Frustrating even in comparison to other American airlines
Written: Feb 17 '08 (Updated Feb 17 '08)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: reservations, flight crew
Cons: honesty-impaired, mishandling luggage (and customers with missing luggage)
The Bottom Line: If there's another choice, take it!
|
|
|
| Jiahong's Full Review: American Airlines |
Flying has become so unpleasant in recent years that there are only two criteria involved in my so-called choices of carriers. The fewer stops (and especially of changes of aircraft) the better, because being able to make connections is unpredictable. The second is to fly on the line one has the highest frequent-flyer status. I fly more than a hundred thousand miles a year on United not because I think that United is markedly superior to other carriers but because it dominates the market from my home base (San Francisco) and I receive better treatment as a frequent flyer.
Flying to Central and South America, we usually choose to go through Miami on American. Usually, the only real alternative is Continental through Houston. We have frequently had problems with baggage checked through Miami (see Steve's horror story about our Ecuador trip at http://www.epinions.com/trvl-review-7EE8-138E7DA8-3A0B39BB-prod2 and obey his exhortation to carry on essentials), and the frustrations at the "organization" of AA ground" service" in Miami have reached the tipping point for us. Alas, American has taken over routes to Central and South America from Braniff, Eastern, and TWA. I consider it an oligopoly, though I realize that it could be considered a survivor, if there is a difference between "survivor" and "predator."
American seems to have pioneered the hub system -- with hubs that I dislike for various reasons: O'Hare and Dallas/Fort Worth, originally, Miami for flights south, and TWA's St. Louis hub that I expect to see phased out. And, BTW, its corporate headquarters moved to Dallas in 1979, though the company was founded in 1930.
Ticketing
I have no complaints about the AA website. It is far superior to that of Northwest, particularly in regard to seat assignment. I have also found the AA reservation personnel I have had to speak to by telephone competent and polite (in contrast to many other airlines!).
Checking-in
Particularly in Miami, checking-in is confused and confusing. The lines to be checked in by human beings at "service" counters are very lengthy. What is unconscionable is that after printing a boarding pass at the "self-check in," one has to queue up to get luggage tags and then queue up again to deliver the tagged bag to another place.
I am accustomed to there being roaming personnel to tag bags with tags that are printed at the same time as boarding passes, and not having to take bags after they are tagged.
Boarding by section of aircraft is standard. The main problems in this matter are with extremely egocentric customers.
Timeliness
Even with time for delays built in (to inflate "on time" statistics), airlines in general are dishonest. The reasons announced for delays are frequently bogus -- ones attributed to weather at the destination are vulnerable to customers checking weather online or calling someone at the destination, but this seems not to have occurred to those providing excuses to the customers! Yesterday, I had a boarding pass for my Miami-San Francisco flight from checking in at Managua. This had the originally scheduled departure time printed. But when I got to Miami, and I could find tv monitors that were working (yes, that means that there were banks of blank screens!) the departure time had been moved back half an hour but still listed as going to depart "on time."
Although I have come to expect both delays and being lied to, I find being lied to more irritating than the delays. Perhaps it is that I am entrusting my life to someone (a corporate "person) egregiously untrustworthy?
In the air The pilots seems competent. I am especially grateful to one who noticed that there was a plane on the runway at O'Hare and pulled up again! I feel that the pilots are less prone to forcing everyone to remain in their seats with the fasten seatbelt signs than United ones are.
The flight attendants seem efficient and polite (not surly like those I've experienced on Northwest or dazzlingly inefficient as on Croatian Air, though nowhere near to being as efficient as attendants on Royal Thai who managed to serve a meal and beverages on a 45-minute flight).
The snacks for sale sound like they include options other than junk food -- though also offering junk food. The meals in first-class are pretty good, comparable to those in first-class on United.
I prefer the in-flight magazine United publishes to the ones -- there is an additional one in first class -- American publishes. In particular, United provides information on movies and audio programs.
The earphones are junk (I carry my own headphones on most flights for Bose's erasing the jet sounds.) I was astonished that the earphones were being sold in steerage (economy) on the Miami-Managua flight ($2). The sound quality, particularly on the 757s left over from TWA is very poor.
The movies are dreck. Actually, there was not a movie on the 5 1/2-hour SF-Miami flight, only some CBS programming.
Baggage claiming is where my greatest frustrations with AA occur. I've already criticized the checking-in process in Miami.
Customers have to collect their bags and re-check them at whatever point of entry. AA has no choice in the matter. Those supposedly handling problems with bags that don't show up are fluent in English as well as in Spanish, and inefficient in both. I'm not sure whether they prefer to address Spanish-speaking customers or whether Spanish-speaking customers are less likely to queue. What I do know is that while I waited to talk to the staff persons, they did nothing to enforce a "first come, first served" procedure.
When we got through immigration, one of our bags was on the floor by the carousel where our incoming flight's bags were supposed to be. The other was not. The AA representative walked over to look for the bag, so I can't accuse him of being lazy and inert. And I can see some rationale for verifying for himself that bags from our flight were there. However, looking at the tags on dozens of bags was a waste of his time and mine. I know what my bag looks like, he didn't, you know?
Then he adopted the line that the final destination was San Francisco, so that the absence of the bag was not his problem. He was unable or unwilling to do anything to ascertain if all the bags from the flight had been offloaded. He was unwilling or unable to do anything to track the particular barcode of the baggage check. He insisted that it might have gone directly to San Francisco. I did not believe this, first, because if there was a flight from Managua to San Francisco we would have been on it! And second, our bags had to clear customs there -- at the point of entry to the US.
Moreover, the two bottles we purchased at duty free outside the US, which had flown in the overhead compartment to Miami, had to be in a checked bag (being more than three ounces), and it was the hard bag with room that was lost--misplaced by AA Miami.
After telling us again to file a claim in San Francisco, he told us he did not have time to spend on us.
Although I do not suspect him of pilfering from luggage "lost in transit," talking to some others with extensive experience of Miami-to-Latin America travel, I have heard that items "disappear" from luggage with considerable frequency in Miami (which is to say in the custody of American Airlines, the dominant carrier there). Luggage may make it south to the destination a few days later with new clothes or wetsuits "gone missing" (and in effect blamed on those working in the Latin American airports).
---
The story has a "happy ending." While Steve was inthe long line to hand over the customs declaration form, I walked around around and spotted the bag on another carousel than the one listed for our flight and was able to repack the duty-free bottles before re-checking it.There were multiple faults in AA handling!
And I wonder what would have happened if I had not chanced to find the bag on the wrong carousel. I strongly suspect that it would have been seized in the name of "security" and destroyed. Perhaps after going through the bag and not finding anything to take, the bag was sent off to a different carousel and bags that have been pilfered are then destroyed as unclaimed -- "abandoned" without clearing US customs by those with connecting flights to board.
Recommended:
No
|
|
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.