mylifenomadic

I was scheduled to be on flight AA98 last night from Chicago to Heathrow, which, after delaying every 30 minutes for 3 hours, deplaning, and having pax wait in the airport for another 3 hours, finally cancelled the flight due to mechanical issues and then made pax wait another 1.5 hours to offload the bags.

During the time we were waiting at the gate, the AA LAX to LHR flight made an emergency landing at ORD due to mechanical issues as well, but either switched aircraft or fixed the problem after 1-2 hours. No displaced pax from the cancelled ORD-LHR flight were allowed to standby when the LAX-LHR flight departed from ORD.

Are these mx problems becoming more and more frequent because of AA's aging fleet and cutting corners on maintenance? I usually fly Delta and nearly switched this award flight to Delta the day before departure (sure wish I had!) and though they are not immune to mx problems, I think they would have been able to find a spare 763 at one of their main hubs and let the flight continue on.

The agents at the airport were frustrated but kept their composure and pax were accommodated at various hotels (myself at the Crowne Plaza which is quite nice) but due to AA's mishandling of the situation and delays offloading baggage, I couldn't check in until 4:30am and have to check at noon.

P.S. what kind of compensation, if any, is reasonable? I was reaccommodated on a flight that arrives 20 hours later than scheduled (assuming no more delays)! This of course means I'm out a prepaid hotel night, a non-refundable shuttle reservation and train ticket. I was on award ticket.

brp

Not in my experience. We had very few mx issues last year. Do you have something to support the "cutting corners on maintenance" claim?

Compensation questions probably best asked in the thread devoted to that identical topic

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...solidated.html

(Search term {"compensation"})

Cheers.

gemac

Silly rabbit.

Antarius

AA's 763's aren't that old either.

mylifenomadic

Maybe I should have said "purported". I meant to ask whether it was becoming more common now. All I have is anecdotal experience from a small sample of flights.

FWAAA

Are these problems becoming more frequent? I don't think anyone has data one way or the other. When your flight is delayed or cancelled, it's very frustrating.

"Cutting corners on maintenance"? Really?

The costs you listed are what's known as "consequential damages," and like every other airline, AA expressly disclaims any liability for them. AA won't reimburse you for your costs. Generally, long delays result in AA depositing some redeemable bonus miles. I've received 10k miles for medium delays and as many as 20k miles for long delays like yours.

sellouts

Anecdotal experience doesn't really add up to much with the scale of AA's daily operations and the size of their fleet.

Upgraded!

Actually, it probably would have been pretty difficult at that point considering how late it was and how much later it would have been when the flight arrived. Plus there's currently no morning ORD-LHR (could have taken that plane and found another overnight to replace it).

And it's perfectly understandable why they wouldn't have let ORD-originating pax onto the LAX-LHR flight. I think that for int'l flights manifests have to be submitted X hours in advance and changing them once the flight has begun would be a nightmare (if regulations even allowed it in the first place).

Perhaps, but I've been pretty good about getting vouchers to make up for out-of-pocket expenses related to problems of AA's doing. Usually it's a fairly round number that takes into account the actual amount spent plus a premium for compensatory purposes and the relative illiquidity of "airline dollars". Then again when this has happened in recent memory all travelers were in F or J, and at least one was on a paid ticket.

sts603

While I don't doubt that there aren't substantial paperwork issues, etc. with adding passengers to an international flight during an unscheduled stopover, manifests definitely don't need to be finalized in advance. Both non-revs and revenue passengers standby for international flights all of the time and clear moments before the door closes.

Upgraded!

I've actually been meaning to ask about that: has revenue pax standby on int'l flights always been allowed? I thought previously it wasn't. However on my last int'l flight (ORD-CDG) I saw a standby list at the gate.

And even with them clearing moments before departure, I would assume they have some time to submit their final manifest to the destination country, which they'd have to do over again in this case.

sts603

International standbys include (1) non-revs (not sure if these are posted on the board though), (2) F/J passengers on flexible tickets, (3) IRROPS, and (4) other logical circumstances (for example, I was allowed to standby on a non-refundable Y ticket trying to get out of JFK before it closed for Sandy with absolutely no questions asked).

Upgraded!

Got it, makes sense. Does #2 only include F/J (vs those on unrestricted Y fares) because only F and J have a formal waiting list?

sts603

No you're right the same thing applies to Y as well though I tend to see it far more often with F/J passengers.

SeriouslyLost

You're assuming US rules (or even just norms/habits) apply outside the US. They don't. Not too many countries actually require transmission of passenger data.

Upgraded!

Fair enough. Would have guessed if any would the UK might be it, but not going to make any assumptions.