american airlines review

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Average Ratings

Flight on time?	4.7/10
Customer service	3.1/10
Comfort on flight	3.9/10
Quality of food	2.6/10
Value for Money	3.1/10
Reviewer Rating	2.9/10
Overall Rating	3.1/10

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24% Recommended26 out of 108 Reviews

11% Recommended3 out of 28 Reviews

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By GJ2104 on 28th Mar 2008

GJ2104's Ratings

Flight Date	12/07
Flight From - To	London, UK - St Louis, USA
Ticket class	Economy
Flight on time?	0/10
Customer service	0/10
Comfort on flight	2/10
Quality of food	2/10
Value for money	1/10
Overall value	0/10
GJ2104's recommendation

Good Points

Bad Points

General Comments

THIS IS A LONG REVIEW BUT READ IT BEFORE YOU CHOOSE TO FLY WITH AA. IT WILL, AND I REPEAT, WILL SAVE YOU THE PAIN I WENT THROUGH!!! I've never flown on American Airlines before. I fly on Virgin because I know it to be a good airline, one that runs on time and whose customer service has never been an issue to me. Unfortunately, Virgin don't fly to St Louis. So, in order to get where I needed to be I had to use a different airline. I'd heard that AA wasn't the best, but it was a short flight at the right times so what could go wrong? Indeed.
When we landed in Chicago (following our flight on Virgin) we'd gone through the immigration check and everything was fine. We picked up our bags and headed over to the AA desk to re-check in our bags and get our boarding cards for our connecting flight. Here is where my loathing of AA would be born.
We started queuing up, and then one of the ground staff asked to see my itinerary. I showed it to her and she bluntly said, 'Your flight's been cancelled. Join that line.' Excuse me? No explanation, no hint of remorse, no apology. Just, 'Your flight's been cancelled. Join that line.' Okay, so that's how this airline operates.
We join the queue, wait patiently. We're British. It's what we do. Eventually we get to the front of the queue and speak to the lady there. She tells us our flight's been cancelled, this we knew. She's gonna see if she can get us on a flight today otherwise we won't be able to leave until tomorrow. Tomorrow is not an option for us. We're on a limited timescale already, I don't want to be wasting any time in Chicago when I have people to see, people I really want to see. Lucky for us there's a flight at 8.20pm that she can put us on. It's 2.50pm, we have 5hrs to kill. Any hint of an apology now? Possible offer of some vouchers so we can get something to eat because they cancelled our flight, for which they still haven't provided us with a reason? Nope? Alrighty-then.
So we head over to the right terminal. We get something to eat and try to eat it as slowly as we can. We wonder around the terminal for as long as my friend who's pregnant will allow us to and then we go sit by our gate with at least 1 1/2hrs to go before our flight. But what can you do? At least we get to go to St Louis tonight and we should be there by nine thirty.
We get on the plane. Tired, as you can imagine since we've been travelling all day - plus the extra 6hrs we got from the timezone difference. We sit on the plane and it's pretty packed. Thankfully I'm sitting on a row of three and the lady at the other end seems nice and there's no one sat in the middle. My friends are about to collapse from exhaustion and I'm trying to keep my other friend we're going to visit updated with what's going on. Eight thirty comes along and I'm thinking great, we'll be at my friend's place for around 10.30pm and we can have a little chat before we go to sleep.
I see the people outside de-icing the plane and I remember an episode of Oprah where she says they have to do that so the plane can fly properly so I'm all for the de-icing. It's taking a while, and we're waiting and waiting. Then, the pilot comes over the PA system with an update of the football scores and the news that a certain kind of rain has started to fall and we're not able to take off until it clears. To his credit this rain did have a name but I can't remember it. So, we're gonna stay sat there until it clears and then we'll have to queue up again for the de-icing coz it only lasts for a certain amount of time before they have to do it again.
Two hours and two football updates later we're still sat there and my friends are thinking it would be quicker if they drove the 6hrs there and back to come and get us. Bored out of our brains and dying of thirst because they wouldn't think that maybe they should start the inflight entertainment or maybe give everyone something to drink. It's a small plane so even if they started and then the captain announced they'd started the de-icing they would've had enough time to pack everything away again. Eventually they give us headphones. What do they put on? High School Musical 2. Someone shoot me now.
