KBMIFlyer

Agree with you here. It appears the 7:54am departure to DFW is an E175, so they left with over 50% of the passengers not on board and they unloaded all of their luggage?

CVG is not a large AA station, certainly there could have been some better communication going on here that would have resulted in the plane being held for a few minutes so the passengers could make their flight. Something just does not make sense here.

donotblink

Remember the gate agent can get reprimanded for not following the D-0 directive.

dave_261

Yep. One poster pointed out earlier that when a business picks a set of metrics to focus on (i.e. D-0), you sometimes lose sight of a potentially better business decision.

JonNYC

Obviously D-0 a big factor here.

This, OTOH, is a total red herring in this instance:
That* figures in-- sometimes-- but nothing to do really with this, particular, clusterpluck. This one was policy factors and human/staffing factors.

*Agents incl. Premium go to QIK over Sabre PSS Q1 2017, Restricting Services

IADCAflyer

Wonder how much time it took to pull bags off from 40 passengers...

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

Seems to me that AA should have software in which a required metric can be overidden with manager approval. AA from time to time will delay flights for late arriving paxs (particularly if there is a material number of paxs.) How would that be approved in the system?

Austin787

AA could learn some tips from United. I’ve flown in large groups (40+ people) on United several times. Each time the agents checked everyone in as if they were 40+ solo travelers and people could also use the kiosks. Very efficient.

mvoight

A group of 40 were at the gate with the plane still there and the GA didn't hold it, because they were 3 minutes late getting to the gate before the cutoff time????
Someone needs a new job
They weren't delayed by something they did. They were delayed by the agent checking them in.

ijgordon

It's also not clear to me how AA got the computer to print all the bag tags before its cutoff (isn't that 60 minutes?) and the group STILL couldn't get to the gate in time. Maybe the agent WAS able to over-ride T-60? Or perhaps maybe since they were already checked in, the system let the agent "re"-print the bag tags.

In any event, this does sound more like something that would happen on UA...

ijgordon

It's been nearly 3 weeks since the flight. Sounds like the group did contact AA but got a brush-off, although it's not clear exactly what the timeline of that is given they were all in Mexico and probably focused on other things (including getting the lost luggage...).

I guess this is also what happens when you farm out customer relations to bots and form letters.

formeraa

I blame station management at CVG. The Manager sets the tone and obviously runs an incompetent organization. When you have a group of 40 people, you take a minute and strategize on how to handle it properly. If you need to consult with the manager or call the help desk or get the most senior agent to assist them, it would have made to sense to take 5 or 10 minutes to sort it all out.

I know some senior agents at DFW that could have checked the whole group in within 20 minutes and had them on their way to the gate in plenty of time.

mvoight

Yes,but CVG is no DFW.........

jayer

We were way overdue for a summer mass youth trip frustration thread. Just when I thought we were going to skip this year. Apparently I was too optimistic.

Too tight a connection for a 40-person inexperienced traveler youth group international trip; even if it is bookable. No slack even for a short hiccup. Hopefully a good life lesson learned to not assume strangers will execute perfectly. Which was needed for this to work. Which they didn't. Even before the group got to the connecting airport. Even without getting into the "should they, or can they, hold the plane" argument. Which my captain friend tells me again is way harder than we think.

Not going to your international-flight takeoff point the night before a time-sensitive flight is questionable. Even if it is supposed to work; and normally even does.

Catbert10

Uh, CVG was the origination, not the connection...

nrr

Several years ago I was flying jfk-las; half the plane was on a delayed flt from LHR, the plane WAS held 90+ minutes. [There was a boxing event in las, one of the comatants was from uk.]