prboricua

So I had a reservation from DEN - STL - JAX last week, departing DEN at 4:00PM with about a 45 minute layover in St. Louis. It was basically the last route to JAX that night.

I arrived to the DEN AA kiosk at about 2:40 PM - normally PLENTY of time to get to C councourse and to gate well before boarding. I swipe CC at Kiosk, and am warmly greeted "Please wait while we retirieve your itinerary"

Screen flickers and displays: "DEN - DFW at 3:08 PM. Is this correct?"

Um - NO - that is NOT correct.

So I have to wait 5 minutes for a ticket agent to explain to me that the DEN - STL flight was delayed so they rerouted me through DFW. Hello? Anyone at AA have a telephone? My number is on record! Could somebody have let me know?

OK, so gate agent runs through options - not with an expression of "oh, no problem"; but rather "you're SOL".

"OK", she says, "you'll get on this other flight to DFW at 3:50. It lands at 6:49 at gate C12. You're next plane is at gate C15. It leaves at 7:10". I asked her to put me in first since my original flight was "Y" class thru STL. She did that without blinking since "you'll be the first off the plane".

At this point I ask her if she could put me in 1st from DFW to JAX. "But you only had a coach ticket" she says. Yes, but it is "Y" class, I replied. Finally, she agreed.

So off we fly to DFW, land on time, only to sit on tarmac for 45 minutes due to weather. Turns out connection is delayed leaving to JAX for same reason.

Made it to JAX 2 hours late - but I made it. I just with AA had called me w/ the reschedule. I would have been to the airport earlier...

Blumie

It seems to me that AA did pretty well by you. They can't call everytime a delayed flight could cause a misconnect. And even if they did call, what could they have done differently (although I do admit it's nice to know in advance of these types of situations)? Getting to JAX two hours late and sitting in F the whole way sure does beat taking a delayed flight to STL and then having to overnight because you missed the last connection to JAX.

Edited to add: And don't you think the title to this thread is a little hyperbolic?

PresRDC

A call definately would have been nice, but it does sound like AA tried to be proactive here.

kamml

Hey - I'm envious that they got you on a flight. I got to LGA last Monday for a 8am flight to ORD only to find chaos, and that my flight had been cancelled and they hadn't let me know! They had put me on a 7pm which was better than most people who were put on the 9:15!

(In the end, the folks at the Admiral's Club were heroic, got me high enough on the standby list that I managed to get a seat on the 9am, which finally left the airport around 2pm...)

prboricua

Yeah - I do think they did their best. The most frazzling part of the trip was everything was down to the wire - I mean, not a minute to waste.

Whether or not they can call every passenger with a reroute is up for discussion. Certainly, they could implement some automated alerts of some fashion. Fire off an email or text message if THEY initiate a change. Something like that.

Like I said - I made it to JAX. Thanks AA.

JDiver

And the good news is... you advocated for yourself, they did the right thing (even if with an attitude that didn't please you,) you made it - and the really good news is you aren't flying nwa.

sonora

I always sign up for automatic flight notification by email to my Blackberry, which works about 80% of the time.

tmas

Great idea! @:-) I should do the same. I'm sure that is much cheaper for AA than calling every passenger.

brp

So, as noted above, they have implemented this, it's been in place for quite a while, and works reasonably well. It's up to the pax to actually sign up their flights for the free service...but it is there.

Cheers.

Plato90s

I agree. You should always sign up for flight notification unless you plan to do as AA suggests - arrive at the airport 2 hours early.

brp

bwahaha...you didn't do the [clown hat on] [clown hat off] thing here. Arrive two early, That's rich.

(Disclaimer: poking fun at the "two hours early" concept, not the poster, and treating it as a joke.)

Cheers.

AAND

Would be nice if you could just put it in your profile that you want the notification every time. I guess it isn't really all that much of a hassle to sign up for it though.

ByeByeDelta

Flight notification is great, but doesn't do any good far in advance when the flight is cancelled, or when AA reroutes you last minute. Several times I've been rerouted and received notifications for the original flight I was scheduled to take.

If AA could tie flight notifications to a PNR, it'd be great. ^ No more logging onto AA.com to create notifications or delete/change old ones. It would also be nice if AA developed a mobile website for cellphones where you could check flight status, schedules and reservations.