AA151 BCN-JFK ugh

 
Old Aug 21, 2011, 11:11 pm
  #1  
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AA151 BCN-JFK ugh

Well today it was my misfortune to fly AA151 a flight from BCN to JFK...let me tell you it was just an awful awful mess...

1. When I arrived at BCN airport, it was announced the flight was delayed 1.5 hours because of the late arrival of the plane the previous night and the mandatory down time for the crew. Okay...I was going to JFK and did not have to worry about connecting flight so that was no big deal but it got the day off to a terrible start.

2. Was shocked to see AA is flying an intercontinental aircraft without the little screens so I can watch what I want to watch not the one movie they decide to put on a big screen. As my eye sight isn't great, I c ouldn't even see the movie on the screen nearest to me and of course if I didn't like the movie, well I couldn't ut up say the air map which is always my second chooice to keep me aware of the flight status. Can't believe this actually happens in the 21st century. Why haven't the little screen been introduced on this aircraft on its transcontinental routes?

3. Now I know this will make some people laugh at me but it's become almost comical. During the beverage service, I asked for a coke zero. No we don't have coke zero but we'll give you diet coke. Of course they didn't give me diet coke, they gave me coke light. Now coke light is not the same drink, doesn't taste anywhere near diet coke no matter what you might have heard or believe. As a matter of fact, why AA continues to serve diet coke or coke light is beyond me as sales of coke zero, especially in Europe, have shot way ahead of the silver cans. But then the intersting thing, after the meal servide i went to the back and asked for and got a diet coke. But when the snack came in an hour before landing at JFK, I asked for a diet coke and again got a coke light. Disgusting, at least to me (although many here will probably laugh).

4. Okay we land at JFK and get to immigration and no other flights are there. Quickly through passport contorl and then wait and wait and wait at the carousel. No announcements are made. Meanwhile people remember are 1.5 hours late already and many have connecting flights. Apparently there was some thunder and lightning but still an annoucement could have been made. And then to add insult to injury, two other flights come in one fro Santo Domingo and the other from Rome and guess what.....despite the fact our flight had arrived first, their baggage came down the carousel ahead of ours. What kind of nonsense is that.

Altogether a most unpleasant experience.
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Old Aug 21, 2011, 11:22 pm
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Yeah, that was a horrible, scary mess. I can't imagine going 7 hours without a Coke Zero! You know, you can figure out in advance if a scheduled aircraft has the little screens or only the big screens. You could then adjust your expectations or perhaps book a different flight with the amenities you want.
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Old Aug 21, 2011, 11:31 pm
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Look...any one of the things I pointed out would have been no big deal, probably. They all just came together especially with the luggage problem at the end...our flight came in first so our luggage should have come down first and they could hve made an annoucement that baggage was delayed. I don't see how anybody can question that...the rest might well be chicken you know what but passengers are human beings also and sometimes some of the airlines don't realize that.
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Old Aug 21, 2011, 11:33 pm
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Originally Posted by JEFFJAGUAR
Look...any one of the things I pointed out would have been no big deal, probably. They all just came together especially with the luggage problem at the end...our flight came in first so our luggage should have come down first. I don't see how anybody can question that!
I doubt AA has a single baggage crew that unloads planes one at a time. Looks like you may have gotten the B Team to unload yours.
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Old Aug 21, 2011, 11:36 pm
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Originally Posted by JEFFJAGUAR
Look...any one of the things I pointed out would have been no big deal, probably. They all just came together especially with the luggage problem at the end...our flight came in first so our luggage should have come down first and they could hve made an annoucement that baggage was delayed. I don't see how anybody can question that...the rest might well be chicken you know what but passengers are human beings also and sometimes some of the airlines don't realize that.
So, basically boils down to.... Drumroll... A delayed luggage complaint thread.

And, the lightning near JFK was astonishing tonight, baggage unloading delays aplenty. Unless maybe you think the crews there aren't "human beings" and should have soldiered on regardless..

Last edited by EaglesOhThree; Aug 21, 2011 at 11:43 pm
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Old Aug 21, 2011, 11:48 pm
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You're right but I left out the biggest complaint of all; what really bugged me about the whole thing and caused me to write my complaints (actually we had no way of knowing about the lightning so an annoucement would have been appreciated; but then again if our flight arrived first, why was our luggage last?) But anyway here was the kicker I left out.

I noticed about 2/3 of the way through the flight that no customs declaration forms had been distributed (BTW I have always wondered why customs declaration forms are not given to passengers at cdheck in so they can fill them out while waiting instead of in the cramped little space in the plane. They don't seem to be secure documents, they are strewn all over the desks at arrivals at JFK) but....

