Dave Noble

The outcome of this seems to be that
Due to weight limits, AA used Fedex to transport the skis
Fedex delivered the skis to the home address of the passenger with no issue

This seems to be a benefit rather than something to be trying to avoid. Not having to wait at baggage reclaim, collect the skis and then transport them home seems to be a positive rather than a negative

If it was me this would make me more inclined to use AA over UA rather than being a positive for using UA

bchandler02

I'm sure Fedex reliability is much higher than AA baggage, so in some ways you were lucky.

Should AA have been more transparent and had a better process? Absolutely.

Should you also sign up for FedEx delivery manager (along with UPS My Choice, and USPS informed delivery) to make things much easier on you in the future, AA related or otherwise? Also absolutely.

lrdpenn

I don't think most people on this forum understand the day-to-day realities of package delivery in urban areas. Packages get stolen all the time from stoops, doorsteps, and apartment lobbies. I say this as someone who likes living in NYC and also thinks the recent "crime" narrative is generally false. The package problem is an annoying and longstanding reality of life. You have some recourse with retailers who almost always redeliver at their expense (or absorb the hassle dealing with carrier insurance), and worst case, there is credit card chargeback. OP was reasonably worried with AA's shipping arrangement, and could not even retrieve the tracking number from AA to use delivery manager or whatever (which, BTW is STILL more hassle than picking up at baggage claim.) I 100% agree with OP that I would rather collect my belongings at airport baggage claim vs have them shipped like a $10 amazon package to my doorstep. I can certainly vouch that the package theft rate at my apartment in NYC far exceeds AA's mishandled baggage rate (much less, their lost baggage rate.)

And FWIW IMO, in NYC FedEx is worse than Amazon contractors and just marginally better than lasership.

moondog

Hmmm. I'm thinking back to the peak of the dollar coin days and the time the UPS guy left 50,000 of them on my doorstep when nobody was home. I was an idiot for not thinking about that beforehand, but a quick call to UPS was all it took to preempt recurrences of the same scenario (i.e. they gave me several viable options that are easy to invoke as a receiver when senders don't require signature verification).

Dr. HFH

That's about 400 kilograms or 880 pounds. You carried them up the stairs?

moondog

No. I loaded them straight into my van.

wrp96

I use delivery manager all the time, FedEx sends me an email telling me something is being sent to me. I don't have to go searching for the tracking number because FedEx is the one that sends it to me. In fact I usually get the email from FedEx before I get any notification from the merchant or other source. And the reason I use it, is because our FedEx guy has a bad habit of 1) claiming we weren't home and either just leaving the package without knocking OR saying he wasn't able to deliver and 2) leaving packages in weird places. Again I'm not saying what AA did is right, but everyone should be using delivery manager (and the similar options from UPS and USPS) for situations just like this.

NotDuncan

PHL

As mentioned up thread, all the airlines do this. Because United may not have done it on a previous trip you took doesn't mean it won't happen on a future trip. Now that you know the drill, just be prepared next time (regardless of airline) and get the FedEx ship manager app. You can have better control of the delivery to avoid the stress and cost of paying someone to go pick them up before they're stolen.

Dr. HFH

An that weight, you probably had little to fear from the casual passer-by front porch package thief.

donotblink

As an fyi I’ve had over a hundred flights into and out of ege and this has never happened to me on the a319s and legacy 757s they used to run on that route. While it’s 90 minutes from Aspen, you can also get s as daily nonstop to jfk, this might be worth considering in the future.

moondog

The individual boxes weren't especially heavy (remember, everyone who handles them needs to be able to lift them), but thankfully the US Mint doesn't do showy packaging...and coins weren't really a mainstream thing, even within the ft community, which was much smaller back then.