Yesterday, my g/f and I flew NRT-DFW on AA 60. I have Global Entry and she does not, so I went ahead, got the bags and waited in baggage claim for her. I noticed two bags in a group of unclaimed bags just sitting on the floor by the belt, obviously from a previous flight. They were tagged LHR-DFW-CUN (all on AA), with big orange tags saying don't put the bags back in the passenger's hands until final destination, they are for "transfer only" in the U.S. OK, they obviously were mishandled as DFW destination bags and not transferred at DFW . They had name/address tags from a couple in the U.K., who were now missing both (or at least two) of their bags for their CUN vacation.
I went to the agent standing at the AA baggage stand, who was texting on his cell phone. I explained the situation to him, showing him (by pointing), "It's that blue one and green one next to the pink one over there by carousel 3." The agent didn't even look up from his cell phone, replying, "OK." (Yes, I have discounted the possibility that he already knew about those particular bags and was handling them. Wouldn't he have said, "Thanks, we already have them in the system and have made arrangements to get them to their destination."?)
This is AA customer service? Some people from the UK are having their Cancun vacation ruined by lost luggage, and the airline employee who can fix the problem with minimal effort, the one who actually has the bags sitting on the floor about 50 feet in front of him does nothing and appears not to care?
I fly OW carriers almost exclusively (for mileage earning purposes), with most of my flying outside the U.S. So in the U.S., AA is my carrier. I now understand why all of the times my bags have been mishandled have occurred within the U.S. and why I fly foreign carriers whenever I can. Employees who care is a critical element of a carrier's success. There's been lots of griping on FT about the deficiencies of domestic customer service compared to foreign, -- personally, I believe that a lot of it is cultural. It's something AA has to get fixed if it wants to compete and win globally.