So anyway I thought I might have missed the walk through the aisles with the customs declarations form. I ask the flight attendant for a customs declaration form. He gives me one...in Spanish. I ask how about one I can actually read. He says that's all they have on board. You mean on an American airline where I thought the official language of the country was English, they don't have any customs declaration forms in the language of the country i.e. English? The attitude was there are translations in the AA flight magazines or wait till you get to Kennedy like everybody else had to as they never distributed them (you had to ask) which was really the final indignity and set me off not so much allo the other things.

And I defy anybody to tell me I'm wrong on this.
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Old Aug 21, 2011, 11:54 pm
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Originally Posted by JEFFJAGUAR
I ask how about one I can actually read.
Did you actually say this? If so, that's probably why you didn't get one. If you indeed asked more akin to "Excuse me, this customs for is in Spanish, do you happen to have any that are English?", then it does seem odd that they wouldn't have those forms.
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Old Aug 22, 2011, 12:02 am
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Originally Posted by JEFFJAGUAR
You mean on an American airline where I thought the official language of the country was English, they don't have any customs declaration forms in the language of the country i.e. English?
And I defy anybody to tell me I'm wrong on this.
Actually, we do not have an official language in this country. This has often been debated in government when times were better and we had less pressing issues. We have never had an official language.
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Old Aug 22, 2011, 12:04 am
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Originally Posted by Lomic
Did you actually say this? If so, that's probably why you didn't get one. If you indeed asked more akin to "Excuse me, this customs for is in Spanish, do you happen to have any that are English?", then it does seem odd that they wouldn't have those forms.
No sir...there were none on the flight (and what I probably said as I am basically a kind person is I'm sorry, I can't read this. Don't jump to conclusions that everybody who complains about something is crazy.

I later asked around and found out this is usually the case on the Barcelona-JFK flights; they only have the custokms declaration forms in Spanish. While the other stuff is probably nonsensical, I agree with that, to me this is a serious issue of not having customs declaration forms in the language of the country, don't you agree.
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Old Aug 22, 2011, 12:15 am
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Are you joking about the Coke Light/Diet Coke thing?
The only difference is that they try to make them to the same recipe but in different countries. Coke Light used to be called Diet Coke but some or other EU resolution decreed that it may not be called Diet Coke on account of drinking 3 litres of it with a dozen cheeseburgers doesn't constitute a "diet"

So if you are saying that can tell a difference betwixt the two, then logically you previously ought to have been able to tell the difference between Diet Coke and Diet Coke.

Originally Posted by JEFFJAGUAR

I later asked around and found out this is usually the case on the Barcelona-JFK flights; they only have the custokms declaration forms in Spanish. While the other stuff is probably nonsensical, I agree with that, to me this is a serious issue of not having customs declaration forms in the language of the country, don't you agree.
Qu problema tienes? todo el mundo habla el espaol.

Hate to think how the moany Catalans felt about the Spanish customs cards upon departing the capital of the quasi-autonomous people's republic of Catalunya
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Old Aug 22, 2011, 12:26 am
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Originally Posted by JohnnyColombia
Are you joking about the Coke Light/Diet Coke thing?
The only difference is that they try to make them to the same recipe but in different countries. Coke Light used to be called Diet Coke but some or other EU resolution decreed that it may not be called Diet Coke on account of drinking 3 litres of it with a dozen cheeseburgers doesn't constitute a "diet"

So if you are saying that can tell a difference betwixt the two, then logically you previously ought to have been able to tell the difference between Diet Coke and Diet Coke.



Qu problema tienes? todo el mundo habla el espaol.

Hate to think how the moany Catalans felt about the Spanish customs cards upon departing the capital of the quasi-autonomous people's republic of Catalunya
I'm really not joking about coke light vs. diet coke...they use two completely different formulas and I just don't like th taste of coke light although again the difference is not enough to make me sit down and write a letter of complaint it was just part of what happened yesterday although, I have noted in many European countries coke zero is a far better seller than coke light....I really think the airlines should stock coke zero rather than coke light but in a scale of importane from one (not very) to ten (very), I would rank this at about a 3 but it is irksome to me...if I ask for a diet coke, I should get a diet coke not a coke light however...

I didn't say there shouldn't be customs declaration forms n Spanish but there should always be customs declaration forms in English for us anglos, don't you think.
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Old Aug 22, 2011, 12:49 am
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Let me just say that ANYONE passing through JFK this afternoon/evening did not have a very good day. How about AA 2, which diverted to BWI because it couldn't land safely, then after 45 minutes left the gate and sat for two more hours before finally taking off and landing at JFK about 6 hours late.

Or AA 17, my flight, which boarded 4 hours late and then had to wait for catering for another half hour. We have a projected 3:17 am arrival at SFO. My outbound on Friday had a similar delay...we left SFO after 3 am instead of 11 pm.

For a time this afternoon, everything at JFK came to a halt for safety reasons. Not having the correct customs card or your first choice of soft drink is not going to win a huge amount of sympathy from the 1,000s of delayed passengers tonight.

