American Airlines - flight Palm Springs to Chicago - poorly handled flight delays

American Airlines - flight Palm Springs to Chicago - poorly handled flight delays

American Airlines

Weather can't be controlled, but how you deal with changes and disruptions to a schedule is something that is in their full control. We were flat out lied to at least 3 times on the same trip home from an otherwise great vacation.

Our flight from Palm Springs to Chicago was delayed b/c of wind in Chi. No problem, it happens. We asked about our connecting flight to Columbus, OH and they said that the connecting flights would be delayed the same amount so that people wouldn't miss them. (Lie # 1) On our flight, the captain announced that we would be landing in 15 min. and listed the gates and times of the connecting flights. He said our flight would leave at 9:35 (instead of the scheduled 9:16) from G-11. (Lie # 2) We landed at 9:35 and as we taxied by G-11, there was no plane. We asked our flight attendant (who was really nice) what would happen next.

She said that they knew we were on the flight, needed to get home, and would have a plan to do so. We got off the plane, saw that our flight was posted as "departed" and asked the person at the AA desk what we should do. She sent us to a bank of red phones where we would told that their plan was to send us on at 6:15 AM the next day. Oh yeah, they would get us a discount at a hotel. I had to go up to the ticket counted and raise holy hell for them to pay four a hotel room for the night. The next morning our flight was delayed because "the plane is coming out of the hangar and they need to check it for mechanical errors". (Lie # 3) Why would a plane coming out of the hangar have any mechanical problems at all? They said they would have an update for us at 6:16 AM as to the status of our flight. At exactly 6:16 an announcement was made that there was another plane coming in from Columbus in 45 min. that they would turn around and we would be on. Now all of a sudden more people showed up at our terminal for their scheduled 7:15 flight. With the 2 flights combined the plane still wasn't full. When we finally got home, I decided to call their customer service line to complain. How convenient, unlike their sales and ticketing phone numbers, this one isn't toll free. I was on hold for 15 minutes of silence after the several minutes of "you are on hold" recordings. I described our experience to the customer service agent who kept focusing on the fact that they can't control the weather and that they aren't responsible for anything due to it.

I tried to calmly tell her that I wasn't blaming them for the weather, but that because they weren't truthful with us, we were extremely inconvenienced and had to inconvenience the people who were watching our daughter, not to mention the cost of missing a day of work and other incidentals. All she kept saying was, "sorry you feel that way but we do not make concessions for any problems that were due to weather." Oh yeah, I also learned that our connecting flight didn't actually leave the gate until 9:45 and it was at G-15 not G-11, and it was full. We could have made our flight after all but I guess that they got more money from the 7 or so people that flew in our seats on stand-by than it cost them to put us up in a hotel.

BTW: The other people that missed their connecting flight were lied to as well. I will never fly American Airlines again. X, Charles

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