Travel Blog

According to the Wall Street Journal, both United and American airlines are reviewing their procedures to ensure that fuel contaminated with water isn't loaded onto their aircraft.

I’m still battling a $50 charge ransom fee by American Airlines for overweight luggage on my return from Europe last October. I’ve written the AA CEO, with no response (just sent him a second copy in snail mail) and then decided to take another run at Am Ex re my dispute.

This is getting rediculous. I’ve spoken with El Al and American Airlines. They seem powerless to do anything. There is one employee at El Al that’s making efforts to try, but the rest simply don’t do much. The standard procedure is to send off a telex and hope for the best. They don’t make phone calls or try to be creative in any way.

Last week we were flying to Denver. We ended up missing our connecting flight in Chicago because our first flight of the day in Madison was delayed. We literally sprinted through O’Hare Airport to get to our gate (which was super far away) only to find the doors to the jet bridge being closed right before our eyes. One of the American Airlines workers saw us run up, huffing and puffing, and after finding out our names began typing in the computer. She didn’t say a word.

« The Award For The Worst Flying Experience In My Entire Life Goes To American Airlines

My Financial Data and Statement Analysis class is going fairly well. My final project for that course will be comparing three major airline corporations and its subsidiary companies: American Airlines, Delta Airlines, and United Airlines although Delta and United Airlines are bankrupted, American Airlines will be the likely corporation to invest in if only those three were an option to invest money on, but I would look to other airlines for better investing opportunities. This class is most enjoyable. This course is actually something I can use and apply when I want to invest some day.

American Airlines phoned me today. It was probably the most productive phone call I have had from them, because they acknowledged that the people I dealt with are complete idiots. She was a customer service rep, and her goal was to find out exactly what happened. Apparently the girl who lied to me is going to be reprimanded for doing so.

That’s right, I’m back from Puerto Rico. It was a great time outside of getting there. American Airlines has old planes and even though the flight attendents were friendly we never got anything but a “gee, that’s too bad” in exchange for having our 7 hour 30minute trip bumped. Instead we got to see Chicago and Boston (6 hours of Logan Int’l Airport) before seeing San Juan.

A United Airlines lawyer received a transcript of the first day of the Moussaoui trial from an American Airlines lawyer and forwarded it to Carla J. Martin, a Transportation Security Administration lawyer, the victims’ lawyers, Robert Clifford and Gregory Joseph, claim.

Some travel agents may book you using hidden ticketing to save you some money, this is unethical and may get you into trouble, even worse if if they decide to reroute you. Using our example above the airlines have a contract to get you from JFK to LAX, if they decide that instead of routing you through DFW you are going through Miami, well tough, you are going through Miami, regardless of the fact you bought the ticket solely to get off in DFW.

CNN has an article here dealing with this very thing. For the official word this letter from American Airlines, clearly states their policy on it.

But American Airlines has assured me they will deliver my luggage to me today. My fever’s gone. Once the luggage arrives I’ll have a nice stack of new books to read while I recuperate.

Well, today I woke up bright and early(3:45am). I had to leave by 4:15am to get to the airport. I get dressed and ready to go, I wake Jessi up(no small feat) only to turn my phone on and see a message from American Airlines that my flight has been cancelled. Damn! The message was sent sometime in the wee hours of the night. I called the airline to find out what was going on. No explanation as to why the flight was cancelled. I can only presume it was because it wasn’t filled. That is the problem with flying out of a small airport, the little commuter planes don’t always have enough passengers and apparantly the airlines can cancel these flights at their own discretion. sigh.

Digby makes an excellent point in the aftermath of the Miami Airport shooting Wednesday:

Here in Dallas, we're having a little tussle over an airport, called Love Field. It happens to be popular, well positioned, and convienent. And it's the home of the World's Best Airline (Southwest Airlines). Unfortunately, there is a larger, unpopular, and inconvienent airport called DFW Airport (Dallas-Fort Worth International). It happens to be the home of one of the least friendly, least responsive, and least competitive airlines in the world (American Airlines). Because of AA's legislative largesse, it's a classic example of our dear representatives in Government NOT representing their constituents, because, for some ungodly reason, Love Field is saddled with a restriction called the Wright Amendment. It prohibits Love from competing with DFW Airport. AA LOVES it. It keeps Southwest in a bottle AND lets AA artificially inflate prices (guess who pays that!).

