wahooflyer

USA Today story here.

Apparently, AA is now advising agents not to book non-elite pax on other airlines during irregular ops except in special circumstances, or with management approval. AAdvantage elites other than EXP/CK (and maybe Platinum Pro?) can still be rebooked if their delay on an AA flight would be greater than 5 hours.

I'm sure this will have the most impact on travelers at smaller stations that don't have as many AA flights, people flying AA out of a DL or UA hub, or passengers booked on odd, out-of-the-way connections, but in about 15 years of flying AA/US I can only recall one time where I was rebooked on another carrier during IROPS. If you're at an AA hub, or a midsize or larger outstation that has multiple connection points to your destination, chances are there will be another AA flight that will get you there faster than an OAL anyway. Of course, that will only help if (perhaps a big "if" on peak travel days) that other AA flight has seats available, and there's not a big operational meltdown like the PSA dispatch system outage in CLT earlier this year.

Thoughts?

JonNYC

Gary did a good job of breaking this down when I broke the story:

https://viewfromthewing.boardingarea...-wont-like-it/

3Cforme

This looks to be an area ripe for government regulation. The DOT already demands that passengers be given refunds without penalty for 'significant' delays or schedule changes, or for carrier changes, so they recognize that passenger time has value. It wouldn't be hard to argue that a five-hour delay is unreasonable (or vast delay for non-elites). The Feds could demand that tickets be endorsed at the purchased fare for delays greater than two hours, and at the carrier's full Y fare for delays > 4 hours.

enpremiere

I highly doubt that this policy as carefully written will garner too much from the current political arena.

DCP2016

This basically was already a rule at AA, it just wasn't a largely reported one and agents had more discretion, now they are just saying "enforce the policy we already have in place". Do I like it? No, especially when they are going to make you stay overnight and there's a flight on Delta or United leaving with seats open that night but I understand why they have it in place, they don't want everyone in Y on a flight with a 1 hour mechanical delay jumping ship and playing for their tickets at high rates.

AAExPlat

Some of the comments on Gary's post...legendary.

enpremiere

From the comments on Gary's post:

Where do I get information about my membership?

Often1

Even the EU does not require rebooking OA in its EC 261/2004 provisions which require rebooking.

Doubtful that the US will require what no other country requires.

kahdgar

Interesting. I wonder if the Admiral's club agents have any more leeway. Just recently I was rerouted from DEN-ORD-DCA to DEN-ATL-DCA (on Delta) on major weather irrops over labor day, but I accomplished that through the Admirals club... it was literally the only seat to get to DC that day though (and I had to downgrade from F to Y) but it got me home.

I know this is specifically for coach and non-elite (I was neither), but still wondering about the leeway the agents in the club get

C46

It is not new, that AA wants the agents to reaccommodate pax on their own metal - or at least joint venture partners.

Back in my days, we filled up BA to LHR very quickly and then rebooked on everything, that offered a reasonable connection - from the top of my head, I can remember booking pax on BA/AB/DL/LH/LX/OS/LO/SK/AF/KL/OK/IB.

Oh, WFRIS1-2�C1 - those were the days!

stevendorechester

I don' t know if that applies to all situations. Last year I was travelling AA YUL-JFK-CDG and the flight to JFK went MX. While they wouldn' t rebook me on the a direct flight with AF the way Delta does they did put me on a BA flight via LHR. Agree with other posters that airlines should be forced to re-route on the next avail flight when the delay is there faults as sometimes agents are reluctant to do this, due to the effort involved. In the end, the cost would be minimal as all airlines have IROPS and they would simply be paying each other. If it turns out that one airline is spending more than the others then that airline would simply need to make a bigger effort to avoid having to buy full fare tickets on other carriers. And again, this should only be required on IROPS that are the airline' s fault, not MX or ATC.

JonNYC

older examples not applicable

nrr

If AA rebooks on DL or UA (even at full Y pricing), DL/UA would be doing the same--so shouldn't it all balance at the end?, UNLESS DL/UA have far fewer irrops than AA.

JoeWoodstock

If they are indeed focusing on CK/EP/PP, this could be a reason to try and stretch for PlatPro, rather than "settling" for Platinum.

--woodstock

kajukenbo

I couldn't get them to rebook me when I was ExPlat. Given how poorly I was treated as an ExPlat and now a Plat, I can only imagine how bad it is for folks without status.