jensoncrawford

I don't think this is the fault of World Organization of Scouting Movement, who organized the Jamboree, or BSA, one of three host nations for this. If American Airlines didn't have the capacity to process this many passengers, they should not have sold the tickets.

jensoncrawford

In the end, that's basically what happened. There were stacks of tagged bags in the lobby and behind the AA counter that hadn't made it on the plane, so they were sent later.

GrayAnderson

AA is probably mostly responsible for the ticketing meltdown. The question is whether the other folks bungled the inbound transportation situation and left a few thousand people milling around the terminal at CLT, which could easily have taken a touchy situation and made it entirely unworkable. As I said, however, it is also possible that the fault lies with the airport folks if they forced buses to be offloaded early or something like that.

In an ideal situation, AA would've coordinated with the BSA or whomever to space arrivals out on a timetable (say, 500-1000 arriving per hour) and had a few dedicated desks ready to roll and set up to handle lots of checked bags. Working to distribute that load (and probably working with the BSA, etc. to distribute the departures throughout the day as well) would've probably gone a long way.

It is even possible that some steps were in place and just got overwhelmed with an absurd wave of arrivals. If the Scouts sent out a convoy of 200 buses all at once, that could easily have made a complete hash of things that could've been avoided by spacing out airport arrivals. Even with planned early arrivals at the airport, it seems quite possible that AA could have had a bunch of agents on staff starting earlier than normal, leaned on the TSA to open up security earlier than normal, etc. (since even if you check folks in and take their luggage, if security isn't open folks aren't going through and you've just got a lot of checked-in pax milling around the terminal). But we don't know which of the other actors "played ball" or not (or potentially fell down on the job).

teemuflyer

Even if the facilities were open, it would make little sense for them to allow folks to disembark at AUS, even those who were destined eventually to fly into Austin and didn't have any checked bags. The paperwork on the new continuing flight would be a mess since it would be still be considered a NRT-DFW Int'l arrival at DFW. And there is little likelihood that AA could reaccommodate folks on other flights to DFW as they are pretty much full, all the time.

And if all pax were to disembark, they would have to clear CBP with all the luggage, then recheck their bags to exactly what flight? I'm sure there might be some contingency plans if the flight diverted due to a serious MX issue and it was determined the plane could not be flown for X amount of hours due to a complex fix, but this was not the case.

However, the likelihood of some of the pax were destined for AUS are pretty good. It must of sucked looking at the Austin skyline and having no idea how long it will take until you can come back to AUS from DFW. I have flown the NRT-DFW flight many times, then connecting to AUS, and I think I would of sulked, to say the least..

MSPeconomist

james318

This is where it would make sense for AA to waive baggage fees, to help free up the cluster.

MSPeconomist

Dave Noble

It is true that after 9 passengers, it is a group booking and has all the benefits of a group booking
It is purely an AA issue that it needs special handling at check in and not a normal issue. With many airlines , check in is just the same as normal and there is no need for any special check in handling ; people just check in as normal
Just because it is a group booking, doesn't mean that everyone will be checking in together - I have people on a group booking and in some cases there is only one passenger departing from a location. With 20+ passengers in a group itinerary, they dont even have to be travelling together from the same origin - just all going to the destination for the same purpose

I doubt very much that the various contingent bookings did not include a baggage allowance

dls25

CLT is overwhelmingly connecting passengers and accordingly has smaller than typical landside area for an airport of it's size.

There is no way, even with the best preparations, it is going to be able to handle 9K people all arriving at the same time. Even if AA had every check-in position open and the TSA had every passenger checkpoint and checked bag screening position fully staffed, it is still going to take hours to process that many pax and bags - there is no way around around it.

BSA should have found a way to stagger the airport drop offs....

njf1003

They did stagger airport drop offs. Starting at about 2 in the morning Friday until sometime Saturday afternoon for the last staff.

dls25

That is not what I am reading. The first posting states 8000 people arrived all at the same time.

GrayAnderson

Even presuming hyperbole, it sounds like the coordinated staggering broke down at some point.

Also, the mention of lots of arrivals overnight probably meant that staff were overwhelmed from the start.

Worthwhile question: Given the added paperwork involved, why not just break the "group" bookings into smaller bookings that could be processed without all the who-struck-John at check-in? It would seem that there would be some way to tie the PNRs together with notes. I guess there's the issue of flight cancellations (though trying to rebook 20-40 people onto the same replacement flight sounds like a fool's errand to begin with).

Dave Noble

One group booking can have many PNRs - just being a group booking does not mean that it is all under one booking reference. Not only that it doesn't mean that the fare is the same for each person

Even split into multiple records, each record will be for a group booking. If AA cannot handle self check in for a group booking, that is a failing in AA's systems, rather than a general issue with group bookings

LAS2

My son was one of the Los Angeles based scouts who were stuck at CLT. My experience is that the Boy Scouts are incredibly well organized. 45,000 scouts descended into West Virginia, and my son didn't have a single logistical complaint.

From LAX, the regional scouts arranged a group ticket on AA. They all checked into an airport hotel the night before, did pack checks, etc, and had the whole next day to arrange for any missing items. The following day they went to a movie, and made it on time to their flight to CLT. All good.

On the way back, their bus was at CLT three hours ahead of flight time. I was told there were only two check in agents at the desks. It was mayhem. Eventually they were all given boarding cards. Security was just as bad, and at one point, the clock struck a certain hour, and the guards on one lane packed up and went home. Now only one TSA lane. Our scouts all missed their flight, and some were rebooked on Saturday, some on Sunday, and some (including our scout) on Monday. No hotels, no meals. Just the hard floor airside.

To complicate things, these were minors who could not just get themselves home. Our son was schedule to fly home Monday, and the the idea of him spending the next three nights in a terminal was just crazy. I called the platinum desk and found him a morning flight connecting through PHL, but the scoutmaster had ultimate responsibility and he didn't like it and we deferred to him. The kids needed to travel together. Meanwhile, Junior, the scout he is, made the most of it, and Friday night found a couple of friends, made their way to the Priority Pass lounge, got a mini suite, and the three parents pitched in to cover the whole night, and then they had three beds, TV, food, music and a mini fridge. How about that.

The next morning, he called and said everyone was flying out at 8am. I'm thinking AA brought in another aircraft to handle the scouts from LA, New Zealand, Australia, Korea and Germany (who were doing more sightseeing). The flight landed later that morning in LAX.

And all the bags made it. Back to the scouts being organized - although all bags were the same, each was monogrammed, and numbered, and it just flowed. I was amazed.

nk15

It was part of their final test, I believe, to see who will survive (set up tents in the airport, hunt for food, etc).