[willy9394]

I am writing to complain my 07/23/08 5:00 p.m. American Airlines Flight 181 from JFK to LAX.

I boarded the flight at 6 p.m. and sit inside the plane for 5 hrs until the captain decided to cancel the flight due to thunderstorm issues around the area.

I am going to focus on what I experienced during that 5 hr time span and the baggage claiming experience.

After the first 2 hrs on the flight, there are some passengers sitting at the back rows trying to ask for a few things including current flight status, food and beverage servicing so on so forth. After a few questions asked, it appeared that no one is being helped on simple things like trying to get a blanket, trying to get water, trying to get some snacks/sanwiches. Then those who's not helped started to be furious and kept asking the crew why they cannot get this and that helped. The crew felt very annoyed and yelled back at those passengers "We are not going to debate with you anymore about what you've asked, we got a lot of things to do in order to try to get this flight out of here"

Finally after 2.5 hrs they started to serve water and orange juice only and nothing else.

Passengers became more furious after that and kept asking the crew about this poor servicing. Then the crew asked the chief flight attendant and the captain to come to the back rows. They said "We have no control at all about what's going on with the flight status, and we are working extremely hard to get this flight out of here. Therefore from now on we don't want any disruptions and questions and all these non-sense anymore from you guys or you will be THROWN OUT OF THE FLIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Yes, this threatening was coming from the mouth of the captain and the chief flight attendant. I cannot relate what they said to politeness, respect and professionalism. No one was committing any crime here!!! Do they know who's contributing to their paychecks????

OK, after 3.5 hrs on the flight, they finally offered selling sandwiches and snacks. When the food tray arrived the back rows, pretty much only a few packs of peanuts left to choose from as they simply don't have enough food to feed everyone. Some passengers then started to scream because they cannot get a sandwich for their starving son. The flight attendant said in a rude tone "We only have 22 sandwiches and there are 120 people on this flight. Nothing I can do". And then he just gave a bag of peanuts to the parent and walked away. I mean, give me a break here. We are not looking for deep love from who we pay for here, at least they can treat kids a little bit like humans. THEY NEED TO EAT!!!! As a result, a lot of kids had nothing to eat at all until they got off the plane.

I did not believe it would take the captain 5 whole hours to decide whether the flight should be canceled or not if the weather condition was so severe around. It's just AA who didn't want to pay for stay-over hotels and meal vouchers and all other things that came with flight cancellations. As long as they are not violating the flight cancellation time limit law, no one is getting back to the gate at all. And how come they couldn't ask the ground crew to bring in more food for everybody if they didn't want us to go back inside the terminal building??? Answer should be obvious... $$$

Well, at 11 p.m. the captain finally said the flight was canceled. The captain and all the crew did not offer apology at all after the cancellation announcement. I was pretty sure that they thought they were doing a fantastic job here, weren't they?

Another fun part, baggage claim. My luggage came out of the belt successfully. Unfortunately my coworker's luggage didn't come out of the belt at all after 1.5 hrs of wait. Then a passenger told my coworker that she checked with the baggage service and they told her those missing bags MIGHT already be sent out to LAX on an earlier flight but at that moment they couldn't trace those bags at all. OK, after 1.5 hrs, my coworker couldn't get luggage, almost 1 a.m. We were driving 1.5 hrs back to Connecticut under rain........

To summarize, in this experience, I understand sometimes bad weather might unavoidably canceling flights. But I couldn't feel any professional customer service from AA. I couldn't feel politeness and respect from who we are paying for. I will do everything I can to persuade the traveling representative in my company not to pick AA at all on all future business travels

[ChrisH]

The captain doesn't necesarily make the decision to cancel a flight. There are alot more people behind the scene (dispatchers) who make that call. Also, ATC can make the call to cancel a flight, if weather is bad.

[Rahpsych]

Dear Silent Bob, I feel strongly as a professionsal that I have the obligation to be the responsible one when dealing with the public. Seems to me that airlines need to deal with interpersonal relations in the training of their personnel. As we know, that was not the first time that AA has been delayed on the field. Given the sheer inconvenience and discomfort involved in today's flying environment, it ends up with the public getting less and less service for more money. I suggest that if a person is temperamentally unsuited to dealing with hundreds of unhappy people at one time, air travel work is not a good choice as a profession.

[AustinTexasTraveler]

If I were you silent bob I'd forward this to TV stations in your home market and new York. The last time people were on a plane on a runway that long was when we got some drumbeat for a passenger bill of rights. the pressure of regulation MIGHT get American to get smart about how they treat customers.

[Silent Bob]

Joy you took the words right out of my mouth. But I think all the anger is do to the stress that a) everyone is cooped up in the plane for umpteen hours with little to no updates of whats going on and 2) the flight attendents getting repeated questions about what's going on. Think about it, if i were in those flight attendents shoes i'd be pretty ticked off having to answer the same question over and over. However if they kept making the announcements the "might" alleviate some of the stress.... but i doubt it.

[AirlineComplaints.org]

Originally Posted by Silent Bob

Think about it, if i were in those flight attendents shoes i'd be pretty ticked off having to answer the same question over and over.

Getting ticked off but keeping it to yourself while acting professionally and letting it out on your customers are two completely different things.

Let us not forget, Flight Attendants and Airline Employees get paid to do their job, while airline passengers pay money for their ticket, which ends up with Airlines, and is used to pay the very salary of those employees. Acting unprofessionally with your customers is tantamount to biting the hand that feeds you.

One side is the Customer while the other side is the Customer Service.

There is never any excuse for lack of Professionalism - in any industry.

[Silent Bob]

True there is no excuse for lack of professionalism (in any industry) however given the 5 hour delay, it offers an excuse as to why they may have gotten angry in the first place. Everyone has their breaking point, and given that particular environment and length of delay its no wonder no one was taken off in cuffs. (employees and passengers).