The American Airlines Fiasco And Customer Service

Admin — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:00:04 GMT

As I sat in a terminal in Chicago O'Hare after a week of ridiculous delays and cancellations, I finally believed I was almost home. Instead it was dripping water for the forehead, dirty carpet for a bed.

This week was a long travel week for me, as I had presentations to give in Chicago, Dallas and Minneapolis, respectively. Getting to Chicago was pain-free, but then the news broke of FAA inspections of MD80 planes, of which American Airlines owns 300. My colleagues and I knew we were going to have our flight cancelled. As luck would have it, our flight was the only one going to Dallas that wasn't cancelled. However, we suffered the "chinese water torture" of delays. As the time neared to board, another delay. First the flight was to leave at 6:15pm, then 7:45, then 8:00, then 9:00, then 9:39 (which we all thought was odd), then 10:00, then 10:30, then 11:00, then 12:00am, then 12:30, then 1:00.

Finally, at 1:24am, we boarded the plan, under the sound of the gate attendant stating to "hurry up and get seated or else the flight would get cancelled" - yes, the group of passengers that were being seriously inconvenienced by the airlines were being threatened by cancellation if we didn't rush to board. There was mild pandemonium on board as people rushed to get their seats and not be the person who caused the cancellation. However, after working up a sweat to get in our seats quickly, the pilot, in his soothing and assured voice, came over the loud speaker, "well folks, we are just about ready to get going - just need to get the luggage to get loaded. We should be on our way in a few minutes." We sat at the gate for another half an hour as cargo was being loaded (it was referred to as "luggage", but the windows gave clear view of large palletes of cargo being loaded).

Finally we left Chicago and made it to Dallas around 4:30am. However, since no ground crew were at our assigned gate, we had to go to another gate and didn't get off the plane until after 5am. By the time we made it to our hotel, it was almost 6am. The presentation was at noon, so the best of us only received about 3 hours of sleep before heading to the luncheon around 11am.

Before I even started my presentation, we learned that our flight to Minneapolis was cancelled. We felt pretty lucky to learn of this early enough to rebook on a flight that left at 5:30 am Thursday.

After finishing the last presenation of the week on Thursday, we hoped for the best. I was skeptical: after all, we had to go through Chicago to get back to Nashville. The delay from Minneapolis was minor - about 1 hour. Once at Chicago O'Hare, however, the water torture started again. Delay from 7:45pm, to 8:15, then 8:30, then 9:15, then 9:45, then 10:00, then 10:30, then 10:55. Amazingly, we boarded around 11pm. As we sat on the tarmac, the pilot addressed us to let us know that due to storms just south of us, we had to change the flight pattern, which would just take a few minutes. I was half unconscious by this point, lured to sleep by the familiar hum of the jet engines. At what appeared to be 10 minutes later, the pilot came back on with the bad news: since there were still a few jets ahead of us, it looked like they wouldn't be able to make it to Nashville before their limit of 16 hours expired. We had to return to the gate. Grumbles abounded.

Personally, I wasn't surprised. I was already prepared for a cancellation - it is O'Hare and we had a double dose of bad signs: the problem of 300 planes and a weather system that was already dumping snow in Minneapolis and thunderstorms just south of Chicago. As we were about to get off the plane, though, the crew asked us to stay on board as they attempted to get another crew. A gentleman in front of me lamented that the pilots purposefully delayed takeoff because they knew their 16 hours were coming up. I have to admit the thought crossed my mind as well. Why not alert us to this possibility earlier, like the kind gate attendant did a few days before?

Needless to say, no crew was available. We were led out and told that they were not cancelling the flight, just delaying it until 6:20 am. This allowed them to provide us a hotel and food vouchers, but nothing else. I was offered a room at a Holiday Inn 30 minutes away. Considering it was after midnight and the flight was to leave at 6am, I didn't find this acceptable. I wasn't offered a voucher either - instead being told to ask for one when I got to the gate in the morning. I was then booked on a separate flight, not the same one. This happened to several others as well - the passengers walked aimlessly around in confusion. Were we delayed or cancelled? Were we to get rebooked on another flight or the same one?

Finally we were able to find an attendant who gave us boarding passes to the same flight, except the date showed April 10 at 6:20am to leave, then below it said boarding started at 7:45pm. Most of the passengers opted not to take the hotel voucher. Those that did described to us later the difficulty in getting through security with their confusing boarding passes. We were all upset that at the very meager accomodations and compensation for this inconvenience.

I stuck it out at the airport and meandered around the airport until submitting to my exhaustion around 3am for a few hours' nap on the unfresh-smelling carpet in the gate area. Once the sun rose (and it was as beautiful as the sunset just a few hours before), the familiar drip, drip, drip started its maddening splatter on the forehead again. 6:20am . . . no, 6:30am . . .no, 6:50am . . . no, 7:05am . . . finally, we board and after sitting on the tarmac for 30 minutes, we lift off to applause and land in Nashville just after 9am.

My experience is probably not the worst that has happened to people over the past week. However, it does expose major issues facing American Airlines - and I am not talking just about FAA compliance. The experience reeked of crisis mismanagement and flaws in customer service. Many of the attendants were rude and condescending, such as one that was rebooking customers on a different flight who ignored everyone who advised that we were supposed to be given a new boarding pass for the same flight. He just repeated that there was no other flight and that this is the flight you are going to take.

American Airlines will lose tens of millions of dollars from this fiasco. Not only are they having to pay customers for their inconvenience (even if some of their offers are paltry), they are losing the trust of tens of thousands of travelers. There were several who said "I won't be flying American Airlines again." Though I doubt that will be the case for most - I know the powerful tonic of time - it will take a while before confidence will be restored. I don't think there could be a worse time for this to have happened, for more than my own personal reasons.

As with most crises, there are stories of hope. In this case, there was a friendly American Airlines attendant who stayed with those of us camping at the gate and finding blankets for people and advising of areas where cots were available. She also helped others who needed to get rebooked, regardless of whether they were at her gate or not. She had tremendous patience and was generous with her time even though there were many who demanded it.

Although I can understand the frustrations of attendants having to answer to unhappy travelers (which wasn't confined to American Airlines - we found rudeness in other airlines' staff who were absorbing the displaced passengers), it was good to know that there are some (unfortunately few) who commiserate and go out of their way to provide customer service. Without any management in sight, will this woman attendant get the recognition she deserves? From me, yes. Her name is Ramina Zomaya, based in Chicago.

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The American Airlines Fiasco And Customer Service