When we arrived back at the hotel there was a notice of a general meeting later that afternoon concerning the storm, and we discovered that Wilma was a Category 5 hurricane headed straight for us. Oh shit!!!! I called our air carrier, American Airlines, but they had no available seats, were not planning on sending additional planes, and even if they could find us a seat they would charge an additional $200.00 for making the change. They justified the extra charge because the airport was still “open”, and an evacuation was not mandatory. Boy, that is what I call great customer service. Anyway, only about 100 guests remained at the hotel, and we were instructed to pack all of our stuff, leave it in our rooms, and meet in the main dinning room where we would spend the duration of the storm.

So, if you missed being part of the in crowd when Dubrovnik was hot, now's your chance to be able to say, "Belgrade? I loved it. It's like Prague in 1990." The New York Times must have read our blog about Dubrovnik yesterday and scrambled to name a new top Eastern European destination, and Belgrade is the new "it" city.

I’m sure you will be disheartened to know that American Airlines has discontinued their nonstop service from Chicago O’Hare to Rome.

Man, talk about a hassle. Changing my ticket was like the three stooges go to the travel agent. Man, I went on Friday to American Airlines and their computers were down. So I waited and waited while the guy tried to do it on the phone and after about 45 minutes he told me, oh well if you don't have your actual tickets with you right now you have to come back later. So, I had to take the afternoon from work off to come back.� He told me to go to the Bolivian Airlines first, so I went there, they did something, then they told me to go over to American. So, I went to American, he did something and told me to go back to Bolivian. I asked him if I needed to take the hard copy of the tickets and he said no. So, I went to Bolivian and they said "where are your tickets?" So, I went back to American. He did some stuff for about 30 minutes, and then I wen back to Bolivian. When I showed them what I had from American, they told me "Oh, he did everything already, I don't have to do anything else."

It has been a day full of outrages and lies by the left.

First of all we found out that George Soros and the ACLU plan to ignore the victims of 9/11 and make a political statement because someone gave them a section of the 9/11 memorial, where the World Trade Center used to be. Deborah Burlingame, the sister of the pilot of American Airlines fight 77 Charles F. “Chic” Burlingame III whose plane was flown into the World Trade Center reveals the treachery of the far left who plan to desecrate the memories of those who were murdered by terrorists.

American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one (1) olive from each salad served in first-class.

Another friend, yesterday, told me of sitting next to a flight attendant in the waiting lounge waiting to get on an American Airlines plane. Her comment was to the lax standards for maintenance. If the plan will fly, they go. She said that it used to be they would fix broken things before taking off. Not any more. As long as it will take off, they fly.

Seth Godin has a couple of great posts on his recent bad customer service experiences with American Airlines and Avis, juxtaposed with his great experience with the W Hotel in SF.

If people are so upset at the idea of cell phones on flights, wouldn’t this problem sort itself out if left to the market? After all, I’m already willing to pay more for a flight if it’s direct, or if it’s to a closer airport where I’m going than a major international airport, and fly American Airlines when possible for their added legroom. If I had a choice between an airline which does and which does not allow cell phones, I would voluntarily choose the one which does not. And if there are enough customers like...

The article was good, and I recommend you reading it. But, since I am at 35,000 feet typing this on my B-Berry I can not tell you the web address. On that note, when is American Airlines going to have WiFi? And where is the web address for the magazine? How hard can that be?

American Airlines’ pathetic campaign to protect its monopolistic practices in Dallas-Fort Worth has reached a new low with this jaw-droppingly asinine press release that actually accuses Southwest of monopolistic behavior.

In an airplane hangar north of Fort Worth, technicians are preparing to mount a fire-hydrant-shaped device onto the belly of an American Airlines Boeing 767. It is an effort that could soon turn into a more than $10 billion project to install a high-tech missile defense system on the nation’s commercial planes.

And all I can say is “I hate American Airlines, and I hate Boeing’s stupid S80 aircraft.” Goddamn, that thing is the worst. The 737, that’s a fine plane, I can ride in that plane. The S80, it’s murder. It’s incredibly cramped, and by cramped I mean that a Baka pygmy could not stretch out in these seats. I had to take a red-eye out of LAX, and fly all night in this damned plane. In fact, just to rub it in, I had a stop in Chicago to change planes, and hope against hope, I prayed for a different aircraft for the...

