American airlines

A story on how low airlines have sunk to boost profits.

Been in Chicago l week with the wife. She had a conference and i just tagged along for the ride and have been enjoying myself. Flew American up and headed back tonight. Now... With Southwest they dont have assigned seating. And in the past with airlines doing assigned seating, you buy your seat. Not American. With them you buy a seat, they assign you to a seat. Now if you are a with someone and want to sit with them tough ****...UNLESS you pay an extra $18 so that you can choose two seats together or near each other.

American airlines, splitting up families for profit. Ludicrous.

poweRob said:

A story on how low airlines have sunk to boost profits.

Been in Chicago l week with the wife. She had a conference and i just tagged along for the ride and have been enjoying myself. Flew American up and headed back tonight. Now... With Southwest they dont have assigned seating. And in the past with airlines doing assigned seating, you buy your seat. Not American. With them you buy a seat, they assign you to a seat. Now if you are a with someone and want to sit with them tough ****...UNLESS you pay an extra $18 so that you can choose two seats together or near each other.

American airlines, splitting up families for profit. Ludicrous.

Click to expand...

That's why I prefer Southwest. As long as you can find two (or whatever number) unclaimed seats that are next to one another, they're yours. And no bag fees as long as your bags are under 50 lbs.! :thumbs:

poweRob said:

A story on how low airlines have sunk to boost profits.

Been in Chicago l week with the wife. She had a conference and i just tagged along for the ride and have been enjoying myself. Flew American up and headed back tonight. Now... With Southwest they dont have assigned seating. And in the past with airlines doing assigned seating, you buy your seat. Not American. With them you buy a seat, they assign you to a seat. Now if you are a with someone and want to sit with them tough ****...UNLESS you pay an extra $18 so that you can choose two seats together or near each other.

American airlines, splitting up families for profit. Ludicrous.

Click to expand...

One way to get better service is to get the airline's credit card, gives you better seating, free bags, etc. As for me, I fly American for free as a retiree, standby, after the active employees get on standby, so any seat I get is a blessing...

But, service has been lousy lately, the mechanics union has a lot to do with that. I fly as a regular passenger in a few weeks for business, I can bitch about service then, but not when I fly free! (BTW, we had a not fun experience with Mesa Airlines cancelling a flight last week that caused us to scramble to find a shuttle to another airport 50 miles away and get bumped off of one flight, but making the other one).

The thing about airlines, while customers always yearn for better service on the plane, they will always, and I mean always chose the flight that is cheapest, even if it is on a crapcan airline like Allegiant or Frontier or Spirit, then they swear they will never fly them again, but they do...

I flew to Denver last year on Frontier. Never again.

The flight taking off was delayed two hours, putting us in Denver in the middle of the night. OK, delays happen, but....

...coming back, the flight was cancelled at the last minute. There was no explanation, no mechanical problems, no weather problems, just a cancelled flight. My theory: The plane wasn't full, and they didn't want the expense of flying a plane that wasn't full.

We'd already turned in our rental car, so we were stuck at the airport for two days until the next scheduled flight, which could well be cancelled as well.

The person at the "customer service" desk said they had no way to communicate with other airlines that might have flights, this despite being in the same terminal. They couldn't give us hotel vouchers or help find a room, either. All they would do was offer us discounts on future flights. We were on our own.

At this point, there weren't going to be any future flights, not with Frontier.

My wife and I would gladly have occupied separate seats rather than be stuck in the airport for two days.

poweRob said:

A story on how low airlines have sunk to boost profits.

Been in Chicago l week with the wife. She had a conference and i just tagged along for the ride and have been enjoying myself. Flew American up and headed back tonight. Now... With Southwest they dont have assigned seating. And in the past with airlines doing assigned seating, you buy your seat. Not American. With them you buy a seat, they assign you to a seat. Now if you are a with someone and want to sit with them tough ****...UNLESS you pay an extra $18 so that you can choose two seats together or near each other.

American airlines, splitting up families for profit. Ludicrous.

Click to expand...

I can't remember the last time I got to sit next to my wife on a plane... and no it wasn't American Airlines. I don't really care as long as the fare is cheap.

