Talk to me about American Airlines

[crazymomof4]

I just had my 74000 miles post to my AAdvantage account. I am looking at flights home from Calif in Nov. (already booked our flight out there with SW) I happened to pop on American Airlines (AA) Facebook page, you know, just for some tips and pointers and HOLY COW! All the user posts I see are complaints.... like major complaints! Super long delays, frequent maintenance issues, sleeping overnight on floors of airports due to cancellations, very poor customer service. Our flight home from SNA to PHL would most likely involve a stop and plane change, thus doubling our chances for some of the issues mentioned. This has me a bit worried.

Does anyone have anything positive to say about AA?

Here is where flight prices stand currently Southwest (my go-to for years now) wants $556 for "Wanna Get Away"!!! AA has several flights that would suit us for $211 for "Main Cabin". (With AAdvantage cc I get first checked bag free, so there's no additional baggage fee).

 

[drwadadli]

I have been flying AA for years along with USAirways (which became AA). I don't have any real complaints about AA. They have never lost our bags like Delta (which took two days for them to deliver). AA flights seem to leave on time. If they are late leaving, them still arrive on time from what I remember (AA give longer flight times so as to give them extra time in case they leave late or something).

I do "Main" cabin and not "Basic"

 

[sponica]

Eh any large company has tons of complaints. Honestly my biggest issues with American haven't had to do with the overall company but certain personnel...like the "helpful" person who tagged both my husband and I with a lap rider, meaning our seats were separated. Thankfully the gate agent was able to figure out what happened.
Also for some reason every time I've flown through CLT, it has been the most miserable assortment of people working.

 

[DLgal]

If you are cool with your flights being delayed, overbooked, and not arriving home until the next day, go for it. They just admitted that a full 58% of their flights are delayed and something like 20% cancelled altogether. They are really struggling with the Max 8 situation, compounded by a struggle with the mechanics union and a potential strike in the future. My MIL spent 17 hours traveling home to NC from her visit here in CA on Saturday. Her first flight was overbooked so she was bumped (and given a $900 voucher) to a later flight (5 hours later), which was then delayed so she missed her connection in Chicago, and then the flight that she was put on was ALSO delayed. She got home at 1:30am. She left our home at 6:30am Pacific time. She is older and it was a very rough day for her. Her incoming flight was ALSO delayed by 2 hours.

I won't fly that airline. It seems to be nothing but a hassle.

 

[drwadadli]

If you are cool with your flights being delayed, overbooked, and not arriving home until the next day, go for it. They just admitted that a full 58% of their flights are delayed and something like 20% cancelled altogether. They are really struggling with the Max 8 situation, compounded by a struggle with the mechanics union and a potential strike in the future. My MIL spent 17 hours traveling home to NC from her visit here in CA on Saturday. Her first flight was overbooked so she was bumped (and given a $900 voucher) to a later flight (5 hours later), which was then delayed so she missed her connection in Chicago, and then the flight that she was put on was ALSO delayed. She got home at 1:30am. She left our home at 6:30am Pacific time. She is older and it was a very rough day for her. Her incoming flight was ALSO delayed by 2 hours.

I won't fly that airline. It seems to be nothing but a hassle.

Wow....sorry to hear about all the problems your MIL had.

I guess two different experiences because I have never had any problems with AA and would prefer AA (or Delta) over anyone else.

 

[DLgal]

Wow....sorry to hear about all the problems your MIL had.

I guess two different experiences because I have never had any problems with AA and would prefer AA (or Delta) over anyone else.

My MIL flies exclusively with AA because she flies out of CLT which is a hub. She ALWAYS has some issue or another. I can't even tell you how many of her flights have been free with vouchers because she gets bumped due to overbooking. I suppose that is why she keeps flying with them...hard to complain when your flight is free. She puts up with way more than I would.

 

[drwadadli]

My MIL flies exclusively with AA because she flies out of CLT which is a hub. She ALWAYS has some issue or another. I can't even tell you how many of her flights have been free with vouchers because she gets bumped due to overbooking. I suppose that is why she keeps flying with them...hard to complain when your flight is free. She puts up with way more than I would.

