Air Houston

MorganB

I live in Dallas about 10 minutes from Love Field on surface streets. I give all my business to AA.

My reasoning is as follows:

I fly long haul international a decent amount. I buy premium economy tickets mostly and attempt to upgrade to business. At times I just buy business if the price is right. AA has an excellent hard product for international business and premium economy. Almost all of AA's long haul fleet has premium economy. Delta has very few planes with premium economy and the Delta One hard product is dated unless you are looking at the Delta One Suites which are on very few planes currently.

Premium Cabins hard product : Advantage AA

If I'm going to Paris I can be there on AA in about 9 hours. On Delta you are looking at at least 12 to 14 hours considering layover. Its for this reason that I strongly prefer direct international flights. Also you don't have to worry about misconnections or collecting bags in ATL and handing them back over. While DFW terminal changes can be annoying you dont have to bother with that for International as it's always terminal D and any time lost driving to DFW isn't really lost as you are flying direct.

Direct flights from Dallas : Advantage AA

For domestic, AA's fleet is fairly solid in first. Mostly new seats, power ports and screens. There are some LUS aircraft without screens or power which is very annoying but they are in the process of refurbishing these planes. AA will retire all of its MD-80s this year and its domestic fleet is newer than Deltas. I would say domestically AA and Delta are fairly close however.

Domestic flights: Tie

In the event of IRROPS Delta beats AA hands down. AA's back end platform is old and simply can't automate flight changes like Deltas can. I did experience a long delay on Delta while returning from Paris on Delta last year (family trip so had to compromise and fly Delta for the sake of my other family members who live elsewhere). I was on a 757 with coffin seats and a surly FA. I will say that usually Delta FAs are very nice but on this flight that was not the case. Upon arrival in Atlanta the Delta app indicated I was already protected on the next flight. I didnt really need to do anything. Was very efficient. I've had a couple of IRROPs on AA due to the recent sever weather. The first I was traveling LIT-DFW and my flight as well as the only flight after was cancelled. The app did not offer alternatives. I called AA Exec Plat line and there was a 45 minute wait. I hung up and drove to the airport and went to the first class check in counter. The agent said "Oh you are already on the earlier flight that hasn't left yet" and printed a boarding pass. Upon arrival at the gate I saw the scope of chaos the weather had caused as 7 AA planes had been diverted to LIT when LIT can handle 3 plans. People were begging to get onto any flight to Dallas and many were told it would be two days before they would arrive. So clearly action had been taken on the back end to place me with priority on ultimately the only flight that made it to Dallas that evening yet AA's IT is so poor that I needed to take action myself to obtain the boarding pass. Another recent IRROPS that involved weather was from COS to DFW. My flight was cancelled and the app was offering a flight the next day. I called and there was a two hour wait for the exec plat line. They called me back after about 1h45 mins and put me on the next flight out. When I got to the gate they were offering 550$ vouchers for people to take a later flight. So again clearly I got priority handling but I needed to have the knowledge to ignore the app and call to get it done.

IRROPS : Advantage Delta.

I suppose it depends on what you value most. I prefer direct flights and modern premium cabins so currently AA is the winner for me.

joeyE

charlesdemar

As another person like yourself sitting in a city that isn't a DL hub (Austin) I say you absolutely stay with your course, as is. Like you, I only fly two lines - DL and WN (when something on DL absolutely can't be obtained reasonably) through the company requirements (looking at you SNA to AUS flights...). If you're already getting Plat on DL and Alist on WN, you're set, friend. And to the previous poster who mentioned the union bloodbath, yeah, AA is hot mess. This isn't new - I recall co-workers 7 years ago or so on AA dealing with something similar where the pilots were unable to leave because there "was a screw loose" in the cockpit and would take two hours to complete. I grew up in D/FW and the relationship between AA and the union has always been contentious.

gitismatt

or you could fly the (admittedly) seasonal AF flight and earn your DL miles just the same.

DLmedalliongold

I'm not sure anyone could say that DL's and AA's domestic fleets are a tie, especially flying out of Dallas. Sure the average age of a Delta plane might be older, but out of DFW pretty much every flight has nose-tail AVOD, new interiors with power, many of the new A220 flights and a handful of 717's out of DAL which are quite nice. I flew on a LUS A321 to PSP a few months ago and wasn't sure that plane would make it; the interior was in terrible shape. We arrived an hour late, the return was 2hrs late. The last AA 319 I flew to MKE had PTVs, but they didn't work. I've flown on a number of the Oasis 737s, if you can get MCE on AA then they aren't that awful. If not, they are pretty bad.

I would admit that AA has a better, more consistent Business class product on the 777s and 787s in relation to how many DL 767s that are still flying with the now dated 1-2-1 layout. I don't typically get to book business class. I would say DL's regular coach and Y+ offering internationally is much better. All DL's international coach seats are 18" or wider, while AA goes with 17" cramped seats on the 787 and 777. Thank god AA's 767s are rare as those are the biggest piles of crap in the sky. After reading these posts though I'm going to stick with DL and WN. Just booked two international trips on DL. It's interesting to me that AA wants to charge $540 for a status match while I believe DL will give you for free as long as you show proof of status and then fly the requirements. I originally earned my A-List through a challenge they emailed me and will maintain it into next year.

eneq

AA's status challenge charge is that way for two reasons: 1.) Anyone can do a challenge. You do not have to have status on another airline. 2.) The charge varies based on whether you want the benefits of status during the challenge. If I remember correctly, its additional $200 if you want to have status from the beginning.

oopsz

Take nonstops. Life's too short to spend more time on planes and away from your family.

The AA App is getting better. It's still not as seamless as Delta (I'm batting about 50% on AA delays unlocking the self-rebooking option, whereas on Delta it's automatic and 100%).

cmd320

Sorry but I somewhat disagree. IMO life is too short to spend it delayed/canceled by AA. If AA’s operation ran like Delta’s that would be a different story. But it doesn’t even come close at this point. Plus, if you’re not in the air with AA then chances are you’re going to be stuck on the ground fighting with them over something they’ve done wrong and won’t fix. Just an absolute dumpster fire of an airline at this point.

PotomacApproach

tvnwz

I must be an outlier. I have been flying AA more to ORD, PHX, TUS, LAS. All my flights have been on time and everyone has been friendly. YMMV.

gitismatt

are you flying AA back from LAS? because the only two flights I have flown on AA this year from LAS were both severely delayed (as were other AA flights departing from nearby gates)

MCO Flyer

cmd320

AA doesn't play politics. It treats everyone like crAAp.

DLmedalliongold

So while anecdotal, this week has confirmed that I made the right choice. My boss's flight to Vegas on Monday was delayed over three hours. Then flight home delayed another hour. Our other coworker who was flying with him had her flight canceled. Was supposed to get in at noon today and now rebooked through Phoenix and won't get in until 10pm tonight. My partner flew them to Denver this week. Flight home was cancelled, flight after cancelled, forced to stay overnight in Denver, then all flights are oversold today until 4pm and he missed a meeting today. Funny how in just a few days I went from sitting on the fence to feeling very glad to stAAy AAway.