Originally Posted by no1cub17

This is just speculation but my impression from multiple interactions with AA ground staff is that Dougie and Isom have instilled a culture of fear and rather than empower AA employees to take care of customers, AA employees are now scared of running afoul of Dougie's edicts. Just one example but several years ago I was flying AAA-ORD-BBB - the original flight I booked was a "direct" - same fight number, same aircraft but layover at ORD. I went to the airport to go standby on an earlier itinerary on the exact same routing but the agent initially refused because my original ticket just showed one flight number. Only when I asked her to talk to a supervisor did she relent and let me go standby. While processing me onto the earlier flights she apologized and said management had been all over them about "revenue leakage". So anyway just one example for a few years ago but that's the pervasive mentality among many frontline employees at AA nowadays.