The AA SOC is one of the best in the industry. They take their jobs extremely seriously and are open 24 hours per day. Often, they must pore over a lot of data and information in just a few minutes to make a critical decision.

OTOH, the airport staff often takes the path of least resistance (saying something different, pretending to not know the latest updates) because they've got to deal with people 1-on-1, which can be very stressful -- even dangerous -- in these types of situations.

For a traveler, when this happens, the best thing is to be proactive, research the options online, and call the airline directly.