On Tuesday night, it was off to wave goodby to my mate John from Scotland - that's him with me above. I hadn't seen him in about a year, so I went out to Heathrow to see him, as he'd jetted in before going off to live in Perth, Australia. It was really good to see him again - he's a very good mate, and very funny, but it was a shame I was just seeing him to say cheerio ! However, I have enough miles now with American Airlines to fly out to Australia first class (woo hoo!) so I feel a bit of a holiday coming on later in the year! Hopefully we'll be able to spend some time in Japan as well. John did let himself down a bit in typical fashion though by re-inforcing his love for all things Radio 2. You can see it for yourself here - Download john_and_radio_2.3gp . I felt a bit sorry for John 'cos it's a big move, and I always find things like that a tad unsettling. That was until I saw where he was staying anyway! Rent free I might add !

While there is technically no smoking in DFW airport, if you are a member of American Airlines Admirals Club (~$350 per year) there is a smoking room in the Terminal A club. The Admirals club also allows smoking at several other clubs throughout the country.

Please read this. When you're done, ask yourself this. Why would you pay someone to write stuff like this? Why would you allow your company to be portrayed in this way? Why would anyone think that African-Americans, women, or anyone else would feel anything but disdain for a company who thought the best way to communicate with them with was through inane prose and images like these?

In an effort to stem huge losses, the big U.S. … losses, the big U.S. airlines increased their domestic ticket prices heading into the … increases was launched by American Airlines, which increased ticket prices systemwide Wednesday …

(By the way, if you you want to go but haven’t booked your trip yet, Expedia has a $100 off coupon right now for flight + hotel trips booked on American Airlines. Use coupon code SAVE100 when you’re getting ready to check out. I know it helped to tip the scales for me being able to go.)

United’s biggest competitors would be under the most pressure to follow suit. American Airlines, the largest U.S. carrier and a unit of AMR Corp., has said it will keep its pension plans but is concerned about No. 2 United gaining a financial advantage with the elimination of its pensions.

The administration has spent more time trying to keep the people frightened, rather than focusing on securing our country. Only last week were lighters banned from airplanes, yet it has been a full 3 * years since "Richard Reed" tried to light his shoe bomb on fire with a match, while aboard an American Airlines flight to Miami. Even though lighters are now banned, matches are still permissible on airplanes. This is merely one example among many of how slow the Bush administration has reacted when presented with an opportunity to make Americans more secure.

North American Airlines, a charter operation best known for ferrying vacationers to Club Med and soldiers to war zones, has been sold. World Airways, another operator of charter and cargo flights, has agreed to pay $35 million for North American.

American Airlines, Verizon and Nissan Pledge to Stop Financing Tom DeLay’s Legal Defense Fund

I remember American Airlines first transcontinental flight of a Boeing 747 in 1970. There, in the piano bar, was Frank Sinatra, Jr. entertaining. Hey, you can have a lounge in a 747!

Competing with airlines that are profitable make decisions so they remain profitable, not because they are desperate for survival. Remember when ATA said they were going to enter the Dallas/Fort Worth Los Angeles market? American Airlines responded with deep fare cuts to all five Los Angeles airports from Dallas / Fort Worth.

...the American Airlines representative at the international desk refuses to believe you don't work for the airline. Apparently I'm not supposed to know how 7-digit booking codes work.

Home Affairs Minister Randy Horton will have further damaged the reputation of Bermuda's government if the account of his actions on Sunday's American Airlines flight turns out to be accurate.

Mr. Horton did several things that would be unacceptable behaviour for anyone, never mind a prominent member of the government. He tried to go to the bathroom while the plane was coming in to land and the fasten seatbelts sign was presumably on, potentially putting the safety of the other passengers at risk. When told to sit down, he engaged in an angry altercation with the steward, during which he allegedly asked "Do you know who I am?" and suggested that the steward's actions were racially motivated.

In case you're not aware, the actor James Woods flew on an American Airlines flight from Boston to Los Angeles one month prior to 9/11. Alarmed by the behavior of a group of four Middle Eastern men, Woods summoned the pilot and told him that he was "concerned the men were going to hijack the plane." A report was filed with the FAA on Woods' behalf but, tragically, no one followed up with Woods or the men. A few days after 9/11, several federal agents showed up in Woods' kitchen. Woods can't talk about what was said -- he believes his testimony will be used in the trial of the supposed 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui-- but, in an interview with Bill O'Reilly, Woods revealed that his flight "was a rehearsal [for 9/11] with four men."

