Full meltdown in Philly and on the phone systems... speechless
 

Am trying to help someone (family called me since I have lifetime status with AA) who was on the cancelled PHL-AMS AA 204 yesterday. Apparently they boarded, made pax sit on aircraft for 2 hours and then deboarded because they could not find a pilot. The passenger I am trying to help had an onward separate ticket to LHR on KLM so she was doing a self-transfer in London. That's not the issue... she just needs to get to anywhere in Europe as her partner who was also flying yesterday is now in London and waiting for her.

1) She's checked a bag and all night last night and into today AA continues to tell her that her bag is still "on the plane". I'm incredulous that this is indeed the case.
2) I called AA last night on the elite line and with this confounded new phone system it always routes you to domestic even if you say NO to the flights within the US question. So I got to a domestic agent and he said well she can be rerouted to LHR as it is within a 300 mi radius... but the International agent will have to help. He transferred me and I waited on hold for 2+ hours by which time it was 2 AM and I could not wait any longer. I am on hold again and this time there is no callback option.
3) She waited for hours to get to a Service Counter last night at PHL but then around midnite they said cannot help anyone else and no hotels... she should have been given a voucher since it appears to have been a crew issue but I'm sure they will spin it as weather and not their responsibility...
4) They've rebooked her on PHL-AMS today but now they have issued a weather alert for all East Coast hubs so now phone waits are beyond sane and she is once again waiting in a long line to get to an agent at a service counter... I can book her onto a PHL-LHR option, one of three I see between AA and BA but this would be a whole new rez, and what is complicating the whole thing is that she still does not have her bag and her existing ticket is a round trip so while AA may be willing to change her outbound to PHL-LHR this can only be done through an agent who cannot be reached right now...

What an utter failure of service on so many levels. Just brainstorming what else can be done here to 1) get her on any of the PHL-LHR flights today 2) with her bag and 3) also preserve her return on the existing ticket.

Any thoughts welcome. Thx

I don't have any suggestions - but feel your pain and that of your family member. My own family members (here from Germany) were scheduled to depart PHL today to head to the Grand Canyon on a trip they planned for a year. Train tickets, accommodations at the Canyon...lots of special stuff planned. AA cancelled their outbound flight last night and we spent hours trying to find ANY alternative...best AA could do was get them on a flight Tuesday, too late to do a lot of what they'd planned and no chance to shift reservations (everything sold out). They made the crushing decision to cancel the entire thing and were on the phone with travel vendors all morning hoping to secure refunds.

AA is a mess right now in PHL...and not just because of the weather. It only makes the current challenges far worse.

Maybe try calling an AA office in another time zone or country? I suspect the UK office is closed but maybe another one can help if the US line is taking ages to answer?

I know you are not on the ground, but your family member should have looked out of the window last night. Severe storms at PHL, including lightning, resulting in a ground stop. So not unexpected for impact to customer service, baggage retrieval and hotel vouchers. And with a tropical storm headed up the east coast it isn’t likely to be better for the next few days.

It is later in the day now but trying to move anywhere west will help, even it means backtracking. Like going via ORD to LHR/Europe.

Today might fare a bit better for NYC and PHL due to what looks like a lot of pre-emptive cancellations, so what is left might actually get out. Weather-wise, BOS might be the worst off this evening. I would avoid BOS in the evening or try to reroute now.

Try and see if they can rebook her outbound flights if they change her origin to JFK and her destination to LHR instead of AMS.

Get to JFK by train or bus from Philadelphia to Penn Station and then you can take the frequent LIRR to Jamaica station and then the AirTrain to JFK T8.

Then take Finnair which is comfortable and often not crowded and since it’s a oneworld member there should be no problem for AA to rebook her. Yes it’s a bit out of the way, but HEL is a great airport for transit (no security screening or recheck needed for USA to UK transit) and the non-Schengen Finnair lounge is lovely. If you don’t have status you can probably pay to enter.

Tickets are available now as you can see from Google flights:

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...62da167cf.jpeg

Is this person currently trying to get to Amsterdam or London? Flight Aware is showing both the scheduled Philadelphia to Amsterdam and a non-scheduled flight to Amsterdam this evening.

There appears to be space available, but the weather is forecast to be worse in Philadelphia this evening than it is now.

Excellent info. Thanks for all the responses. Yes getting out of the East Coast is indeed a bit of a challenge today as it was yesterday. Hopefully they will not have much a of a delay tonite. Well while I was in my fourth hour being infinitely soothed by the AA hold music I suddenly received a call waiting ... it was the callback I had requested last night which I had forgotten about! After only 16 hours. 😀 Anyways I was able to get this agent to reconfirm her on an AA non-stop to Heathrow tonight ... so that's one problem solved...

Now on to the bag... she went to the check-in counter and asked if her bag which was tagged to AMS yesterday could be retrieved so she could re-check it to LHR to which the agent said they couldn't retrieve it but that they were able to locate the bag and confirm that it was going to London on the new flight...

Should she be hopeful that the bag will show up at Heathrow and that AA would be able to internally successfully retag the bag? I chose to put her on an AA flight even though the BA flight was offered, because I thought an AA to AA bag retag might be safer than an AA to BA... but I must admit I have no substantive insight into how the bag thing works behind the scenes.

No, be pleasantly surprised if it shows up. But what can you do /shrug

Correct, she is trying to get to Heathrow. She was supposed to have self-transferred to a KLM flight AMS-LHR after she landed in to Amsterdam this morning. Which would have got her in to London a couple of hours ago where her partner is already waiting, having flown in this morning. Even if there's a bit of a delay on the updated PHL-LHR service on which she is now confirmed getting in tomorrow morning, she will only have lost one evening in London so hopefully there's not too much of a delay getting out.

Yes indeed, today there appear to be two PHL-AMS performances tonight. And looks like AA 204 which the 6:45 PM that was cancelled yesterday and is the one she was on, is already delayed to 9:45 PM because the incoming from Paris is 3 h late. Then they've put on a second service AA 9605 which is likely carrying everyone from yesterday's cancellation and she was rebooked on it. But I moved her from AA 9605 to AA 736 which leaves 30 min later and goes non-stop to LHR where she wants to be tomorrow morning. If everything starts getting delayed then at least she won't need to again worry about having to self-connect in AMS again tomorrow to get to London with a bag.

Phew! What a cluster.

:) I had in fact communicated that same sentiment to her and asked that she track it on the app if possible. Otherwise she should have her Visa ready for an afternoon at Harrods.

The app should be able to show her if the bag has been redirected to the new flight.

We're getting loud thunder and lots of rain currently in Queens, so I'm guessing flights for the next few hours are going to be a mess out of JFK/LGA. I really empathize with anyone trying to fly through most of the East Coast this weekend - the weather's not great out there.

Might CLT be a possibility, if it's between the Northeast storms and Debby?

Glad you got her on a flight to LHR. In future, I’d always choose the BA-operated flight leaving the USA because then you’re protected by EC/UK 261 compensation regulations if the flight gets delayed/canceled because of something within the airline’s control. That’s not the case for AA operated flights leaving the USA.

Since when are there domestic vs international phone agents?