I live and flight out of CLT too. I agree that they have A LOT of overbook flights but on every flight had have been on, the thing about been bumped because of overbook is an OPTION. It is because they have a lot of "Stand by" and it is the stand by line that makes them overbook. Therefore, they ask for volunteers to give up their flight for a later flight so they can decrease their stand by line. We have taken the vouchers before if we were in no hurry to get home but NO ONE has ever FORCED us to give up our seats. So again, your MIL gets vouchers because she wants to get them and then flight for free but NOT because she is forced to.

 

[crazymomof4]

Also for some reason every time I've flown through CLT, it has been the most miserable assortment of people working.

Thanks for the heads up! My bro and SIL live just outside of Charlotte. Our family (bro/SIL and us) usually fly Frontier as they have great rates from Trenton to CLT. Still, I will keep this in mind and make a point to avoid AA for that destination.
Incidentally, no one in our family has ever had issues with Frontier in many years, despite them being listed as 10th out of 10 in airline rankings. https://thepointsguy.com/news/tpg-2019-list-best-and-worst-airlines/

 

[FCDub]

If you are cool with your flights being delayed, overbooked, and not arriving home until the next day, go for it. They just admitted that a full 58% of their flights are delayed and something like 20% cancelled altogether. They are really struggling with the Max 8 situation, compounded by a struggle with the mechanics union and a potential strike in the future. My MIL spent 17 hours traveling home to NC from her visit here in CA on Saturday. Her first flight was overbooked so she was bumped (and given a $900 voucher) to a later flight (5 hours later), which was then delayed so she missed her connection in Chicago, and then the flight that she was put on was ALSO delayed. She got home at 1:30am. She left our home at 6:30am Pacific time. She is older and it was a very rough day for her. Her incoming flight was ALSO delayed by 2 hours.

I won't fly that airline. It seems to be nothing but a hassle.

Conversely, I've flown AA dozens of times and have never experienced major delays or service disruptions.

 

[sponica]

Thanks for the heads up! My bro and SIL live just outside of Charlotte. Our family (bro/SIL and us) usually fly Frontier as they have great rates from Trenton to CLT. Still, I will keep this in mind and make a point to avoid AA for that destination.
Incidentally, no one in our family has ever had issues with Frontier in many years, despite them being listed as 10th out of 10 in airline rankings. https://thepointsguy.com/news/tpg-2019-list-best-and-worst-airlines/

My mom flies AA, she's never had a bad experience with the team in CLT....so it's probably just a roll of the dice.

 

[crazymomof4]

Just found this...
https://thepointsguy.com/news/american-airlines-flight-cancellations-mechanics-restraining-order/

 

[winnieofpooh]

With any big company, you'll have a myriad of terrible reviews. I'm sure Disney has even more! That being said, I had a miserable experience on AA. I used to work for an airline so I'm pretty fairly forgiving to issues (delays, cancellations, etc). BUT the thing I can't forgive is customer service. My flight from Hawaii was delayed, which caused probably 80% of my flight to miss their connection in LAX....at 2am. So we're all tired and grumpy, but I still try to be polite when speaking to someone who can help me. Well I sat on hold for 2 hours and stood in line at the airport customer service desk for 2 hours and NEVER got through to someone. When I finally got through to someone via twitter, they were rude and unhelpful. Luckily I know my way around, so I was able to force their hand and get me booked on a new flight. Still delayed 12+ hours because of it. But for someone with less experience, they would've been stranded for who knows how long.

So that's my bigger issue with AA. Every airline will have delays and cancellations. But if you handle it like a petulant child, I'm not going to want to fly that airline again.

 

[Darcy03231]

We fly AA a lot and other than weather related delays (which will happen on any airline) we haven't had any issues. In fact, on our April flight we missed our connection due to weather. The agents couldn't have been more helpful or nicer in arranging a new flight for us.