This means customers can travel with the convenience of just one electronic ticket throughout the combined network served by the alliance's eight member airlines - American Airlines, British Airways, Qantas, Cathay Pacific, Iberia, and Finnair besides Aer Lingus and LAN - no matter how many transfers between these airlines are required along the way. Together, they fly to some 600 destinations in 135 countries worldwide.

American Airlines and Finnair set the alliance's IET programme rolling in May 2002 when they became the industry's first airlines in separate continents to offer this service. American then became the first airline in the world to complete IET links with all its global alliance partners, in June last year.

American Airlines ran a fly 3 transatlantic flights earn 60,000* bonus miles. Cha-ching! Okay – so I knew I wasn’t going to make the 60,000 mark because I fly cattle class, but I thought I was going to get something. Nope – fraid not, none of my tickets were the right fare type to qualify…I had 4 different fare types & none of them matched up to the acceptable ones on the list. The fare classes eligible must be the stupidly expensive fully-refundable ones. I'm flying BA from now on...I get a much better flight for the same mileage.

On an American Airlines packet of nuts: "Instructions: Open packet, eat nuts."

American Airlines' frequent-flier program birthed the misleading idea that companies could buy loyalty. Because it appeared to work, companies in all industries started creating their own versions. IMO, there is no such thing as a "customer loyalty program." Look at any company that has true customer loyalty and you'll find that they don't need a loyalty program. Starbuck's has enough loyal customers that they don't need to distribute "buy 10 and get 1 free" punchcards.

Beginning today, American Eagle, the regional affiliate of American Airlines, will begin offering customers the opportunity to purchase a snack box for $3 on most flights throughout the American Eagle network.

Various food concepts have been tested on both American Eagle and its mainline partner, American Airlines. Survey results supported the idea of selling food in-flight and contributed to the design of the new program. Nearly 2,000 passengers were surveyed, and more than half were either “positive” or “very positive” in their reaction to the availability of a snack for purchase on their flight.

The snack boxes also are available for purchase in the main cabin on select American Airlines domestic routes longer than three hours. In addition to the snack box, customers traveling on select transcontinental and Hawaii flights will be offered a freshly prepared breakfast sandwich or wrap for $5.

Ok, this is nuts. I was on a plane this evening and as I walk on the plane, a woman in the first class section asked for a pillow. It turns out that Northwest Airlines no longer provides pillows. American Airlines stopped doing it to save money and the other airlines followed suit.

Back in January, I flew American Airlines from London Gatwick to San Francisco. At the checkin counter, I was shocked when an AA security guard (not a customs officer — private, corporate contract-security for AA) demanded that I produce a written dossier of the names and addresses of the friends I planned on staying with in the USA. She cited an unspecified TSA regulation that required this, and could not tell me what AA’s document retention policy was, nor what would be done with this information. Her aggressive supervisor accused me of undermining the safety of airlines in the sky by refusing to answer, and affirmed that the TSA required it. I stood fast, and finally the terminal supervisor told me that since I fly American enough to hold a Platinum card, I wouldn’t be required to turn over this information.

Link: American Airlines - Why You Fly. [Click do cool stuff > see the ads — Flash is so backward.]

After I calmly asked him why I was bumped, he gave me a useless answer and promised me $250 in credit with American Airlines. Ok, when can you get me to Norfolk, I asked. He said I could fly standby on 2 other flights today, but they are both already over-sold and my chances of actually getting on the flight were slim. Again, WTF?? I calmed down a little and asked about tomorrow. Once again, everything was overbooked and I could fly stand-by if I wanted. There was no way in hell that I was going to take the chance of going to the airport again and...

Fear of flying increases with age, according to R. Reid Wilson, Ph.D., a psychologist in Chapel Hill, North Carolina who specializes in anxiety disorders and founded the American Airlines Fearful Flyers program (www.anxieties.com, Dr Wilson’s website, is a wealth of information and self-help tools). The average age of onset of fearful flying is 27 years. Fearful flyers often report that their anxiety developed after the birth of a child. Others develop fear after a bad experience on a previous flight, a reaction to negative stories about flying,...

Dr. Wilson believes that many fearful flyers don’t get help because they doubt they can change, a belief that contrasts sharply with Dr. Wilson’s experience as a clinician. The fearful flyers program he ran for American Airlines averaged 25 students in an intensive weekend course. On average, 23 of the students successfully took the graduation flight — and about 80% of them felt comfortable doing so. Some fearful flyers are so successful at conquering their condition that they become pilots!

You know that the C.E.O. of American Airlines is a Canadian!