Epic CS Failure @ LAX - AE pilot only employee who offered help
 

My friend S left from DCA for SLC yesterday (Feb 2) morning via ORD with group of 10 int'l visitors that she's escorting around the country for the State Dept. Twenty four hours later her group still has not made it to SLC! They have been in LAX since 10:30 am. Its now past 5 pm in LA on Feb 3. The original flight was scheduled to arrive in SLC at 11:36 am YESTERDAY.

First, there was a four hour delayed departure at ORD due to a mechanical on AA 3756. The nose wheel would not engage. They sat on the runway for a couple of hours and finally had to disembark and board a new plane.

Then during the descent into SLC last night, the plane was diverted to GJT because of fog in SLC.

At GJT, cust svc did not want to provide lodging for pax, but the pilot intervened. No food vouchers were provided. This morning at GJT, pax were told flight was going to LAX instead of SLC, but not to worry because their tix would be rebooked while they were en route. When the plane finally landed at LAX after a late departure, S went to the agent to ask about the rebooking to SLC. The agent was clueless and directed them to call cust svc using the phone bank. Rebooking agent on the phone said "According to our records you already made it to SLC" so she wouldn't help them further. Um, no we're all in LAX.

S asked to speak with a CS supervisor at LAX, but was not allowed to. XYZ called rebooking number and was told "oh you're dealing with a group of 11 so you need to call the group desk." He was transferred to group desk, which is closed on Sundays. [It is Sunday 2/3]. XYZ told S later "I knew then that I needed to help you." since the LAX agent could not find seats for the group on any other AA flight to SLC today and essentially gave up on helping the pax. AA's LAX CS efforts (or rather lack thereof) remain an epic failure.

For the record, the only one who ever apologized for the delays and customer disservice by AA was the pilot.

I called AA this afternoon to ascertain their official reason for the late delay ex-ORD [this being a separate issue from the diversion & eventual cancellation of AA 3756] and was told it was because of weather. "Really?" I asked "What about the mechanical problem with the nose wheel and the change of aircraft?" The agent said there is no record of that and she repeated 'it was a weather delayed departure - no compensation is allowed'.

Thus, I ask my fellow FTers, can AA erase and/or modify the reasons for a delayed departure to suit their needs (to avoid paying pax compensation)? If it is a combination of mechanical and weather, does weather override mechanical?

PS I told my friend that if this ever happened again she should buy day passes to the Admiral's Club and let those professionals sort it out. UA's RCC has never let me down so hopefully the Admiral's Club has a similar level of excellence.

Sounds like a mess (and I don't think this is the first post we've seen today on this GJT diversoin - I would love to know the reason the plane then went from GJT to LAX). That said, a very simple rule - when IRROPS happen in small stations (nevermind stations that weren't involve with the flight in the first place), pick up the phone. Even the regular reservations line is likely to be of more help then dealing with an overburdened skeleton staff at a small Eagle outstation.

This delay/diversion/rerouting is also discussed here:

Sounds like they should have rented a car from GJT like this poor guy on the same plane did....

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...mx-issues.html

Small stations are often staffed with third party employees. Luckily there was a very caring pilot involved.

I don't know the details, but the US State Dept. doesn't provide escorts for everyone; so I'm assuming these are VIP's (?). Was AA informed in advance of this group. If my assumptions are correct, I think just from a publicity angle, that AA would have made special efforts to deal with this "special" group.

Experience with multiple carriers suggests that they will use weather as an excuse to avoid compensation when it has ANYTHING to do with a delay, do not believe that rules of carriage, FAA regulations refer to a percentage.

In this situation, I would have called back, kept trying until I found someone who could / would help; there are rebooking phone banks throughout LAX for a reason.

My wife will often work with the Platinum desk when I have been delayed; while unable to cannot confirm me on a different flight while in the air, it has made the difference on a subsequent leg, to get one of the last available seats.

Their computer systems aren't horribly current, so my guess is that they can only input one delay reason at a time. So, once the diversion because of weather happened, it removed the mechanical delay. The mechanical trumps weather every single time.

Also mentioned above, I would never take the word of a station agent (especially someone in an outstation) that said they would take care of it once the flight is airborne.

AA's LAX customer service is usually pretty decent, but then again I frequent the AC more than the main floor so maybe that would make a difference.

That pilot did a fantastic job at customer service - totally above and behind what he was required to do and you should send a letter to AA complimenting him.

Sounds like the AE CS Agent in LAX needs some "re-training." You do have to wonder why they sent the flight to LAX instead of SLC.

Good work from the pilot. The phone agent who said "call the group desk" after two hours on hold and explaining, then come to find out the group desk isn't open on Sundays, well that person needs to be retrained urgently. That is unacceptatble call-avoidance and a serious customer service issue.

Its things like this that really get under the skin. Everyone will get a delay or a weather related slowdown, but to be bounced around or ignored by uncaring employees really takes the cake.

Air Canada is famous for the above. Simply put the employees don't give a hoot.

Epic CS Failure @ LAX - AE pilot only employee who offered help
 

As said earlier, I was on the same flight, and why the flight could not land in SLC perplexes me as well. The pilot said that due to fog, an IFR cat III landing was required and the aircraft was only equipped for a cat II landing. I don't know much about the avionics of various aircraft, but it was a brand new CR7. The Delta/SkyWest flights were on CR2s and were able to land fine in the light fog.

I think the aircraft usually goes ORD-SLC-LAX so that may be why they went to LAX, but no passengers would have been ticketed to LAX.

While it was nice that the Eagle pilot stuck around, I do believe that he could have been of more help. He should have spoken with the gate agent about what happened and asked to have a supervisor come down and assist the passengers. That would have been ultimately more helpful to the delayed passengers.

Honestly, I worked at AA and LAX was known as one of the worse stations in the system for CS. The agents were often unusually rude to their fellow employees.

Sorry I didn't realize I shouldn't have posted the pilot's name. Not that AA can't figure it out from the flight #, but another pilot friend of mine said the guy could get in trouble with the company for assisting the pax. I guess that means my friend should avoid writing AA or AE to commend the pilot's kindness as well? Oops. Prob too late to redact the paragraph about him helping. Moderator: pls let me know if you want me to scrub out that section.

It would have cost $1,200 to rent a van from GJC to SLC. Aside from that, there's the whole liability + political issue if something were to happen en route to SLC on the road. So they had to stick with air travel. Personally I think they got the double jinx: group tix + govt rate. Perhaps this ranks them slightly above the PL pax in the cust svc mindset?

I'll be interested to see if my friend gets any extra miles for the SLC-GJT-LAX-SLC legs. Hah. Although LAX-SLC would be SkyMiles.