American Airlines has had quite a week. Not only did they get to play shuttle to two sets of rowdy bachelorette party-goers when my friends and I traveled to Cabo over the weekend, but they also managed to cancel a good portion of their flights on MD-80's, making our relaxing weekend a little hectic. I have mixed emotions about how they handled everything. Was I happy about the two, 30-minute stints I spent on hold, only after they transferred me to a deadend busy signal and faxsimile noise on multiple occasions? Ummmm, no. And despite calling back numerous times and trying every trick in the book to circumvent the annoying voice-activated menu, I never did manage to speak with anyone, which I'll admit has a lot to do with my patience (or lackthereof).
However, when my friend's flight home from Cabo was canceled on Saturday, she was able to get through to customer service, be put on a different Delta flight, and they seemed to handle it all in stride (minus the fact that their call center is obviously in Vietnam...Vietnamese-English over a Mexican phone line just doesn't translate well).
With more and more airlines under scrutiny for the safety of their planes, and more and more airlines filing for bankruptcy, the flight options were slim this weekend. And you could sense the tension in the airport even through the tequila-induced hangovers. While I managed to get home on my MD-80 without incident (well, that actually might be a matter of opinion- a lady on our flight pitched a fit when she realized we had landed in LA and not Mazatlan...she had apparently boarded the wrong flight. Is that even possible in a post-9-11 world?), it was a little disconcerting to know that they'd canceled my friend's flight earlier in the day because of the plane genre, but somehow mine was cleared for takeoff.
I realize that airlines are hurting in the pocketbook, but who isn't? And the fact that they're cutting corners in the safety department to save a few pesos is an accident waiting to happen. I hope this wave of cancelations is short, but more importantly, I hope American makes sure that all of their planes are safe for travel.
Update! After explaining the inconvenience they caused me in having to check-in on my flight non-stop throughout the weekend, American supplied me with a $50 voucher. And since my flight to Cabo was booked with miles, the voucher off-set the taxes I initially paid on the ticket. Moral of the story: let yourself be heard. It's true that airlines are scaling back their generosities more and more, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need (or want, in this case).
Posts
