SJOGuy

Read the OP. This happened suddenly. There was no way to "front load an extra day."

AA100k

jayer

AA friends, mostly retired, tell me there is a renewed and heightened emphasis on on-time departures. Responsible parties, which are most likely the GA's, are dinged on performance metrics if they don't have the "door closed" at 10 minutes. Not that long ago I hear it was five minutes. Short of the second flight being late for it's own reasons you were in an improbable situation before you got your luggage out of the overhead.

If you post your date and flight details immediately there are people on the board who may be able to give you insight, but I'm sure far too late now. I'm going to guess without any real way of knowing the the second flight was already closed out before you appeared at the gate. If the woman in front of you was not say, a commuting FA who's boarding could be defended as operational necessity, the GA may still have some explaining to do.

MSPeconomist

JDiver

I have heard well-intentioned Flight Attendants say similar things. With the management focus on “D0” and horrible recent operational reliability added, it’s not likely many flights will be held.

OP, I’m sorry this happened to you two at all, never mind under these most trying circumstances. My condolences.

Antarius

It has gotten so bad that I've seen 3 flights in the last 3 months where they marked the flight as closed and departed BEFORE boarding started. Late by an hour, but magically listed as on time.

Mark_T

The extra day may not be essential, but when you don't have that flexibility I would always avoid a tight connection to the last flight of the day.

Especially on routes where the same metal is running around a short circuit all day it is all too easy to build up a delay during the day.which makes that last connction very unlikley.

I also try to avoid taking any of this personally.

For the majority of people flying there is a pressing need to be on that flight and a perfectly understandable reason why they are making the journey. It is the nature of air travel that people do it when they need to be somewhere quickly for all sorts of reasons.

The GA knows this, and almost everyone they have to say 'no' to is going to have a back-story that would deserve sympathy, they just can't always stop to explain all the details of why it has to be 'no', especially in those last few minutes where they are getting the plane away from the gate.

Obviously I have no idea if it is true in this case, but I've seen so many cases where the GA is saying things as calmly and as gently as they can but the answer is still 'no' and the recipient is just hearing 'no' and viewing the GA as 'unhelpful, 'rude' etc.

This is what I mean by not taking it personally.

The GA is not always being mean or delibertely unhelpful, they reached the cut-off and they have to do their job and get the plane out.

It is a tough job and one I certainly wouldn't want to do.

For the OP, yes it is worth a complaint, but I'd include the FA on the first flight as well, they were probably the most unhelpful in terms of setting an unrealistic expectation in the first place.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

I'm assuming the seats were given away. Unfortunately with the heavy emphasis on no delays GAs are forced to get the flight boarded and standbys/upgraded cleared enough to push back on time. There's no longer even the willingness to look up to see if a pax(s) is coming from a connecting flight that has recently arrived.

JonNYC

This was over before it even started. The FA's announcement was preposterous, as others have pointed out, and any and all rudeness you encountered completely inexcusable. But the blame for the lack of flexibility on departure-time guidelines lies much higher up than that GA or any customer-facing folk at the airport.

"Nothing short of termination is acceptable" -- again-- -- if it applies at all, applies to those -running- this goat-rodeo of an airline-- not those working there under the current conditions and damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't dictates.

enviroian

Wow!

enpremiere

The trick is to wave around an almost complete Barclays credit app in plain view. Then the GA opens the door, the FAs come off the plane, and they carry you on their shoulders.

Happy

This is such a sad contrast to a recent experience flying AC on a YEG-YYZ route. We were all onboard, but we were not going anywhere nor any announcement, for about 15 min... Then all of a sudden, over a doz or so passengers came on - 95% of them were from Subcontinent, and 2 young Japanese who did not seem to know each other. Some of them had to be seated at exit rows just in front of our row. It then turned out none of the newly boarded passengers sitting at exit row knew either English or French, including the young Japanese woman. So another seat exchange commotion followed. We finally departed about 25 min late.

Based on the late boarding passengers seemed to all came at once, and most of them from the same part of the world, many of us speculated AC just held our flight to accommodate the late connection arrivals.

We had similar experience with JL at NRT a couple years ago - they held a flight to YVR to accommodate many passengers arriving from India and onto YVR. It was on the day before Xmas Eve - we had to catch the last YVR-YYZ flight on arrival as the next day AC cabin crew had a planned strike... At YVR, there were JL personnel stood at every corner to direct passengers. We made our YVR-YYZ flight as the last boarded passengers. They waited for us!

Truly sad to see how deteriorated AA has become. We have only flown a revenue ticket on AA in the past 18 months. Had we not still had high value transportation voucher to use, we would not even flown that flight as both DL and B6 fly the same route and from a more convenient airport (FLL versus MIA).

I hope OP can write a non-emotional letter to Customer Relations - not that would bring them back something, but at least it would help him let out the frustration and let AA know how poor the operation is. Customer relations folks are not heartless - some of them are accommodating, speaking out of family experience also related to sudden death (suicide) that disrupted an impending departure on a vacation.

wetrat0

ConnectionSaver is a great idea (the tech to implement is quite mature at this point, no excuse for AA not to have) and good PR for United too. The myopic obsession with D0 is stupid. According to press release the average flight was delayed only 6 minutes, which is easily absorbed 99% of the time. Who would have thought United of all airlines would be leading the way with this...

Uncle Nonny

The culture of the airline is to pass the problem onto someone else. Sounded like the FA was trying to make his/her life easier by attempting to reduce in-flight stress. The GA passed it on to the CS agent. We all know where it ends.

pfreet

The OP said there was no weather or mechanical issue, the incoming plane was late. What if that incoming flight was late because its incoming flight was late? I wonder, how far back does the airline get to go and claim weather or ATC delays and no compensation?