Then at about 10.30 we hear the news the rain has stopped and we can take off! Woo hoo! So up we go and we finally get served drinks, which I'm pressuming they don't charge us for because otherwise they would have a full scale riot on their hands. Not a good thing mid-air. The flight only takes about 45mins and we land in St Louis. Happy to finally be on the ground in the city we're supposed to be in. I'm left thinking that I should never fly out of Chicago in the winter again, rookie mistake that won't be repeated.
Onto part 2 of the loathing. The week passes and we have a great time and all too soon it's time to leave St Louis.
We get to the airport in St Louis at around 2ish because our flight is scheduled to leave at 4pm - note the term 'scheduled.' We check in and the lady at the AA desk tells us they're running a bit behind and the flights now leaving at 4.30pm but that'll still give me a good hour or so before I have to board the plane. Cool. Sounds good but at the moment I'm not too worried. That would change.
We say our goodbyes, always the worst part of any vacation and probably my least favourite thing to do ever. We go through the palava of security and go to wait at the gate. 4.20pm comes and we still haven't boarded the plane yet...hmm. We get to 4.50pm and we're on the plane but we still haven't taken off. I'm thinking I'm still okay. It takes 45mins, so make that an hour coz we've all got to de-plane and that's 6pm. It's cutting it a little fine but it's okay. Waiting. Waiting. They're experiencing a "delay" - a blanket term that will come to signify AA's incompetency. 5.30pm we're still on the ground - in St Louis. Now I'm thinking, there's no way I'm catching that flight because unlike AA, Virgin actually run on time.
5.35pm we're taking off and we're headed to Chicago. Unless this pilot can make the journey in half an hour I'm in trouble. 6 o'clock and we're 100 miles out of Chicago - I just might make it! 6.15pm and we're still in the air and the dream is dead. Not only the dream of making my flight but the dream of the empty row of 4 seats I had chosen to sit in that I could lie across and get a decent flight's sleep! Shattered.
6.30pm and we de-plane in Chicago. Not a single sign telling people who are getting connecting flights where to go. I figure out I need to be in another terminal building. So I leave my friends coz they're staying in Chicago for a bit and I tell them that I hopefully won't have to show up on their hotel doorstep begging for a room. I get the train over to the other terminal to see what the people at the Virgin flightdesk can do to help me and I pray that there's another Virgin flight that evening.
As expected, the Virgin check-in area is deserted, of course it is because the screen's telling me that the 6.50pm flight for London has departed. It's 6.55pm of course it's departed because...Virgin run on time! I speak to the lady at the desk and she tells me AA does this a lot. Great. Well I should know that, I've flown with them twice and each time I've been delayed. She puts me on an 8.45 flight - with AA, coz Virgin only flight out once a day out of Chicago. I should be in NY, they fly out of that place every other hour!
She explains to me that AA still have my bags. I figured that much because there was no way they could've got my bags out of that plane and onto the right one in the 20mins it's taken me to get from that plane to the Virgin desk. She tells me I need to go back to AA - in the other terminal, tell them to re-tag my bags and get them to put them on my flight. Don't accept them saying that they don't have their bags because it takes them 2hrs to get the bags over normally so there's no way they haven't gotten them. I thank the lady at Virgin and head back to AA. Great. I really don't want to fly with them.
I get back to the AA terminal - I can't believe they're allowed to have their own terminal. I explain what's happened and the woman - possibly the most unhelpful woman ever, tells me I can't go on the 8.45 flight because it's overbooked. This just keeps getting better. So she's going to put me on the 10.20pm flight. Fine. What about my bags? Oh, I need to go back to Virgin to get those because they don't have them. Of course you have them coz there's no way you've sent them over to the other terminal so fast. They don't have them but they can send a message down and IF the baggage guys take a look at their screen they might be able to locate my bags.
