4 travels between me, my wife and my father-in-law, ALL of them had been pretty bad. But the last one was the worst by far.” However, they had lots of miles to cash in, a tight budget, and travel needs, so it was back into the belly of the beast for one more adventure: “First nonsense of the day was when the lady there claimed the maximum was 50 pounds for the luggage. Ok here we go again.”
My wife, suspecting this was coming again since the same thing happened last time, waves a document issued by AA stating that international flights such as this one (to and from an overseas city, including the legs inside US) were 70 pounds maximum…”
The AA lady doesn’t read it and proceeds to repeat the same garbage over and over. My wife waves the document again and again stating: please read this. Is this not an AA policy? Do you question the validity of this? Why don’t you go access the same information. through one ear and out the other.Sometime later the conversation turned into the AA lady stating to my wife, and I quote: “your daughter cannot travel for free.”. My wife takes out my daughter’s plane ticket, takes out the ticket receipt, and shows her: “oh this is not a receipt”. My wife explains: “here is the amount paid + tax + fee = total, it is printed in the same paper as a plane ticket but it is a receipt, AA said this is the receipt, we paid for it, please call the sales agent if your computer somehow doesn’t show. AA lady: “this is not a receipt, your daughter is not booked in the flight and she cannot go”. My wife: “that is fraud from AA”. At this point I lose it, yell at the AA lady and go away to take care of my screaming daughter (she is 1 year old).
And so the conversation goes on and on for 1 hour and 40 minutes. When it was 10 minutes before the plane departure time somehow, mysteriously, everything gets resolved, my wife gets her boarding passes, luggage gets checked in, no explanations given, no apologies, no nothing.
(Thanks to Rodrigo!)
(Photo: Getty)
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@Citizen14x: I quit flying AA when they said that they wouldn’t lay off TWA employees, then proceeded to gut the entire company. Then they proceeded to gut their schedule out of STL and therefore fucked over the entire city and the resulting revenues drop is a lot of why we still have a shithole airport that hasn’t been updated since the 70s.
I’m flying out of here today, actually. On Southwest. The airline that never charged you more and gave you less and treats its customers with respect.
Too bad I have to come back next week.
@num1skeptic: let’s all drive or take the train, where you don’t have to get treated like a criminal and can pack your car full of all the drinks you want and no one gives you any hassle.
Ah, yes, the Consumerist know-it-alls win qagain — start trashing the victim/customer and defend the low-level employee’s right to be a high-handed jerk!
@firefoxx66: Hey my sister, uncle, wife and I all flew into Heathrow last month. We really had no complaints, even customs were cool. Maybe it was luck but hopefully you will have a good trip too. The biggest problem I had was convincing the family not to rent a car. I had been to London a couple of times before, I was trying to explain how they actually have public transportation that works. Unlike L.A….
@comopuedeser:
American Way is published by a marketing arm somewhat outside of the bounds of AA. Quasi-AA company maybe? Anyway…I have a feeling that an in-flight magazine won’t print horror stories about their own airline passengers’ ordeals at an airport check-in counter.
@loueloui: If you really want to see the TSA get all worked up try to fly with something that resembles a gun but isn’t. I used to fly with Paintball gear about 8 times a year. After having to mail a $350 air tank back to myself for the 3rd time I gave up and just Fedex’d all my gear ahead of time.
I had a TSA agent refuse to allow me to bring my tank on the plane even though I had followed all the TSA guidelines concerning the tank. Imagine a mini-scuba tank. I had even printed out the TSA guidelines and highlited the relevant parts, and rubber banded the paper to the tank. After almost 45 min and 2 supervisors I had to fedex the tank from the airport to myself.
Funny thing is they never really gave me static like that when I transported real firearms…
I don’t know if this was AA’s fault or the OP’s but something seems to be missing. The OP says the conversation went on for almost 2 hours and then, randomly, they were allowed on board. I find it difficult to believe they just talked back and forth about the same subject for 2 hours without another employee, manager, or security stepping in.
@PaperBoy:
I don’t see how taking a suspciously incoherent story with a grain of salt makes us “know-it-alls.” Besides, even through the thick cloud of bias it’s clear that the guy’s wife acted like a bitch.
This is Rodrigo:
First of all thanks for the positive responses. As for the skeptical
ones who claim there is a lot of missing information, I can assure you
I gave you the key facts as I saw it.
I can also assure you my wife wasn’t bitching at the AA lady or
being arrogant. She argued her point politely and patiently. I was the
one who lost it for a second there, and it was near the end of the
ordeal. Before that I was only hearing the conversation and watching my
daughter. It is hard to keep your head when your daughter is screaming
as the end result of other people’s complete failure at their jobs and
keeping us there for almost 2 hours (she was overtired and hungry).
Summary: there were two problems impeding us to board the plane:
1) she would not allow a luggage weighing between 50 and 70 pounds.
2) she would not allow our daughter to fly.
