venkol

Since this may be a fairly charged topic, I thought it best to make the thread title match the article title "Black Passenger Says American Airlines Forced Her to Give Up Her 1st-Class Seat but Let Her White Friend Remain".

http://www.theroot.com/how-american-...-up-1795045431

In Short, a black woman paid for an economy seat for herself and a friend and upgraded to FC tickets (article doesn't mention if the upgrade was paid or status based). Due to an equipment change, she was forced into the back of the plane while her white friend was allowed to remain in first class. If this was all, I think the two people would have lived with "<faeces> happens...".

The follow treatment by the airline and agents on the ground, if the article is to be believed, is nothing short of appalling. The article goes into the details of this. Could this be a United type fiasco for AA if this goes viral?

JonNYC

This one shan't be going viral.

http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea....airlines-true/

venkol

I don't think the "downgrade" is the big issue of this article. It's more how the pax was treated after. This is some VFTW doesn't touch on.

rjw242

Agreed.

Vis a vis airlines, the media's currently in the "throw everything remotely negative at a wall and see what sticks" phase of the news cycle. They'll get distracted by something else soon enough.

kb9522

There's no reason for this to even be a story.... Everyone just wants to play the victim card these days.

By the way, why is the passenger's ethnicity in the title? How does this have anything to do with race?

enviroian

We don't normally agree on posts but your spot on and agree completely. Non issue and no reason to bring up the stupid race card. Ugh.

Kevin AA

What do you mean, how they were treated after? They chose to sit together at the front of coach, so presumably AA allowed that type of arrangement. The FAs could have been dicks and said "stay in your assigned seat or else".

When someone whines with "I’ve never felt so unimportant my entire life. This flight was the most blatantly racist thing that’s ever happened to me"... that person has lost all credibility with me

Dave Noble

Even the post downgrade treatment didn't read of any note

With the downgrade, it was an automatic thing - not someone deciding to pick on someone based on illegal discrimination

With the contact between the member of cabin crew and the passenger who chose to move from their 1st class seat, even that seems trivial. If doesn't seem surprising to me that the crew were more attentive to a 1st class passenger than an economy class passenger

gooselee

I literally LOL'd when I got to the point about her being a "AAdvantage Platinum World Elite Cardholder". How much do we want to bet that the reason they had problems with the checked bag fee is because someone was just an AU on a spouse/friend/family member's account?

Dallas49er

+1

1. (SARCASM ... ON) "... an AAdvantage Platinum Select/World Elite cardholder...". Whoppee do! That and being African-American should most definitely, 100% of the time, trump CK, EXP, PLT, GLD, and plain common sense. (SARCASM ... OFF)

<removed meta discussion>

leungy18

Does AA have an official policy regarding order of downgrades? Just curious.

ashill

A few points:

1) Assuming Gary's account, that this was an op-up of two passengers followed by a flight cancellation and a rebooking onto a flight with only one F seat, is correct, it's hard to see any evidence for race factoring into the computer's decision about downgrading the black passenger.

2) This, to me, is the damning part of the description of AA's response:
That is a sadly plausible account of race-based microagressions that minorities have to deal with every day, something I, as a non-minority in the US in most ways, never have to face. The black passenger asked for an explanation of why she was moved to the back of the plane, which is entirely fair; there's no reason she should be expected to understand what was going on.

3) Yes, the white passenger clearly didn't understand that having a credit card holder doesn't put her friend in the top few percent of AA's customers. Not understanding how many customers have elite status or cobranded credit cards has no bearing on her trustworthiness; the vast majority of airline customers don't understand that either. Strike out the bit about her being a credit card holder, and this complaint remains entirely appropriate.
AA has a good record on race and diversity issues and deserves some slack, but they also deserve criticism in this case, including continued training.

gooselee

Unfortunately, I have become conditioned to have a cynical eye toward most passenger accounts like this, because of course they are going to paint themselves in the best possible light.

If the same AA employee responded differently to the exact same questions from two people, then that is a problem. Absolutely.

But consider this: The two FAs, who are probably all over the cabin during this whole sequence and might not be in constant communication about the exact status and disposition of two pax who are themselves changing seats (and perhaps both throwing an attitude because they feel they've been slighted), so perhaps one FA responded dismissively to the coach pax who had moved herself up several rows, and later the other FA, unaware of the first conversation, responded differently to the FC pax who had self-downgraded to sit by her friend. I know that I would respond somewhat differently two those two pax if I encountered them in isolation.

AA's silence after these ladies have played the race card so visibly on social media isn't surprising. They know the current media climate toward airlines. If they're smart (and they are) they will make sure they know exactly what occurred and have all their ducks lined up before quietly resolving this with the pax in question. AA's best moves are the ones that result in a follow up to this story not having to exist.

Microwave

I've clarified the thread title a bit, or at least tried to... This is a tough topic to nail down. Please alert moderators if the title needs further updates.

Please also ensure the topic stays related to AA and AAdvantage—if it veers over to OMNI P/R territory, the thread is likely to veer there along with it. @:-)

~Moderator

apodo77

I would say you are drawing conclusions on comments that have yet to be corroborated or confirmed by anyone other than the two who claim to be affected.