flightrisk

Okay, I realize that yesterday there were a lot of flights delayed/cancelled. But the performance of AA's push notifications is staggeringly bad. I get that they don't want to staff their call centers for the bad weather days, but why don't they have enough computer resources to deliver their notifications in a timely manner?

Example 1
Notice that I receive an push notification at 8:00 PM for a departure at 8:00 PM, and a notification at 8:01 PM for a departure at 7:45 PM. After a brief panic in the Admirals Club as people rushed the agent, I realized what happened - these are delayed delay notifications. The times match the original delays announced at round 7:00 - 7:11 PM, so these delay notifications are about 50-60 minutes late.




Example 2
And the previous time I was on this flight - it was originally delayed until 8:15 but the departure was pushed up to 7:45. The notification of the earlier departure came at 7:35 -- just 10 minutes before departure. I barely made this flight. According to FlightStats, the decision to push up the departure was posted at 7:20 (which is already pretty late at 25 minutes before departure) but the notification took another 15 minutes.




This is not an issue with just the app push notifications, as the text messages also seem to be delayed similar amounts. And the emails are even worse as some of the notifications don't even happen (in particular, I never received a pushed up departure notification).

Exec_Plat

Who pays attention that that?

I monitor my connections, include incoming aircraft and tail numbers on flightstats.

If you wait until AA pushes info to kettles, you are a kettle.

IMO

flightrisk

Good point, but that's only useful when the delay is caused by incoming aircraft. In my two instances, the first was caused by the plane going mechanical and the replacement aircraft was going to come from an inbound flight or the hangar. It came from the hangar. The second was a weather delay where AA decided to move up the flight due to an opening in the weather.

Does FlightStats have push notifications? I'm constantly refreshing it but sometimes you need to be more productive while waiting out a delay.

SOBE ER DOC

I use Flight Aware which I have found to be the most accurate. I also love the "where's my plane now" function that let's me see not only the aircraft, but the weather between the aircraft and me. Waiting for AA to provide you with flight status updates is an exercise in futility...even on a maintenance delay.

reeg2

I get notifications at correct times on my iPhone. Maybe an Android issue?

flightrisk

Agreed. I use Flight Aware for the most accurate location data, and Flight Stats for its accurate activity log (gate/runway times, aircraft and tail number). But when the delay is strictly operational and not due to a delayed inbound, AA is still the only source of information. I guess I expected more given how many people are constantly suggesting "sign up for notifications" or "use the app" in the posts about delayed/moved up flights.

No, it is not Android related. iOS, text messages, and emails were all delayed. Again, I think this is only happening when there are significant system disruptions.

milesandmoremiles

miles4sheli

On the 23rd my flight from AMS to PHL was canceled. Last evening, I received a notification on my Fitbit about the cancellation (over a week late!). The text never came through to my associated phone, and what's odd is that, knowing I would likely not receive an international text, I did not enter that particular number under contact information (although I'm pretty sure it is in my AAdvantage account) but I submitted other numbers and emails where I would receive notifications. We were on 2 PNRs since we each booked with AAdvantage miles, and we received different notifications at various times. The email they sent him about a re-booked flight didn't come through until hours after that said flight was supposed to take off! Of course, all of this happened on a day where AA was so overloaded they weren't accepting calls, telling me to call back later and then hanging up on me!

miles4sheli

Here's another recent story.

I was recently re-booked after my original flight was cancelled. One of my re-booked flights was delayed prior to take off with a mechanical issue. Thankfully, it was announced after a safety check the pilot could manually override the issue and we were cleared to fly. Our take off was delayed by a couple hours, but we didn’t arrive too far behind (although we waited at least 25 minutes upon arrival for someone to connect the sky bridge).

We were set to have a layover of over 3.5 hours in PHL. After the delay, it was around 2.5. Since we were in business class, we were at the front of the immigration and security lines and our priority bags came through quickly. There was plenty of time to make our connection. But even before we took off, I started receiving Emails about our flight delay and that re-booking was available. I thought that was odd, given that we initially had nearly 4 hours and that an anticipated 30 minute to 1 hour delay would certainly not cause us to miss the connecting flight.

Are those emails standard?

chfenton

They can't even manage to get departures in sync with late arrivals.

iadisgreat

This is typical and I think they consider it a feature.

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nk15

If their delay notifications are gonna be delayed, I expect at least to get a notification about that...Obviously that will also be late to arrive, but it is just common courtesy...

dc10forlife

When an incoming flight is delayed, there is the chance that a different aircraft will be substituted in. It has happened (although I find it rare with AA). But that could be why, even though the incoming flight is delayed, they do not update the scheduled departure time.

ryan182

yeah I've had this happen numerous times, the "feature" in question is described as deny any delay until the last possible minute, then regardless of what the actual delay will be just add 15 minutes, repeat as needed. I'm sure if you asked AA they would claim that customers told them they really like this.

ryan182

rare is an understatement, even at hubs and it happens at outstations a lot. Something tells me that Myrtle Beach doesn't have loads of spare AA airplanes just chillin on standby to be swapped out and AA4589 left at 7:13PM, one hour late after the inbound arrived at 6:08PM.