Your bags could have been late for any of a number of reasons. Perhaps other aircraft that were turning around soon were given priority.

I give AA credit. They kept the Admirals Club open 2 extra hours at SFO on Friday night, and they kept the C club at JFK open late tonight as well. It sure made the delay a little easier to take. The AAngels at JFK spent hours tracking inbound aircraft to help us bettter predict actual departure times.

Oh yeah, Alaska Airlines stocks Coke Zero.
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Old Aug 22, 2011, 1:03 am
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Originally Posted by makfan
Let me just say that ANYONE passing through JFK this afternoon/evening did not have a very good day. How about AA 2, which diverted to BWI because it couldn't land safely, then after 45 minutes left the gate and sat for two more hours before finally taking off and landing at JFK about 6 hours late.

Or AA 17, my flight, which boarded 4 hours late and then had to wait for catering for another half hour. We have a projected 3:17 am arrival at SFO. My outbound on Friday had a similar delay...we left SFO after 3 am instead of 11 pm.

For a time this afternoon, everything at JFK came to a halt for safety reasons. Not having the correct customs card or your first choice of soft drink is not going to win a huge amount of sympathy from the 1,000s of delayed passengers tonight.

Your bags could have been late for any of a number of reasons. Perhaps other aircraft that were turning around soon were given priority.

I give AA credit. They kept the Admirals Club open 2 extra hours at SFO on Friday night, and they kept the C club at JFK open late tonight as well. It sure made the delay a little easier to take. The AAngels at JFK spent hours tracking inbound aircraft to help us bettter predict actual departure times.

Oh yeah, Alaska Airlines stocks Coke Zero.
Mak..just to be clear when I wrote the original post, I was unaware just how bad it might have been at JFK this afternoon...we landed at 1600 and while it was raining hard, it didn't seem to be all that bad and I got home and stewed a bit. I just didn't realize how bad it was at JFK but as I said, a whole bunch of things came together and while you're right, my problems, not that I understand what was going on and really didn't...I'[m in Brooklyn and it wasn't all that bad driving from JFK to Brooklyn, I still think there could have been annoucements regarding the baggage you know due to safety considerations, your baggage will be delayed. The soft drink thing is a pet peeve of mine and has always been and yes I know I sometimes get laughed at for this....I really didn't know that AA still flies plans without the individual screens, this is the first time I've run into that on all my international flights with AA. The customs declarations form thing, well there is something wrong with not having customs declaration forms n English; on that I stand my ground that it is wrong and like I said, apparently this happens all the time on that flight.

So please forgive my total ignorance. As the previous post indicated, a whole series of petty things ended in the bad weather at JFK. For this, I will accept my punishment hoping it is nothing greater than 10 lashes with a wet noodle.
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Old Aug 22, 2011, 1:52 am
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I've never flown AA from BCN, but have flown them many times from Latin America and once from LHR. At those stations they have provided the US entry documents at check in--usually in a ticket jacket IIRC. Are you sure you weren't given one at BCN before you boarded?

No, AA's IFE isn't great, but I find that the time passes nicely if I bring a book and/or an iPad along. It's not a bad idea to pack them even when flying airlines with superdooper IFE, since failures aren't all that uncommon.

As for the diet coke/coke zero/coke light, isn't it all basically the same garbage? Several shovels of aspartame mixed with various other chemicals? Ugh. I recommend good old water, or springing for a nice nutrient-rich beer or a heart-healthy vino tinto. AA usually carries a decent selection of that stuff.
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Old Aug 22, 2011, 2:07 am
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Originally Posted by Spounce
I've never flown AA from BCN, but have flown them many times from Latin America and once from LHR. At those stations they have provided the US entry documents at check in--usually in a ticket jacket IIRC. Are you sure you weren't given one at BCN before you boarded?

I am 100% sure I was not given a US customs declaration form at check in. As a matter of fact, when I fly AA out of LHR, I'm not given a US Customs Declaration. But I suppose it's the same thing namely when I get one on the plane flying out of Heathrow, it's also in the local language. At least I can read those

No, AA's IFE isn't great, but I find that the time passes nicely if I bring a book and/or an iPad along. It's not a bad idea to pack them even when flying airlines with superdooper IFE, since failures aren't all that uncommon.

Actually, you're right. AA is at least 15 years behind say Virgin Atlantic in their onboard entertainment. But my FF is with American!

As for the diet coke/coke zero/coke light, isn't it all basically the same garbage? Several shovels of aspartame mixed with various other chemicals? Ugh. I recommend good old water, or springing for a nice nutrient-rich beer or a heart-healthy vino tinto. AA usually carries a decent selection of that stuff.

Of course none of that stuff is good for me. But I have a caffeine addiction that isn't cured by doffee. At least it's opened up a nice discussion without too much name calling.
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