So, you're telling me that because of security reasons I can't put a padlock on my bag but it's perfectly okay for them to not know where my bag is. That doesn't pose a security risk? Apparently not. So what do I do now? I need to go back to Virgin and check that they don't have my bags. Ignore the fact that I've just come from there and they don't have them.
I head back to Virgin. In the other terminal. Again. The lady at the Virgin desk sees me and thinks, 'Oh no they didn't just send you all the way back here.' I'm thinking it too. However, this lady is the only remotely helpful lady I have encountered and I'm hoping she can help me. Unfortunately, coz the Virgin flight's already left - on time, there's no one else there so she can't leave the desk unattended. However, she's working there for the rest of the night and if my bags show up then she's gonna re-tag them and put them on the next Virgin flight - not AA.
The international AA desk was closed, not that they were any help at all last time so I really didn't mind. So I was sent over to the domestic flight desk and the lady there seemed quite nice. She said that she doesn't have a magic button that could tell her where my bags were, I'm thinking that they really shouldn't need a magic button but at least it seemed like if she had one she would've used it. She even told me when my flight was expected to land, maybe the woman at the international desk didn't tell me because she knew there was no way it was going to land on time.
I call my friends tell her what's happening. Try not to break down on the phone. She tells me to get something to eat but right now I'm feeling sick and probably wouldn't be able to keep anything down. I tell her to enjoy the rest of the holiday and not to worry about me. I go to the gate and call my friend in St Louis. By this time it's after 9pm and I should definitely not be in a place I can call her from. If I knew I was getting on a plane at 10.40pm - yes my flight has now been delayed a further 20mins without reason, I could've spent an extra couple of hours in St Louis with them rather than in an airport departure lounge.
At 10.15pm they start to board the flight which is now scheduled to leave at 10.55pm. Any reason? Not one they're planning on sharing with us. From the conversations I hear and have had, almost everyone on that flight is on there because they missed a connecting flight because of a delayed AA flight. So, is this how they get people to fly with them? I think so. 11pm and we're still sat on the plane not even thinking about moving. Apparently we're waiting for people on connecting flights and we have to wait for their bags to get to the plane. That's nice of them, I wonder if they're waiting for my bags to arrive. I very much doubt it.
I give up waiting and fall asleep so soundly I don't even notice we've taken off. Somewhere in the sky I realise how much legroom I actually have and think if I didn't hate this airline with a passion it wouldn't be so bad. But I do so it is. I skip dinner and decide not to bother with the inflight entertainment because none of the listed movies are particularly entertaining. I wake up 2hrs before we land and manage to catch the breakfast trolley. A semi-stale croissaint and a not very yummy yoghurt. Airline food as it once was, and apparently still is on this airline. At least the flight's only taken 7hrs.
I get off the plane and like the optimistic fool I sometimes am I wait at the baggage carousel for my bags. I'm one of the first ones there and when all the bags have come and gone I'm one of the last ones still standing. Seems all of us who are waiting were on connecting flights that they'd missed because yes, you've guessed it, their AA flight was delayed. Surprise, my bags not there! I fill in a form and am told when my bags show up they'll deliver them to me but they're not sure when that will be because they don't quite know where my bags are. Oh AA, how do you manage to keep track of your planes and all those pesky passengers who don't know any better and choose to fly with you? It is a wonder.
So, there it is. My tale of woe at the hands of AA. Use it as a precautionary tale, I really wouldn't want what happened to me to happen to anyone else. That little bit of extra legroom just isn't worth the risk. Now I'm home and the thought of travelling anywhere is far from my mind, at least to anywhere that I need to get a connecting flight to.
A lot of people told me I should complain, but I've written letters where people get fobbed off and what could they do to compensate me? Give me a ticket for another flight? Because after the nightmare experience I had they think I'd want to fly with them again? I don't think so.

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