Winchester said:

I can't remember the last time I got to sit next to my wife on a plane... and no it wasn't American Airlines. I don't really care as long as the fare is cheap.

Click to expand...

I don't care to fly and i like her there by me. She's my emotional support person. :shock:

Dittohead not! said:

I flew to Denver last year on Frontier. Never again.

The flight taking off was delayed two hours, putting us in Denver in the middle of the night. OK, delays happen, but....

...coming back, the flight was cancelled at the last minute. There was no explanation, no mechanical problems, no weather problems, just a cancelled flight. My theory: The plane wasn't full, and they didn't want the expense of flying a plane that wasn't full.

We'd already turned in our rental car, so we were stuck at the airport for two days until the next scheduled flight, which could well be cancelled as well.

The person at the "customer service" desk said they had no way to communicate with other airlines that might have flights, this despite being in the same terminal. They couldn't give us hotel vouchers or help find a room, either. All they would do was offer us discounts on future flights. We were on our own.

At this point, there weren't going to be any future flights, not with Frontier.

My wife and I would gladly have occupied separate seats rather than be stuck in the airport for two days.

Click to expand...

Good God what terrible service. I know there's worse things than what i experienced... Just think its a ****ty practice.

Dittohead not! said:

I flew to Denver last year on Frontier. Never again.

The flight taking off was delayed two hours, putting us in Denver in the middle of the night. OK, delays happen, but....

...coming back, the flight was cancelled at the last minute. There was no explanation, no mechanical problems, no weather problems, just a cancelled flight. My theory: The plane wasn't full, and they didn't want the expense of flying a plane that wasn't full.

We'd already turned in our rental car, so we were stuck at the airport for two days until the next scheduled flight, which could well be cancelled as well.

The person at the "customer service" desk said they had no way to communicate with other airlines that might have flights, this despite being in the same terminal. They couldn't give us hotel vouchers or help find a room, either. All they would do was offer us discounts on future flights. We were on our own.

At this point, there weren't going to be any future flights, not with Frontier.

My wife and I would gladly have occupied separate seats rather than be stuck in the airport for two days.

Click to expand...

The CEO of Frontier's parent organization used to be the CEO at America West when I worked there. A more evil man you will never meet. They have already named a wing in hell after him.

Frontier is weird, they frequently go on an expansion spree and add lots of flights to a city, then after a few months, they get out, quickly. They have done that in Phoenix several times. I've never flown them, my company will not book us on them, or Allegiant or Spirit.

As for empty flights being cancelled, it depends...your flight might be empty, but the incoming flight might be full, or it could have a lot of cargo. What the airlines do is a triage, if one plane has a mechanical and it is full both ways and in a high yield city pair, they may sacrifice another flight and take that plane as a replacement. Yeah, it sucks, typically the first flight of the day is the safest because being late or cancelling the first flight of the day sends ripples across the schedule for the rest of the day, plus, the plane usually has been sitting over night and if any work needed to be done on the plane, they can accomplish that (provided the plane is overnighting in a hub where there are technicians)

Phys251 said:

That's why I prefer Southwest. As long as you can find two (or whatever number) unclaimed seats that are next to one another, they're yours. And no bag fees as long as your bags are under 50 lbs.! :thumbs:

Click to expand...

Southwest is my preference. Pretty much, air travel has become a nickel and dime, gone to hell in a hand basket.

I have to say, we don't run into problems getting seats together, tho. But we don't travel more than 2-3x per year, generally.

Acadia said:

I have to say, we don't run into problems getting seats together, tho. But we don't travel more than 2-3x per year, generally.

Click to expand...

Same. And I prefer Southwest. Does anyone know if southwest ever made a connection to Atlanta. I know Delta has fought tooth and nail to keep Southwest out of landing at their hub.

poweRob said:

Same. And I prefer Southwest. Does anyone know if southwest ever made a connection to Atlanta. I know Delta has fought tooth and nail to keep Southwest out of landing at their hub.

Click to expand...

Delta can't do anything about who flies into ATL. It is not a slot controlled airport.

Southwest flies to Atlanta, they bought out AirTran and kept a lot of it going