mvoight

Are you blaming AA for the major ATC issue that happened on that day?

C17PSGR

I don't think experiences with lighting having a direct strike on the FAA TRACON for the Dallas area which resulted in closing of Dallas Love and DFW are becoming more common. Can't remember that happening before but maybe I've missed it.

I think OP had a solid plan and left plenty of room to navigate most issues, with the flight in the night before. I wouldn't be concerned about doing something like that. Plus, OP was nimble enough to shift to OKC when all the Dallas options were shut down.

That's a different question, however, than whether OP should expect compensation from AA because the FAA shut down air traffic to DAL and DFW which resulted in the crew timing out.

btonkid12345

Fair enough. I meant it for all the people out there who read but haven't joined (like I did for a few years, learning, trying to get advice on what to do vs. not do) that the decision of risk v. reward is highly personal and depends on what each person who is traveling values. That will be different across travelers.

Your reasoning totally makes sense, and you stick to that. Mine is slightly different, only because I have saved more collectively by buying separate tickets, then I've had to "pay out" when I've had to "self insure." YMMV.

Often1

Under both BA and AA's COC, the ticket will be refunded as the flight was cancelled.

Under AA's system, OP must contact AA and ask that it be refunded. AA should take care of notifying BA. But, to be certain, I would contact BA the next travel day.

AA will not cover any of OP's additional costs. It is unlikely that travel insurance will do so either as few policies cover expenses relating to transfers between separate tickets. Once OP gets the ticket refund issue settled, he is free to send AA a note and it is possible that AA may toss a few miles his way, but it won't be much and his note should be 2-3 short declarative sentences. Be pleased if you see anything, but don't plan your next vacation on it.

The only lesson here is that when transferring between separate tickets, one bears 100% of the risk. The longer one allows, the lower the risk, but it cannot be eliminated. Thus, the practice is always a matter of an individual's risk tolerance.

FAA1996

As a data point, I was also caught in that delay in Dallas on the same day. My flight was delayed for 16 hours. AA paid for my hotel after I insisted the original 2 hour delay was mechanical, before being caught in the ATC fiasco and eventual fuel and crew issues. They also gave me 10k AA miles as a customer service gesture today. However, i have travel insurance which would have paid for my hotel if AA hadn't.

svasandani

There were many things that i felt were wrong:

• Parking a plane on the tarmac for 1 hour should not cause fuel shortage for the flight
• Why not cancel the flight immediately if you don't have alternate crew or not knowing where you will get the crew from is utter lack of planning.
• Lying to the customers that the crew is on its way and delay the flights 15 mins at a time is clearly ingenuous.
• Gate Agent lying that you can collect your bags from bag claim
• Being told by baggage claim agent that it is too late and bagroom is closed so we can't deliver bags back to their customers
• Baggage service agent writing very specific instructions including flight numbers and airport codes as to where the bag needs needs to be routed in the morning and then not following those instructions in the morning and instead sending the bags to PIT.

Once the flight is canceled not being able to hand the bags back to the customer is unacceptable.

svasandani

I used Amex Gold but unfortunately the entire fare has to be paid with the card to avail bag delay insurance. Taxes and fees on award tickets being paid with Gold does not provide any insurance.

svasandani

Hiding behind weather in this particular case is simply unacceptable. This is not like a snowstorm shutting down the airport and hundreds of flights being cancelled. During the 8 hours i was at the airport literally hundreds of flights took off. Every other plane in the queue took off. AA operates 17 flights a day between DFW and Washington airports and literally hundreds of connections through their other hubs and they could not accommodate us in a 24 hour period. As far as bags are concerned I was assured by AA Baggage CSRs many times over the course of 3 days that the bags will be delivered to the final destination. I was told that a world tracer needs to be created at the final destination which is reviewed by all airlines and that is how bags are routed. The same story was provided by SAS in IAD, Swiss in ZRH and South African Airways in Cape Town. I will be shocked if all of them are lying and on top of that their description of the approach 100% matches. (BTW they were all aware of the separate tickets as well). I was given a hard copy of the world tracer by South African airways and i was told by them that they will deliver the bag to the hotel once they receive it in cape town. I also provide the world tracer number to AA baggage CSR and they were already aware of the number and acknowledged that they were working on sending the bags. Why give false assurances to the customers if their responsibility was not deliver beyond IAD.

svasandani

It did not stay in DFW it actually went to PIT the next day as i could check in the app. While it was in PIT I spoke with the agent and he promised that he will route it on BA via PIT-LHR-CPT. See my other post as to what actually happened with the bags.

svasandani

Too many of you are focused on separate ticketing aspect which completely misses the fundamental issue of reaching the destination for an extremely important event.on time. My issue is AA had the responsibility of getting me to Washington over a 24 hour window and they failed miserably for which they definitely owe me something. Instead of having another flight next day I could very easily be best man at a wedding, speaking at a conference, attending a very important business meeting and the same consequences would apply. Infact I did make my intl. flight out of IAD. I would have done the same for the other situations described earlier and still want AA to compensate me because they failed in the promise to get me to my destination for an important event on time.

C17PSGR

With all due respect, I disagree,

Planes go out with projected fuel usage and a required extra load in case of diversion. Below, you said the aircraft was on the tarmac for 90 minutes, not one hour. We don't know what number your aircraft was to take off once the FAA RESTORED COMMUNICATIONS. It may well have been another hour. Dozen of lights were diverted. AA had no idea how long it would that the FAA TO RESTORE COMMUNICATIONS AND OPEN AIR TRAVEL TO/FROM THE DALLAS AIRPORTS. And, of course, AA didn't have all their crews in place.

I doubt the gate agent was lying. I presume your luggage may have been returned to the bag claim ... but it likely took a while.

I understand your frustration and think you had a good plan and were nimble to get the situation fixed. But expecting AA to take responsibility for a lightning strike on the TRACON is too much.

There are some things that are Force d'Majeure and this is one of them. You and your family should be glad you were quick thinking enough to deal with a situation that could have turned out worse.

bse118

so is expecting AA to send the bags to CPT, when your ticket is to IAD...

rumboj

svasandani

I might give it you on the first point though the ATC outage was not more than 60 mins. Total time away from gate was 90 mins.
I am not blaming AA for ATC outage but even after the flight returned to the gate it was not canceled for another 5 hours and there was absolutely no weather, lightning or ATC issue in those 5 hours. Hence, I simply cannot buy the Force d'Majeure clause. Either the gate agent or the baggage claim agent has to be lying because what each of them told me was the complete opposite of the other. Both simply cannot be right.

svasandani

What I was referring here is being able to hand the bag back to me in DFW after the flight was cancelled at 1AM.My understanding is once a flight a cancelled the customer has a choice to not travel anymore and in that case the bag should be returned to customer at point of origin. Also, irrespective of whether they are required to deliver the bag to CPT or not once the commit (not once but 3 times) they must live by that commitment or atleast tell the customer bluntly that it is not our responsibility to deliver to CPT.