AA was fine....the overall experience was subpar, but not due to the airline due to broader issues
Good flight, regional jet so old and seats could use an upgrade
Flying on this airline is nothing short of a full blown circus clown show. On a recent return from my mother’s funeral, my only available choice from IND to PWM was American, which I hesitantly booked as I rarely fly them for many of the following reasons and never will again. I was booked IND-PHL-PWM totaling about six hours. The flight was cancelled due to NE weather. They rebooked me on a two stop flight IND-DFW (Yes DALLAS)-PHL-PWM, still all on the same day. After arriving in DFW, they continually delayed the DFW-PHL flight due to maintenance issues on the arriving flight. Finally it was delayed to the point that my PHL-PWM connection was no longer possible. They then rebooked me thru LGA with the short flight the NEXT DAY to PWM and offered to put me up for the night in NYC (or so I assumed). The flight DFW-LGA was then delayed so much that I asked to be put in an earlier flight with a lessor delay. Throughout this day chats with their AI assistant were useless as were subsequent chats supposedly with a real person(?). Only one customer service agent in DFW was actually helpful and appeared to care. Upon arrival at LGA post midnight, they issued me car and hotel vouchers in Trenton NEW JERSEY at a very old Howard Johnsons ONE HALF HOUR from LGA. The hotel was an $85, 1.5 rated hotel in a very sketchy area of NJ that I would have never voluntarily booked. As I prepared to catch the car back to LGA the next morning I received a text that my flight was cancelled. TWICE IN TWO DAYS. I went to LGA hoping to have AA book me on an earlier Delta flight. The full service line was at least 200 people deep, so I tried to reach a real person agent by phone. After 1/2 hours on hold I gave up and waited for my later LGA-PWM flight. It actually started boarding on-time, but only shortly after announced a maintenance hold. We were told it was nothing serious, just an adjustment to the Captains seat. Only one update was given while we waited 1.5+ hours for a “SEAT ADJUSTMENT”. Can’t forget to mention that on all of these planes the WiFi only worked on two. During that time at least three others flights in my area announced that they were overbooked and were taking volunteers before bumping people. Another flight to ORD announced a gate change and less than five minutes after announced that they were really not changing and announced for everyone to return to that gate. Can’t forget to mention that on all of these planes the WiFi only worked on two.🤡🤡
Boarding was horrendous! Took absolutely forever… and the delay from the broken coffee pot was really kind of ridiculous
gate crew was courteous and helpful, flight attendant was nice and friendly once we got going. But we pushed off from the gate relatively on time, then sat there like 10 ft away, for an hour, with no announcement or explanation. Taxiing then took forever, and I get that there was runway congestion, but would be helpful to keep us posted on whats going on
The captain announced to the cabin there would be a delay because they observed a "cut" on a tire during precheck that needed to be cleared by maintenance. We were delayed during this inspection and allowed to proceed after maintenance "measured the cut and decided it was acceptable". My complaint is not about the delay or due diligence. I wish the captain had been more generic when making his announcement. I was a nervous wreck all the way to Charlotte worried that we would have a blowout when landing!
Long delays, lack of information about the status of the flight. The flight was delayed 4 times.
The American flight was a connecting flight to an international flight. The international flight has a 2 check bag rule. Despite being informed of this, American would only check 1 bag and wanted 100 to check the second (basically a 3rd carry-on) to NYC. Subsequently tsa took a sealed container of maple syrup and a few other things that couldn't be in carry-on plus I had to lug around 3 pieces of luggage for the entire trip. The American reservation was made with the international and American actually checked the one piece the entire way to China. This is one of the reasons that I will avoid American airlines if possible in the future.
Not being able to purchase my check in baggage online was a negative.
We liked quick boarding and on time departure. Seats were very uncomfortable.
