{"id":239612,"date":"2025-05-13T09:39:03","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T09:39:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/airline\/american-airlines-delay-handling-why-so-so-so-terrible\/"},"modified":"2025-05-13T09:39:03","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T09:39:03","slug":"american-airlines-delay-handling-why-so-so-so-terrible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=239612","title":{"rendered":"American Airlines Delay Handling: Why So, So, So Terrible?!?!?"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Folks, I\u2019ve had quite the travel day on American. I\u2019d like to think that I\u2019m understanding of the complexity of airline operations, of how maintenance delays can happen, and of how unpredictable they can be. <\/p>\n

But I think my travel experience today perfectly sums up what\u2019s wrong with American. It\u2019s not the lack of TVs on planes, but rather it\u2019s just how customer unfriendly the airline is, and the extent to which employees either just truly don\u2019t give a crap, or aren\u2019t empowered to care, partly due to the carrier\u2019s lackluster technology. Let me explain, and this doesn\u2019t even account for my rude check-in experience<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n

How many American flights can have maintenance delays?!<\/h2>\n

I was scheduled to fly American from New York LaGuardia (LGA) to Miami (MIA) at 10:40AM this morning, on flight AA1937. In retrospect, I should\u2019ve probably walked, or taken Amtrak, or flown through Newark, or asked the Qataris for a plane, as I\u2019m sure they would\u2019ve all gotten me home faster.<\/p>\n

As usual, I checked the flight status prior to leaving my hotel, including monitoring the inbound aircraft. While my flight was showing as being on time, I noticed that the inbound aircraft was showing a rolling delay, due to aircraft maintenance (according to the flight status notes in ExpertFlyer \u2014 interestingly, these notes were later updated to indicate it was for weather, but that\u2019s a different topic).<\/p>\n

Fortunately American swapped in another aircraft, which decreased the delay from around two hours to one hour. Okay great, an hour delay isn\u2019t a huge deal (not that a two hour delay would\u2019ve been a huge deal either). So I headed down to the departure gate for the delayed departure time.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor those traveling to Miami, the captain has asked us to hold off on boarding, as there\u2019s a maintenance issue. That\u2019s for those traveling to Miami on flight 2039.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was worried at first, but whew, that wasn\u2019t my flight, but rather the flight scheduled 50 minutes later, at 11:30AM, just a few gates down. Literally a minute later, there was another announcement. \u201cFor those traveling to Miami on flight 1937, there\u2019s a maintenance issue with the aircraft, and we don\u2019t have an update on when the flight will depart.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, it was announced that the other flight departing from this part of the terminal, flight 4379 to Nashville, also had a maintenance issue, which prevented boarding. Like, what on earth is going on here?!<\/p>\n

Long story short, both flights to Miami ended up being delayed indefinitely, as both aircraft had to be taken out of service due to maintenance. Okay, I don\u2019t fault American for that, but it\u2019s mighty strange when two aircraft that just landed are both taken out of service for maintenance, no? I\u2019m not trying to be a conspiracy theorist, or anything, but I\u2019m just saying that I should\u2019ve probably bought a lottery ticket.<\/p>\n

Fortunately for the people on the 11:30AM flight, they ended up being assigned another aircraft after some time, and were only delayed by a little over two hours. Grrr, those special people.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Man, those lucky passengers!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The flight I was on, on the other hand\u2026<\/p>\n

The problem with my seven hour American delay<\/h2>\n

Let me cut to the chase. My flight ended up being delayed by around seven hours.<\/p>\n

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Ouch!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Delays happen, and I\u2019m probably the most patient customer you could possibly have with an extended delay, because I understand that being angry or yelling at people doesn\u2019t fix the problem any faster. My issue with the delay was twofold \u2014 the service, and how bad American\u2019s technology is.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with service. There were (at least) two sets of gate agents working over the course of the delay, and they were all horrid:<\/p>\n