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American Airlines, again!
 Frank has to travel a lot for work, mostly to San Jose and mostly on American Airlines. And when I say a lot, I mean that he has almost 900,000 lifetime miles (acquired mostly over the past 4 years) and that in early January, American actually called us to ask if everything was ok with him because he hadn't flown for a few weeks.
He flies American in large part because they offer an early-morning nonstop flight to San Jose (dubbed the Nerd Bird because of all the IT-type people on the flight each day). Leaving at 7am here gets you in at San Jose around 8am, in plenty of time to make the day's meetings. It's a nice way for Frank to minimize his time away from home, when it works right.
Lately, though, American has been pulling some shenanigans with that early morning flight. A couple of weeks ago we got a 3am call from American telling Frank that his 7am flight had been canceled and that he would need to take a later flight. It caused him to be late for some important meetings .
Then this week, we were informed the evening before that his flight would be canceled, and they tried to book him on a much later flight. After a heated discussion, they booked him on another airline so he could make his meetings.
And then the final kick in the teeth: American called yesterday afternoon to tell us that Frank's flight home that night was also canceled. They had to rebook him on an earlier flight which, because it had a stop, got him home later than the original flight would have.
That's right. 2 cancellations in 1 day. When I gave the agent Frank's cell phone number and told her it was the second problem that day and to brace herself for a fun phone call, she sort of sucked in her breath and said, "Oh my. Twice in one day?!"
Yes, lady. Twice in one fricking day (and I can only imagine the colorful phrasing Frank had for you). This, plus the ridiculous inspection-related grounding of their fleet which caused me to reschedule an entire trip to DC, PLUS their ridiculous new luggage policy, means we'll be giving Continental Airlines a nice long look for our next flights.Labels: American Airlines, flight cancellation
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Thanks, American Airlines!
 If you haven't had to travel in the last few days and don't watch the news much, you might not be aware that American Airlines sucks is having a few problems.
The FAA isn't wonderful, either, but American is scapegoating the FAA for not keeping their planes maintained according to code. This sort of logic reminds me of when Christopher gets in trouble and then says, "But I didn't think you were watching!!!" as a reason why I shouldn't be mad. Ah, yes, carry on, then!
So the gist of the story, officially at least, is that there are some bundles of wires in the MD80 planes that AA flies, and they haven't been properly bundles/insulated. Though this could lead to sparks and fire, American insists it isn't a safety issue. They've canceled almost 2000 flights over the past few days and affected about 250,000 people. But again, it's not a safety issue, people!(I personally think they're adding lasers to the planes. I'm only half-kidding.)
Frank's flying home from France today after begin gone a week, and luckily his flight is one of the few that's getting to Austin today (knocking on wood now). Unfortunately, my flight to DFW tomorrow morning has been canceled, so I won't be able to go to Washington DC to visit Aly for the weekend.
Though I'm relieved that the airline is trying to fix the problem, and I'd rather they cancel my flight than find out there's a problem mid-air, I'm really ticked off that the airline didn't comply with the FAA rules until they were forced to.
So, on behalf of me, Aly, and the boys in my family who're crushed not to be having a Boys' Weekend: THANKS, AMERICAN!Labels: American Airlines, FAA, flight cancellation, MD80
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