MarkOK

Nope. I expect an announcement if a station is closed. They have intercoms! Why should I just assume that my station randomly closed? If a train passes by, my assumption is that the train is out of service (which happens, quite a bit) and is making it's way through to the service station. After another train or two (now, we are in what, minute 5?), yeah, you start to wonder but the decision is either I wait another minute for the next train to come and have plenty of time to make the flight, or I go to plan B and run for it where I will definitely be cutting it close. I and some 100 people in that station were thinking the same thing. Congratulations if you are the wizard that would have known better and run, but you would have been the only one. We only wish we had the skylink-mind reading ability that you endow.

Yes, I know Skylink is an airport issue, which is why I blame DFW for the skylink, not AA. But I DO think that airlines operating in Hubs SHOULD know if something is disrupting the ability of their passengers to navigate through the airport. As for the last comment, I think that is rather absurd. The plane didn't leave any earlier because the gate agent closed the door when he did. Flights never leave more than a minute or two earlier than takeoff time even when all passengers are accounted for -- and we are talking about 15 unaccounted passengers, not 1 here. The agent made a bad call, in my opinion, not just for us 15 passengers, but for the gate agents for the later flights that now have long waitlists of angry passengers to sort out.

I already sent a complaint about the rudeness to AA. The simplest thing they should have done was to have been nicer to the passengers. I posted to flyertalk to let people know that DFW has poor communications to both passengers and AA about airport operations, and to just assume the worse -- in a way, I am trying to spread the awesome wisdom that kb9522 already has.!

SpinOn2

MarkOK, how can you not at least accept partial blame? You were at the airport airside hours before your next flight. You could have realistically crawled to the Gate in the timeframe. A lot of blame goes on DFW Airport and not having the Skylink working correctly nor having information showing so. But again, AA got you there in plenty of time. Take at least a modicum of responsibility for waiting to go to the gate til boarding time.

No the GA shouldn't have been so rude. However, I have flown plenty enough to know how these things works. Also used to work for AA. Everything is their fault from the passenger perspective, everything somehow becomes AA's fault. They should have thought of only you and not the entire plane full of people who did show up on time and got on. I have seen this behavior time and time again, when people realize they missed a flight all rationale and reason goes out the window. "You should have known we were here!" and "The departure time says so and so time!" not knowing that the flight closes prior to that. We passengers agree to the Contract of Carriage when buying the ticket and yet rarely ever actually know anything about the stipulations. I am not condoning the actions of a rude GA, but if he is being yelled and snarled at and accused etc by passengers because they didn't do their end of the agreement, it gets frustrating. I can at least understand why it would happen. I have been there before in shoes like his.

MarkOK

And that is the thing, I was on track to get to the plane at the start of boarding time (not the last possible second), as is always my goal and nearly always the outcome, but like they say, .... happens. (and as much as the airline is not responsible for airport operations, neither is the passenger that does due diligence).

HkCaGu

Every minute in the lounge is a minute lost. Therefore everyone who went to the lounge for more than a minute is to be blamed if things happen. Or going to the bathroom. Or eating or buying takeaway at any restaurant. You got there five hours ago. Therefore if you didn't start immediately crawling to your gate, it's your fault.

Sarcasm off... The fact that the OP arrived hours ahead versus 40-60 minutes ahead makes no difference. As long as it's reasonable, it's the same. Arriving hours ahead does not add any blame.

MarkOK

I waited to go to the gate until 10 minutes BEFORE boarding time (45 minutes before departure). That was indeed my decision, one I don't think was unreasonable., and one I would say AA also doesn't think is unreasonable on account of how often they give me connections of less than 55 minutes through DF.W (where if I arrive on time, I have ~0 minutes before boarding to make my way from one terminal to another). You can always Monday morning quarterback my decision, but that is simply what we are doing here.

I will say that I have overall good experiences with AA, and they have actually done a couple things customer service wise that has impressed me recently -- this has been the first time in years where I feel like AA customer service crossed a line on a person-to-person interaction with me. The person in front of us, and us got angry not because he closed the gate when he did, but because he went out of his way to blame us for not being at the gate hour(s) before departure. That I think is unreasonable and is when the argument escalated. (We vented to a server in the AC lounge, and she was very courteous, personable, and brought us wine. There are good ways to handle customers, and there are bad ways to handle customers).

SpinOn2

Ok so by that same token if AA's flight in for him was late and he had to run, and would have made it barely had the train worked, AA would then hold no responsibility at all for that? Does it work both ways then? I am not blaming OP for doing things he thought he had time for, I am simply saying waiting til boarding to plan to arrive isn't the wisest idea. I learned a long time ago to be at the gate at least 15 minutes before boarding started, since it starts early all the time.

AA has zero fault in him missing this flight, they fulfilled their obligation. They even re-booked him when technically they didn't have to do so.

Head

As I said up-thread, I think that we all have some reasonable expectation that they SkyLink will run every few minutes. Frequent flyers aside, most of the flying public would not think to separate the SkyLink in a major AA Terminal from AA itself. Its presence is advertised everywhere in the airport, AA FA's mention it on nearly every incoming flight (that I am on anyway), and if you stop and ask how to get to terminal C from Terminal D, an Airport or AA employee will tell you to take the SkyLink. Most people wouldn't even know you could walk between terminals.

