Good morning from Washington DC where currently, I’m recovering from the exhaustion of Thursday… and enjoying a bit of BAcon.
And with good reason. Thursday travel experience was not ideal… in any sense.
Let’s start at the beginning.
- Manchester Airport seemed to forget how to run security operations at the airport, and was doing an impression of the TSA. That would prepare me for later…
If you wanted fasttrack, it would be £4… from another machine.
- It seem the gate staff didn’t know how to communicate, with boarding delayed until departure time due to the late incoming plane. Not inexcusable, but could had been handled a bit better
- Pushback was delayed. Heavily. Initially, it was due to mis-connecting passengers, then it came down to a mechanical issue… net result 2 hours down.
Data: FlightAware – http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AAL735/history/20161103/0940Z/EGCC/KPHL
- The flight itself was one of the better flights across the pond. It was very much an US Airways style service as opposed to an American Airlines service (things like, Ice cream, Orange juice runs). On the
Aboard a refreshed American Airlines Airbus A330
- I might had talked about the omnishambles at Philadelphia Airport.
Still not happy.
- With the plane two hours down, I was auto-rebooked onto the next flight. Good news in theory… in actuality – the next service wasn’t for another five hours. At least I had lounge access which made life… easier.
American Airlines B/C Lounge at Philadelphia
- Thankfully the American Airlines by Republic airlines service was rather boring… even if they couldn’t be bothered to offer drinks on this 40 minute segment (I know multiple airlines that can do drinks, clean up and make money in that time..)
- The final insult? 20 minute ground stop at Washington Regan due to another plane in our gate.
Considering in total I was on the road at 4am in the UK… by the time I was in my hotel room it was 23 hours later, with maybe 3 hours snooze in the meantime… you’d excuse me for heading to McDonald’s next to the hotel so I could get some food.
And American Airlines comment to the delay?
@EconomyBeyond This wasn’t the plan for you and we’re truly sorry for the added travel time.
— American Airlines (@AmericanAir) November 4, 2016
Hmmm.
When travelling, never make too many plans. Others are making plans for you… and 9 out of 10 times… they’ll end only one way.
And it’s never positive.
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I find AA’s twitter team pretty good if you need them to take action, such as protecting you on a flight or help re-booking a delayed/cancelled flight. Their weakness is their responses to complaints and delays…such as yours. It is straight copy & paste from a pre-written list of 20 or so responses. I think that stems from AA’s industry worst reliability. Compared to UA, DL, & SW , American gets the largest % of complaint emails.
What really grinds my gears about their responses is even when AA is to fault, they put the blame either back on the customer or take no blame.
Good news is since you left from the EU American owes you €600
Sadly, 2 hours. So EC261 isn’t valid. Which is a pain.