American Airlines - AAL - flight LaGuardia to Las Vegas - assigned seats not held due to 'being late' - unpleasant flight experience

Complaints.com received the following consumer message on November 20, 2002:

From:

RE: American Airlines - AAL - flight LaGuardia to Las Vegas - assigned seats not held due to 'being late' - unpleasant flight experience

On Oct. 28th,wife,son and I travelled from LaGuardia Airport,NY, to Las Vegas,NV. the flight was 40 min. delayed and upon arrival in St. Louis,Mo.,we were told the connecting flight was being held and to hurry. We had to run some 3 city blocks to get to that terminal,and got on the flight. We went to our seats and people were seated in them.

The stewardess would not tell the people to go back to their assigned seats.She told us,quote"you were late so you just have to scramble for seats". We then found seats far apart so that part of the trip was very unpleasant. Upon writing a Ms.Wolfe of AAL customer relations,she replies that quote,"seats are not guranteed".

Well, I guess if I take that letter with me(assuming I fly AAL again)then I just have to show it to a stewardess if I decide to take other more favorable seats. I always thought that once you are assigned seats they remain yours unless you are not taking that flight.

So, in effect,we were punished because,even though we didn't pilot that late plane,we were late,period. And they are trying to win people back to the airlines.