ijgordon I do find the comment about a 24 hour response possibly being unreasonable interesting. Certainly you've come to accept it here. Would you be fine with it anywhere else you spend $25K/year? FWIW, I'm not.
I get that the airline industry, at least the US carriers, aren't in the same league as Emirates or heck, even BA, but yeah, I want to get the best experience I can for the dollars I spend. I know there are those that spend far more, but this is plenty. And since most of my flights are West Coast business trips they tend to cost more (less advance notice) and be more profitable (we pay many more cancellations and change fees than I would) than personal travel. And there are quite a few flights (because there are quite a few folks with the same, predictable needs) from say, Phoenix to Orange County or Vegas to Los Angeles. That's why I think reconsidering my job for travel because 3 hour delays with no recourse for getting you other flgihts, even if it is on another airlines is absurd.
I guess all of this is to say that while they're all bad, and they all certainly have terrible moments, it is reported that Delta, Alaska, etc. are not as bad as American. As a DFW native now in SoCal they've always been my go to carrier, and I hate to see that now it seems like they're just literally just "mailing it in" in this area.