 

[sponica]

@winnieofpooh the one structural complaint I have regarding AA was when our flight from DCA was delayed because the aircraft had like 3 aborted takeoffs from Indianapolis. I was eavesdropping as the flight landed (like 5-6 hours late). Most of the crew had maxed out on hours and the remaining crew did not expect to fly the flight to MHT, they thought a backup crew/plane would have been used. That backup pilot was so not happy to be woken up at 2 AM, that's the fastest and highest I've ever flown in a smaller aircraft.

Now that I think about it, that might have been a US Air flight. It was post merger approval but before they discontinued the branding. So who knows whose fault that one is?

 

[JimMIA]

I'm AAdvantage Gold for Life (Million Mile Club) and I fly almost exclusively AAL -- partly because I like the airline and partly because more than 50% of the flights leaving MIA each day are AA, and therefore we have lots of options on flights. In many years of flying AAL, I have never had any cancellations or major delays caused by anything other than weather.

I've had exactly one cancellation in all that time (on an American Eagle flight from Madison, WI to Chicago). That flight was canceled because of weather delaying the incoming aircraft to the point that the crew timed out. Nothing anybody can do about that. In hundreds of flights, I've had bags misdirected one time. The bags were not lost, just put on the wrong aircraft and arrived a few hours after we did.

On the other hand, I have had probably a half-dozen situations where AAL has really saved me from potential problems and major delays, including several times when I didn't even know there was a problem.

Right now, you will see a lot of flight changes, cancellations, and delays with AAL and SWA because of the 737 Max groundings. Both airlines had quite a few of those aircraft, and grounding them has caused significant problems. Unless you want to criticize American and Southwest for upgrading their fleets, I don't see that as a real thing...although it has caused some inconvenience.

That said...I do have concerns about the use of frequent flyer miles for tickets. AAL has changed the method of awarding miles from miles to dollars, and in recent years tickets have cost much more in miles than previously. I used to be able to get just about any domestic round trip ticket for 25,000 miles, but no more. Now, applying miles for tickets is much more difficult and often costs 2x - 3x what it used to. For that reason, we have stopped using an AA credit card as our primary family card. I canceled our main card. I still have one card I use strictly for personal purchases, but that's probably 1/5 what we used to spend on AA cards.

All in all, I think American is as good as any other large airline, and better than most.

 

[winnieofpooh]

@winnieofpooh the one structural complaint I have regarding AA was when our flight from DCA was delayed because the aircraft had like 3 aborted takeoffs from Indianapolis. I was eavesdropping as the flight landed (like 5-6 hours late). Most of the crew had maxed out on hours and the remaining crew did not expect to fly the flight to MHT, they thought a backup crew/plane would have been used. That backup pilot was so not happy to be woken up at 2 AM, that's the fastest and highest I've ever flown in a smaller aircraft.

Now that I think about it, that might have been a US Air flight. It was post merger approval but before they discontinued the branding. So who knows whose fault that one is?

Yeah that's definitely valid and completely AA's fault. I was mostly referring to weather and other types of issues which AA has no say in.

 

[WishICouldSpeakWhale]

No one is going to bother to post that their flight was uneventful and they got to their destination on time or close to it. I am sure if you got on the FB page of all airlines, you'd find similar complaints and nothing really positive. And if that's all you went by, you'd never leave the house.

I generally try to avoid changing planes if I can, but that doesn't always work out. If I had to change planes, I would aim for a longer layover - closer to 2 hours than 1 hour, if I could. And even for non-stop flights, make sure whatever I need for 24 hours is in my carry on.

We fly AA and Southwest. Just flew United for the first time in years. All have been fine. Nothing bad, nothing great. Good experiences and we got where we were going safely and on time.

 

[Moliphino]

I thought AA was great for international (aside from my sister's bag not making our connection in Charlotte after customs even though it was put on the belt immediately after mine, which did make it), but are just average domestic.

 

[Allison]

That is what you will see on most Facebook pages. The millions of travelers who had flights that went exactly as they should aren't going to go to a Facebook page and say "everything went fine".

 

[Farro]

We've never had issues. We alternate between American and United out of O'hare.

My tip is to book the first flight of the day, best chance of not having a delay outside of weather. (pretty sure that's everyone's tip )