74-Year Old's American Airlines Ordeal
Nobody told 74-year-old Mrs. Reynolds her American Airlines flight was canceled until she was on-board the wrong one. Her tale of sprinting, being stranded, and customer service failure, inside...
This is the letter she wrote American Airlines:
To Whom It May Concern:I wish to voice my displeasure concerning my flight from Springfield, IL. to Chicago, IL., then continuing on to Atlanta, Ga., on February 11, 2009.
After receiving my boarding passes for my entire trip, I put them in my purse. We were all (those in the terminal) fascinated with the huge plane taxing along the fence with President Obama's wide body plane with his limousines, etc. I did not review my boarding passes. This is only my second flight trip so I was not experienced enough to know the airline horror stories and check my passes.
Five minutes after we boarded the plane, my home phone was receiving a message. I live 45 minutes from the airport; my husband had not reached home from dropping me off yet. The call informed me my flight "4444" to Atlanta the same day had been cancelled. For some reason the Springfield airport didn't inform me. My ticket was dated the next day, Feb. 12th. They had no intention of sending me on to Atlanta, Ga. the 11th. Had I known this, I would have rescheduled and stayed home. Never on the flight did they announce the next gate for me. Every other town for passengers on board was announced. I asked my other seat companion where I could find any answers. He said, "Just at the end of the tunnel, there should be an agent." I did find the desk but there was no one there. None of the nearby desks were occupied either. I walked quite awhile and finally found another employee. She didn't need to check her computer she knew that flight "4444" had been cancelled. She told me to go to G4. Several people were at the desk. While I was waiting in line I tired to catch my family who was driving 2 ½ hours from South Carolina to pick me up in Atlanta. After talking to my husband about the late message on our home phone I was able to get to a "red" phone to get another flight. I went back to the desk and was told they were not expecting me until tomorrow. She showed me the date on the boarding pass and it did indeed say Feb. 12th. She told me I would need lodging and it would be discounted but not paid for. I did get reservations but no food allowance. My husband and I were not expecting the additional $71.00 for a room or the $17.00 sandwich cost. I had no luggage, no toothbrush, and no clothes with me. I walked in the pouring rain to a shuttle bus stop drenched and waited for a bus. I slept about 90 minutes that night. I woke at 1:00 a.m. to realize the person at the desk took my remaining boarding passes and issued new ones. I didn't realize this until I got back to the airport at 4:00 a.m. on the 12th. Security lines were not open yet so after 60 minutes in security I check the screens one more time to see if "2441" was on time and to verify my gate. I found gate K19 but it was dark and no one was there. I sat down and waited when it became obvious no one else was waiting for this flight. Finally I found someone several gates back down the concourse that told me there's been a gate change. At 74 years old, I started running to gate L4. It was not close. I got there to see everyone had boarded. I was near tears and out of breath as I walked down the tunnel. It's a miracle I didn't miss THAT flight.
After arriving in Atlanta, my sister had to drive back again to get me. I found my luggage which had come in the night before. They couldn't get me there but at least my suitcase made it.
Will you please tell me why I was shuffled around so much and then told American Airlines was not responsible? They deliberately sent me on to Chicago knowing I was not continuing on to Atlanta. I also expect to be reimbursed for my room at the Sheraton Gateway Suites (receipt enclosed). I will also be sending a copy of this to the Better Business Bureau and the Consumerist.
Lord Failure, meet thy progeny, American Airlines.
(Photo: joyosity)
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Comments:
huge failure on the flight's part.
her complaint is valid. i hope the compensation is satisfactory.
i've heard of worse stories (especially when i used to work in a consumer affairs department of a major hotel company) from people with more travel experience. at least she found a room to stay in. in this situation, i would have refunded her in full for all expenses and called it a day. most of the time, i wouldn't do that. since she doesn't have much flight experience, i don't think that giving her credit for the future would work.
Good luck getting any restitution...
FAIL
"Legacy Airlines" can rot in hell as far as I'm concerned. I don't trust them, and don't expect them to do anything in the interest of their clients unless they are in first class. For what they did with their pensions, I wish them bankruptcy.
Sooner or later, people are going to start taking out the CEOs running these outfits. I will applaud that day.
this is pretty sad, especially since she's 74. i hope she at least gets the refund for the hotel & food. after that experience i don't know if i'd want to fly again though.
i wonder who told her about Consumerist?
@allthoseships: Her letter was better written than most of the ones that get posted here. Age has less to do with it than people think. Just cause you're 74 doesn't mean you're frail.
and why does it matter that she's 74? this kind of customer treatment is terrible regardless of the age of customer.
