So my wife and I flew out to IND Saturday evening to drop her off at her summer internship, AA 4679 American Eagle leaves JFK at 3:59 arrives IND at 6:18. AS is often the case with the American Eagle Embraer flights, ground crew pushed everyone to gate check their bags. We made the horrible mistake of being good sports and agreed.

We touched ground right on time, but then spent a full hour waiting for an AA employee to direct us the last ten feet to get up to the jetway. That was the BEST part of the night. After that our bags sat on the plane for three hours. The two people working the desk at the American baggage counter had no communication with anyone in management and had no way to communicate with whoever (and it seems it may have only been one person) was supposed to be handling planes for American. Nobody answering customer service phone number and no answer to messages on Twitter either.

The two people working the baggage counter were begging customers to call and complain about the situation. There is no way AA should have allowed this to happen, if they paid their crew a living wage they wouldn't be short staffed.

A bit of hyperbole here, for sure...not sure this was a "nightmare." Unfortunate, yes. DM AA on Twitter as opposed to just a regular message, if you haven't tried that about your experience and they might throw a bit of compensation your way for your experience.

Also, purchasing priority boarding if you don't have status would help prevent having to gate check your bags in the future.

#1 Rule of Frequent Flying:

Don't check bags.

Surprised to hear about negative experiences at IND because (a) IND is a major base for YX, (b) the customer-facing staff at IND is mainline -- or at least they used to be, and (c) never had to wait long for bags there. When I was flying through there regularly, IND-based ticketing and gate agents saved several of my trips with really fantastic customer service. However, that was a few years ago and presumably the ramp at IND is no exception to the nationwide staffing shortage.

This weekend was an all around disaster for flying. My AA flight was cancelled and I was sent to UA on the nonstop - one would think that wouldn't be so bad. But it was worse.

All around a mess

As an IND based flyer who flies a lot out of and into IND obviously, I've never experienced any of these issues to such a magnitude that I would call it a "nightmare".
Yes, many times we have to stop short and wait for a gate agent to come move the jet bridge or bags take a little long (nowhere near as long as MIA), but stuff happens.

I fly out of ORD 50 times a year, IND 4-6 times a year and IND has always been a pleasure. The flight crews out of IND are among my favorites consistently.

The rule of "never check bags" applies.

The 1 hour waiting for someone to direct the plane to the jetway happens, I love it when you land at your destination, the captain comes on and says " Well folks, we landed 45 minutes before the expected landing time, but our gate is currently occupied by another plane, so we have move until the gate is available". Yeah, another 45 minute wait for the gate, is not as if they didn't know the landing time of the plane. Did you at the very least managed to get off the plane at the expected arrival time or close to it?

However, the 3 hour wait for luggage retrieval from the plane, that's another thing, as others mentioned, don't check luggage, but, if you are one of the last to board, space is limited, and the Embraer has limited bin storage, and you will be forced to check. I try to prepare myself for the type of plane I'm traveling in order to minimize my wait, it helps having status so I'm usually one of the first to board, or if possible travel in BUS/FIRST as well. I will submit a short message alluding to the 3 hour wait for luggage, Most likely they certainly have records of this incident as you probably where not the only person affected by this, nor the only flight.

The living wage or understaffing, seems to be a redundant point, as you have failed to mention what you consider a living wage or proper staffing, also, it wouldn't necessarily mean that this couldn't have occurred anyway as emergencies occur, maybe 2 other guys where involved on a minor accident while at work and they where being looked at, too many variables for which you have no access to.

When sending your message, make sure to provide the AAdvantage #, and you might be gifted 5000 miles for your troubles.