Is American always a disaster?

[rwdavis2]

I so miss Midwest Express before they got merged. 2x2 seating on the whole plane (essentially all first class) and 2 freshly baked chocolate chip cookies near the end of the flight.

 

[Nebraska_Disney]

No, you're thinking of United.
American's main hub is Dallas/Ft Worth

American also has a hub in Chicago along with United at O'Hare.

 

[Happy_Haunt999]

American also has a hub in Chicago along with United at O'Hare.

They may, but it's not their main hub

 

[Yellowjj]

I so miss Midwest Express before they got merged. 2x2 seating on the whole plane (essentially all first class) and 2 freshly baked chocolate chip cookies near the end of the flight.

There model wasn't sustainable especially with hubs in places like Kansas and Milwaukee. Towards the end, they increased seating in the back half of the plane to draw additional revenue and it still wasn't enough. If you want to have comfort on a plane with less seats, then you need to be able to command a premium in the market to cover your costs, otherwise the competitor who is flying with 50 more seats in the same type of plane is making additional revenue compared to you.

They may, but it's not their main hub

While that may be true technically, American has always been practically neck and neck with them at O'Hare. There true largest hub, both by passengers and probably market share is Houston. Chicago only has more departures and ironically, it might not have been so if United wasn't upset with Houston for building a FIS at Hobby airport enabling Southwest to start international ops from there. There response was to draw down flights in Houston.

This is data from last summer June for United departures for both Chicago and Houston

ORD:
744: 3
772: 10
763: 6
752: 10
739: 47
738: 44
73G: 19
A320: 54
A319: 40
E75: 40
E70: 44
CR7: 72
ER4: 164
CR2: 64
Mainline: 233
Regional: 384
Total: 617

IAH:
772: 5
788:6
764:1
763:6
753: 10
752: 3
739: 61
738: 61
73G: 19
A320: 39
A319: 36
E75: 44
E70: 14
CR7: 58
ER4: 223
Mainline: 247
Regional: 339
Total: 586

As you can see United Express counts towards more movements at Chicago and barely at that.

 

[MillauFr]

Sure every airline has some complaints. However you are far more likely to have a bad experience on the low rated airlines like Spirit, Allegiant, or Frontier than you are on highly rated airlines like Virgin, JetBlue, or Delta.

 

[Julie's Haircut]

Sure every airline has some complaints. However you are far more likely to have a bad experience on the low rated airlines like Spirit, Allegiant, or Frontier than you are on highly rated airlines like Virgin, JetBlue, or Delta.

And even on the low rated airlines like Spirit, Allegiant, and Frontier, the vast majority of passengers have no complaints.

 

[MillauFr]

And even on the low rated airlines like Spirit, Allegiant, and Frontier, the vast majority of passengers have no complaints.

Only because most people are realistic and expect a crappy experience from flying Spirit. I actually don't understand how anyone could file a complaint against Spirit. Their former CEO even bragged that the airline treated passengers like garbage.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

There model wasn't sustainable especially with hubs in places like Kansas and Milwaukee.

To be fair MCI (known locally as KCI) which is actually in Kansas City Missouri, not Kansas City Kansas is not really set up for a Hub for today's passengers and coming from a local, though on the Kansas side, we like the airport the way it is. The KCMO government wants to make it a 1 terminal airport in part to entice airlines to potentially make it a hub again.

I was only fortunate enough to fly Midwest Express once from KCI to San Antonio in 2000 but boy did I love the steak on board. Midwest Express struggled to provide the same services while buckling down on operating costs. I mean really most airlines used to provide much more than they do now anyways. There also was a shift in air travel as well: more fees by the airlines and cost-saving measures such as removing extra after extra and passenger desire for cheaper flight options. Clearly Midwest Express was part of the "didn't adapt so they went by the wasteside" group.

 

[ivanp91]

I've flown with AA twice and have twice had to make travel insurance claims afterwards. The first time was a few years ago and I had a giant hole ripped in my suitcase. The second time was this past November after cruising on the Fantasy, MCO-LAX via Dallas. In Dallas our bags didn't make our flight, nor the one after... it was on the 2nd one after ours. No one at AA bothered to tell us and it was either wait for 2 hours OR have it delivered to Grand Californian "some time" the next day (no guarantee of a time). We opted to wait... when the bags finally arrived one of the zip tabs had been completely ripped off and the lock was missing. Still can't figure out how it happened, for the lock to be missing either TSA unlocked it forgot to reattach the lock OR they only put the lock back over one tab (ie didn't actually 'lock' the bag), and when AA handled it somehow it got ripped off with the zipper. If it was all secured as I had left it both zip tabs would have to be missing along with the lock, not just one. Not going to risk flying with AA again, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice...

Unless they changed the requirements in the 45 minutes it took to change planes, it was ridiculous.

I had this happen to me once, albeit with Delta at ATL. In the States I use a very small trolley case (slightly larger than a standard issue flight attendant bag) which is well within the carry on limits. Got off my flight from MCO and went straight to my connecting flight to LAX that had just started boarding. I was then also connecting onwards to Australia and had 30 hours of non-stop travel ahead. They did their usual announcement after a few minutes saying "the overheads are full and all roll-aboard luggage will be tagged". Even though my bag was tiny compared to what other people were taking, they tried to tell me it had to be checked. I said it fit perfectly under the seat on the previous flight (757) and would easily fit there on this one (767), nope they didn't care. I explained how much travel I had ahead of me... still didn't care (the agent expected me to separately carry my pillow, change of clothes, headphones, essentials for such a long trip, etc). The gate supervisor overrode her and let it on, but I now don't even bother with the hassle and just take a backpack. They weren't phased by people taking on giant duffel bags or bags of shopping that would take up three times as much room as mine, just deadset against anything that had wheels...