@seattleperson: Well, Northwest did this to me back when I was in my late teens. I had the strength to deal with it, then. Now that I'm in my late sixties, I'd feel a lot more harshly done-by. This kind of hassle is never nice, but it's reasonable to take account of the resilience of the done-unto, and age is an important determinant of that.
unbelievable! great way to treat your customer, jerks!
This is not good for her. I myself have never actually had that many problems flying, although I was delayed the last time I was flying from Charleston SC to Springfield Il when the original flight was cancelled due to mechanical failures. This through my wife and I's connecting flights and pick up from the airport. Other than that I have not had that many problems over the years, but I am just waiting for the inevitable. I do think that its wierd that she had a problem on the same route. I do know that the airport in Springfield sucks.
That is how to write a complaint letter. Polite, to the point, no obscene demands. Well done. I hope she receives due compensation.
@seattleperson: I would expect myself to be in tune and catch these things (check flight status before leaving home, etc..)
I can't expect that of a 74 year old.
@AustinTXProgrammer: Exactly - especially since she said that this was only her 2nd airplane trip ever. These companies have made everything so super and e-convenient for the business and tech savvy traveler (book with your cell phone and they call your cell email you when something changes) that they forget that not everybody functions this way. And their airline - and the airline industry in general - was built on the backs of people who are in HER age group.
You have GOT to treat people better than this. I hate to be so callous, but I am quick to tell people who are in a "customer service" capacity, that YOUR company's reputation depends on how you do YOUR job. And if people like me don't spend our consumer money with YOUR company, YOU don't have a job.
@CoarseLive: Non-legacy airlines (I'm assuming you're using that to mean the "old boy's club and not the new start-ups) are just as bad.
@seattleperson: My concern for her age was that she had to run to her terminal... even if she's spry, that's still got to be harder on a 74 year old than a 24 year old.
@Vanilla5: Let me re-phrase. I use that as a last resort, but if they've made me mad enough (as Airtran did in '07), it rolls off the tongue very easily.
This happened to me on my way home for Christmas, but I got my airline (not American) to change my arrival to a different city 2 hours away from where my parents live. I got there only 6 or so hours late. Many people also in the same predicament were not lucky and had to find their own lodging.
Fantastic, I just booked a flight on AA...
Thank you for flying American Airlines. As you know our incompetence is no excuse for remuneration for your ticket. As a way to ameliorate your pain, we are upgrading your beverage plan. You may now choose among our selection of diet sodas (with ice) at no extra charge.
Once again, thank you for flying American Airlines.
@embean: Yes, but if she were ar eader of the Consumerist she would know that flights do go wrong, all the time
It sounds like the bulk of her troubles were with the AA personnel at Chicago. I believe AA has a real culture problem at Chicago. I had my own experience there with American's personnel back in November. While standing in the extremely long security line, I made the mistake of looking at an AA employee who was just standing there gossiping loudly to her coworker. She saw me look, pulled me out of the line and started ordering me to rearrange my purse and bag for the screening process. The women in line behind me looked startled, and started hiding their purses. Then, after going through the xray machine, my bags were completely searched, where I endured rude remarks from her coworker.
"American Airlines: Customers are in our way."
@Wombatish: They should've put her in one of those beeping carts that almost mow you down in the airports rather than have her run.
I have found, in the case of AA, the responsibility for keeping track of flight changes and cancellations lies with the passenger.
Last June, when flying to the Bahamas, AA cancelled my flight from DCA to MIA without notifying me or rebooking me on a later flight. I arrived at the airport to find I had no way of making my connection to Marsh Harbor. Had it not been for the kindness of a woman who gave up her seat, I would have ended up overnighting at a Miami airport hotel and losing a day of vacation.
I'm booked on AA to go to the Caymans this summer, but will be checking the status of my flights studiously on my smartphone.
Wait, it's her fault somehow? She was already onboard the aircraft for the first leg of her flight when AA called her home phone to let her know the second leg had been canceled. How is this the OPs fault, rather than the height of stupidity on AAs part?
I'm guessing she probably doesn't have a crackberry or iPhone (just a guess...she's savvy enough to know about the Consumerist so I could be wrong) so she didn't have a method for checking her flight status every .0002 seconds.
Seriously, AA is in the wrong here. They have a computer system that should've alerted a gate agent that they had at least one passenger on her way to Atlanta whose connecting flight had been canceled. They could've called her up to the desk and tried to rectify the situation. Instead, AA allowed her to board the first leg of her flight, then made this inexperienced, 74-year old flier stay overnight in a strange place without any amenities or consideration for her well-being, and then run to catch a crappy-ass flight the next day.
AA, UAL, USAir...they have no shame whatsoever these days. I hope they go under, all of 'em. I'll fly Southwest with everyone else. It might be the great bus of the skies, but damn, at least they're friendly (usually) to their passengers.