As for #1 here is the link: [www.aa.com]
It clearly states that “Flights wholly within the U.S.” are 50
pounds, and “Travel to/from Brazil” is 70 pounds max. Which means
flights that are not wholly within the US and end up in Brazil is 70
pounds, which was our case – this should be obvious to anyone. If only
she had taken 1 minute to read and understand the problem would have
been solved. Yet, somehow, she refused to read or did not understand.
(correction: it seems only flights to Brazil have the different limit
and not all international flights as stated in the article, my bad).
As for #2, children under a certain age (2, I believe) travel on the
lap of an adult and pay a fraction of the ticket. This is the fee my
wife paid. I think the AA lady looked up the list, didn’t see anyone
with her name, and then proceeded to tell my wife she was delusional.
Great, just great. If this was an isolated case I would say OK: new
person at a low paying job, uneducated, etc, let it go. But this is the
4th time we have problems, involving 3 different employees, and it is
always at AA.
The allowance was either 70 lbs or 50 lbs. So in this case, either the customer was right or the airline employee was right. If we assume the former, why would the wife of the OP be “a bitch” because she insists on explaining this to the employee?
I don’t know if this is a lame cop out of not. . .
The last time I flew out of PDX I was BARELY on time for my flight. I got tagged for one of those random checks. But at PDX they don’t take you somewhere private. They just open your luggage and make you take off your shoes while others in line look on. This would surely make me miss my flight. I feel really powerless in those situations, so I just broke down in tears sobbing and crying. The next thing I knew an agent from my airline, (something “West” I don’t remember) was escorting me to my flight and apologizing.
Screaming and yelling seem to work, so maybe we (customers) should all just cry when things aren’t going our way!
This is what happens when we let the Feds bail out poorly managed companies instead of allowing them the death they so richly deserve.
It prevents new, possibly better airlines from entering the market to fill the void.
Thanks a lot Congress for once again proving you know less about how capitalism than some economics 101 student.
AA Eagle has all the devils working for them. Maybe one snuck out and went to the AA desk. My honeymoon was completely ruined by those scumbags and I will never fly them again. The police were called over for me which was an utter crock. The policeman told me the lady pulls that trick all the time. I never swore or did anything uncalled for. As one person said, this is their standard operating procedure. I wish we could get the government out of supporting the airlines and let them die off. Would love to see their employees try to find jobs elsewhere. If government stays involved, we will never get competition and that is the only way the airline sector can possible improve.
@Bruce Bayliss:
Rule #1) Shouting is the only way to get their attention.
Rule #2) Since they’re not paying attention, your not talking about the same thing.
Rule #3) They won’t get you a supervisor even when you do try to escalate.
Good Old Huntsville. I haven’t had problems with them the few times I have used them. I wouldn’t put it past AA however. Sadly I have a return flight with them in Jan from New Orleans. Please don’t lose my bag and make me deal with her!
What a bitch.
Well, the only country in the world you can fly on and have a 70 lb allowance on AA is – Brazil, so unless Rodrigo was flying to Brazil, the agent was quite correct. This policy has been in effect for some time.
Perhaps that was the bad beginning to this transaction?
@NUM1SKEPTIC: I’ve took greyhound a bunch of times when i was a broke kid. It sux. Bad. But I think i’d take it again over flying nowdays
This is Rodrigo again. Just a few facts that people have overlooked
(but they are stated in the original story or my reply above).
Yes, my family was traveling to BRAZIL.
One or all of the following are true concerning the AA employee:
- did not read or did not understand a document issued by AA
- did not recognize a ticket receipt as a ticket receipt
- did not want to call a supervisor or any superior for that matter that could resolve the situation
- suggested my wife was trying to push her into flying our little daughter for free
- did not know that if a child travels on the lap of an adult then
perhaps that child is not listed in the passenger manifest (which seems
to be the case, as we learned)
- seemed not to be willing to acknowledge her mistakes (since it took
her over 1 hour and 30 minutes to accomplish these two trivial tasks).
- did not apologize to anyone
In retrospect, I do believe my screaming at her face might have
helped since 10 minutes after that the boarding passes were issued
(again, no explanations). They did have their own security standing
nearby after that. We just took the passes and left in a hurry since
the plane was being boarded a long time ago.
Like I said, the last 4 flights were the same thing with the weight
issue. They always have a completely clueless and incompetent person
doing the checkin who insists the weight max is 50 pounds no matter how
many times you show them the printout stating it is 70 pounds (again,
to BRAZIL). Perhaps they can’t read.
I do believe that companies like AA deserve to die in lieu of more
worthy competition. Having federal money given to bail them out of
their misery amounts to the company becoming partially owned by the
state and this is not a socialist/communist country.
Well, we have no more miles with AA, good riddance to them.
i think this couple is lucky that their screaming child did not get pepper sprayed and confiscated by the TSA.
After three years of traveling cross country monthly, I’ve come to avoid American, United, and Continental like the plague, Take US Airways only when necessary, and use Delta as much as possible. There really are corporate cultures at the different airlines and only one has always treated me in a friendly and respectful manner – Delta. Currently I’m on the road via US Airways… clean planes on time, but have been treated cool at best. An awful lot can be forgiven when the people are constantly friendly and have a “lets see how I can help” attitude, and that’s always been my experience with Delta.