Originally Posted by
dpb132
AA continues to schedule more flights than they can staff. 100% deserve the heat that comes their way over that, I've been saying that for months. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to determine that you have X number of staff, which can handle Y number of flights, and you can't go over Y.
Originally Posted by
MSPeconomist
I would guess that the crew in customs is deadheading on your flight in order to work a flight tomorrow. I wouldn't expect a crew arriving from working an international flight would be able to immediately work a domestic flight without a rest period. Alternatively, the crew could have been deadheading on the international flight before working your flight, but that seems less likely due to rest rules and the implicit cost of having a crew deadhead from an international airport rather than working an international flight from their location.
I got this same excuse in DFW a few weeks ago. Crew was coming off a MEX-DFW flight and onto DFW-OKC. 10AM flight.. 10:20 delay due to crew stuck in customs waiting to clear... will be 10 mins. 10:40... same thing. 11:00... same thing. Finally boarding around 11:30. We all know it doesn't take long for crew to clear in customs as they have their own lanes. The gate agent was particularly snotty to folks as well and threatened to not let me board because I called her bovine fecal matter.
All in all, just more mismanagement at AA. Otherwise known as "business as usual".