The OP was kicked back in the Club and cut it close. He missed his flight due to some crazy issue with the SkyLink. I don't think that AA should necessarily hold the flight for him, but I would expect some communications from the airport (or someone) that the SkyLink is down. To expect otherwise seems pretty crazy to me.

SpinOn2

I'm not trying to pile on you, I don't really think it was unreasonable, more unfortunate.

However, let me give you some perspective from the GA side. I am not condoning his actions as no matter what he should have been professional, but at least try to see his side for a minute. He is working a flight, after a long stressful holiday season, where there has been weather issues etc. He boards a flight where 90% of the people have no issue and get on. He closes the door when he is instructed to. He then has hordes of people come running up immediately stressed and incredulous for the unexpected circumstances that had nothing to do with AA and especially him. As soon as he notifies them the door is closed and they missed the passengers gets extremely frustrated. The passengers then begin to beg, plead, argue etc directly at the Gate Agent. Questions of "Why can't you just open the door?" ensue, insults fly, many that start to feel personal. Somehow the Gate Agent starts to get told they are responsible for them not making it to a funeral, a vacation, a wedding, etc etc. Now a smart Gate Agent can take that and brush it off as frustration, understand that they are not so much mad at them personally, just upset at the situation. This Gate Agent failed to do this, he let his emotions get the best of him. A lot of times you may let it go, you may turn the cheek and do what you are trained to do. However, sometimes it starts to get to you, after time five of something like this happening, while you have been working your butt off and missing holidays to work, dealing with stress after stress, sometimes it become too much. They are human after all. By all means it is still not ok to act this way, but still you can at least understand where it would.

A lot of people feel they didn't do those things, they weren't mean, etc etc, but let me tell you people rarely realize how awful they are being in those situations. I have been called racist names, I have been threatened with violence etc. This is a reality front-facing airline workers face in today's world. If this guy works at DFW I guarantee you he has faced similar, probably at least once a week. For some reason air-travel makes normally sane individuals go completely mental.

lobo411

Even if you do know that you can walk between terminals, you need to know exactly which way to walk. If you're at C-15, do you head towards C-40 or C-2 to get to Terminal D? If you screw it up...well...now you have to walk all the way back and waste even more time.

Anyway, this whole conversation is an interesting sociological exercise: rather than advocate for a humane system that is flexible enough to account for systemic shortcomings such as the one the OP experienced, we have a human need to lay blame.

And who do we blame--the system, or the individual? Well...for our own emotional well-being, we NEED to believe that systems work. We NEED to believe that individual choices matter. Therefore, we NEED to believe that those who are ground up in the gears of our machines DESERVE to suffer. Why? Because...if those who suffer are somehow "bad," then we--of course, we're all "good"--are safe.

controller1

I guess I'm still wondering why you chose the Terminal D Admirals Club (the farthest from your terminal of departure) instead of the closer Admirals Club locations in Terminal B or Terminal C?

It's not as if you were not able to be easily made aware of the locations of the other terminals in relation to Terminal A. It's available on the AA app, in airport map guides available in each terminal, on multiple websites and at each SkyLink station.

jfinsocal

AA should hold some responsibility for the train - they run a huge operation at DFW and force many connections through the hub. With the exception of a few UA/DL to D international connections, all of the connecting traffic on the train is AA. It's as much the airlines problem as the airport.

One of the reasons I try really hard to connect through PHX if possible although this option is probably half what is was 4 or 5 years ago.

A learning experience for all.

boerne

We walk 98% of our connections at DFW for this reason. If we are virtually certain we can’t make the plane walking then we ride and accept the consequences. We also pick the closest AC, and know that the GA will do everything possible to close boarding early and they really do not care about those who are 5 minutes late. Learned this the hard way at MIA in 1996. They really DO care about on time or early departures to improve their statistics. The individual flyer is a statistic, and can be sacrificed for the all important early departure. I expect the same from every carrier. Flying SAS in Y tomorrow and we will be at the gate early.

LovePrunes

If it werent for the skylink trains (or its predecessor, the trAAm) there's no feasible way for AA to operate a hub at DFW. the train isn't there because the other airlines have gobs of passengers changing terminals. Although the airport owns and runs it, there is one primary tenant who benefits, and it's AA. In that sense, AA is dependent on the train to run correctly for their passengers to make their connection.

jayer

My friends the AA employees tell me right now with AA closing your door on time IS the ONLY real metric and they get judged on it. This poster understands how it works. If a plane leaves late blame is assigned. . .to somebody. They don't let it be them, even if maybe sometimes it might be a good reason. They just are not holding the plane. . .because they can't.

Late in the day IF the crew has time left and IF there is no slot compression because of weather at either end and IF there are not 16 people trying to make the last transocean connection at the other end; then maybe IF everybody agrees.

A broken train stop is a little unique, and I had that problem once. More likely at DFW is a delay suddenly turned non-delay, generally unknown unless you are at the gate; and the place is prone to gate changes. Which you will likely not know unless you are checking at the gate periodically.

Dave Noble

In this case, the passenger had 2 hours between flights. Rather than go to the terminal where the ongoing flight was departing from, the passenger chose to go to a different terminal and then head to terminal A close to boarding time. Whether thhe train was working or not, the poster had ample time to get to the departure terminal , which is what the gate agent told him. He didn't misconnect just because of the train failure and so be entitled to the normal protection of a missed connection and so the agent only offered to put the passenger on to a standby list