Cancellation Chaos: AA's Struggle

An early morning phone call beckoned me back to New Mexico last week. A bit of bad news (that could have been a lot worse) forced me to forgo convenience and find the first flight out of London. A quick scan of lastminute.com led me to American Airlines, where I purchased a return flight for under a grand.

Little did I know when I turned the corner at customs in Dallas I’d be greeted by a slew of flight cancellations. That’s right… I got caught in the middle of the worst string of airline delays and cancellations in the past decade. So I did what any other delayed passenger would do: ran up to a service desk and demanded I get on the next flight out of there.

Typical, that I would come all the way from London and couldn’t even get to the other side of the state— as I was shooting for El Paso for the final destination. The line started to bulk up, but luckily I made it to the front of the queue before the hoards of angry travelers could trample me.

Amid a few tears and desperate pleas, I explained my situation. Two ardent customer service reps worked to get me on a flight to El Paso that evening, via Phoenix. American Airlines has been getting a lot of flack these past weeks, as well they should, what with the cancellation of over 1,000 flights and the displacement of 250,000 passengers. But I want to extend a thank you to AA for getting me where I needed to go. I’m sure had I been traveling the next day, I would be raging right now instead of applauding, but as luck will have it, I made it to El Paso.

I would suggest, for future reference, American Airlines should inspect their planes when told to do so. Also, they should inform passengers why their flights were canceled; it wasn't until a day later while watching CNN did I discover AA's entire fleet of MD-80s were grounded— and I’m guessing not for bad behavior.

It seems to be a bad time to travel, between the terminal 5 chaos at Heathrow and this recent burst of incompetence. There’s not much I can recommend for those flying these days, except to expect delays, confusion, and frustration. Bring a good book when you fly, because you’re in for a long wait and I’m not talking about the flight.