I am traveling in AA 126. The issue was a broken water line (not lav issue) that was leaking into the cabin and had leaked over 2/3 of the water available. Flight deck crew tried to fix or isolate the leak but couldn’t. Yes, we were on plane 4+ hours; yes there was no service. I asked for water and got some but pax were basically on their own.
1. Communication was bad, at one point 2 hours with no updates. I was in F so able to talk to crew gathered in galley and get some info.
2. JAL and AA ground staff worked very hard - they had 10+ maintenance staff on the plane.
3. They thought they had a fix but crew was gong illegal. And fix didn’t hold. Have to fly in parts.
4. There were issues on disembarking because of visas - mainly for Chinese foreign nationals that didn’t have visas for Japan.
5. Once decided to get folks off, it took almost an hour to get buses.
6. From there, for me, it got much better. Each F pax got an escort to help them through immigration and customs; and they gave us hotel rooms at hotel I terminal.
7. The saga’s not over but it’s the first I’ve ever encountered anything like this on AA after 5 million plus MM miles.