Originally Posted by mylifenomadic

To add to the anecdotal evidence from which I initially started the thread...I decided that with the ~36 hour delay that the flight cancellation caused me, it wasn't worth taking the trip since nearly half of the trip would have been spent flying (due to a cancellation of the return leg as well adding on a 5 hour layover in London). The rep in the Admirals Club was lovely enough to send me home, back to SLC, and said AAdvantage would surely refund the miles.

This was at around 2:30pm and as luck would have it, there was a non-stop from Chicago to SLC scheduled for around 12:30pm that had been delayed due to mechanical issues. They had switched aircraft to a brand new CRJ by the time I boarded and we waited another hour and a half for it to get catered and for take-off clearence. Finally at 5pm Central, we were in the air and scheduled to arrive in SLC at around 7pm. Low and behold, just as we descend into SLC, they close the airport due to fog and we are diverted to Grand Junction, Colorado. At this point, the crew times out and we are forced to deplane and spend the night at the local La Quinta...being shuttled there by the 2 cabs in the town and coordinated by the single AA employee in the GJT airport. The crew are the first ones in taxis to the hotels. SLC airport opens an hour later, but because of the crew timing out, we leave at 7am tomorrow morning.

So this is the 2nd night in 2 days that I'm spending the night in a hotel due to an AA delay at least partially caused by mechanical problems. Also, I think I may be cursed...

Originally Posted by mylifenomadic

It's now 3:30pm and I just now got home. The SLC airport was still suffering from fog problems this morning, yet the flights from Grand Junction and Denver to SLC on Delta and United (also CRJs) were able to depart and land on time. The crew indicated that their aircraft was not equipped to land in the fog in SLC. At 10:30am, they decided to fly the plane to LAX and figure it out from there. Many pax were renting cars and driving to SLC (4.5 hours) so I hitched a ride with a group of them and arrived in SLC at around 2:30pm. I'm assuming the pax diverted to GJT and then LAX will be on the American Eagle flight to SLC arriving at 4:00pm.

What a mess! Why would AA not just charter a coach and transport the pax by road to SLC when it was clear that it would be faster? I understand the aircraft would need to be relocated anyway, but there are flights from GJT to DFW that they could have repurposed them for.

Incidentally, AA was able to deliver my bag to SLC airport yesterday, but couldn't manage to deliver me!