How did her luggage get to Atlanta if the plane didn't go there?? I would think when she checked her bags they would say, "Ma'am this flight is tomorrow that you're checking in/your bags for". Anyone else think this?
@Jim Sliwa: I was wondering how long it would take until someone blamed the victim. Way to go.
This is why airlines get away with this crap. It's never their fault. "Oh, if you'd been a better passanger..." How 'bout if they do their jobs better?
@NightSteel: I wish there was a digg function for comments. I would totally dig that post. It summarizes the situation so perfectly, and with the perfect dash of sarcasm and bile.
This is inexcusable behavior in general, but a 74 year old lady deserves respect. Everyone deserves respect, sure, but I'm of the school of thought that our elders have lived through more, learned more, and have more scars to show for it. As a result, we have an obligation to treat them with kindness, patience, and the respect one deserves at that age.
@LadySiren: I don't think Jim Sliwa said that the responsibility should be the passenger's, just that AA has made it thus. I think he's actually agreeing with the OP.
@pecan 3.14159265: But she does deserve a little bit more respect and consideration. Your point is well taken, though.
I'm a former airline supervisor (not AA). There are some parts of this story that puzzle me.
What time was her Atlanta flight canceled? If she was already enroute, the counter agent might not have known that fact yet. This does not mean that they couldn't have had an agent meet the connecting passengers from Srpingfield and reroute them at that point. (That's being pro-active and with staff cuts these days, who knows it they had someone around to do it.)
How does she know that they had no intention of sending her to Atlanta that day? Did she infer this from her treatment or did someone at AA tell her that? Was there a date error in her inital reservation that caused this mess?
I'm not defending AA, but there's got to be more to this story. I'd love to see her PNR history in SABRE (the reservations system at AA). It might well show what happened in addition to what we're being told here.
This fail on a whole new level...AA is full of ULTRAFAIL!
Is a boarding pass for your new flight not considered notice of your new flight?
Flight 4444 leaves at 4:53 pm. There are at least 4 ORD-ATL flights after 4:53, including an AA flight at 7:35. Why didn't AA put her on one of those other flights to Atlanta?
@runchadrun: I'd assume she could go standby on the 7:35, but if they canceled an entire flight, she may have been very low on their list of priorities.
@Urgleglurk: I agree. I am not sure what the OP thought should have happened instead. She says she would have waited and flown to Chicago the following day, but we don't know that there was availability on that flight.
They canceled one leg of her flight, and rebooked her on a new flight. That really isn't so bad.
@razremytuxbuddy: I'm not sure I'm understanding your comment -- AA employees were working the security checkpoint? I thought only they were staffed only by TSA employees.
If so, apologies...I hate the bad attitude that 99.9% of airlines have these days, so any corporate apologists tend to rile me up, LOL.
@Goodnightbabytron: I thought that too, but these individuals were wearing AA insignias on their uniforms.
@FatLynn: If info on a boarding pass was all the "notice" she had as a novice flyer, it was not sufficient; it was a "gotcha" situation at that point. To a novice flyer, the ticketing and boarding procedures are a totally confusing mystery anyway. Any number of AA representatives would have noticed this and should have taken the extra 5-30 seconds to make sure she knew what was going on. I'm thoroughly disgusted. It sounds like the AA personnel just kept brushing her off as if she was just an inconvenience.
@razremytuxbuddy: Even as a novice flyer back when I was 14 years old, I knew to check, re-check, and triple-check my tickets.
Also, they called her at home. I am not sure how else they would have notified her.
@razremytuxbuddy: Were they the ticket prescreen stooges who supposedly check to see that you are on a flight and have ID to prove it?
(Which is another epic fail of the Springfield, IL screeners.)
@mad3air: It sounded like she had two completely separate tickets purchased and then got rescheduled/bumped from the Atlanta flight probably by a higher paying customer or frequent flyer ace.
Interesting that they did check her bag through to Atlanta. It is probably not date specific for checked bags though as items are sometimes shipped via plane without a person on board.
@alexawesome: There is...
It's right below the end of the article stuck between the yahoo and facebook links.
@alexawesome: I completely disagree that age has anything to do with it. However, the situation is pretty ugly considering the lack of notification from the airline in regards to a flight that was moved to the next day!
This is also a lesson in the importance of double checking your boarding pass, as well as the gate information when you first arrive. You should always expect delays and changes when traveling. It's the nature of travel. Mrs. Reynolds could have avoided a lot of heartache by READING her boarding pass and by simply checking the gate screens.
Mrs. Reynolds deserves an apology and having the cost of her hotel room covered, but also I hope that in the future, she will be more vigilant when traveling. It is unfortunate, but flight changes are not that uncommon.
Don't notify the passenger about the cancellation of the second leg of their trip until they're on the first leg. You stay classy, airlines.