Good flight, excellent personnel; poor comfort, small seats, big cost.
Cabin was bone dry, no humidity whatsoever, and pretty warm; and beverage service didn't start for at least an hour. I had to go to the back for water and the FAs tried telling me it was always this way for all Miami flights, which is complete nonsense. Avoid the MAX8 like the plague.
When there are many passengers who are going to miss a connecting flight, they always say please let them off first. But the flight attendant never manages that part of the process. It would be helpful if they would repeat that and stress that to the other passengers.
My boarding pass said gate E5. I arrived at gate E5 by 12:45pm. At 2:10pm, I received a phone call stating I was supposed to be at gate D37. They would not wait for me to get there (by the way, the plane was still there when I got to gate D37, but everything was closed and no one was at the door). The next flight at 7:40pm was sold out; was told I'd be put on the 9:47pm flight. I was so stressed, I became chokey (apparently I have mild asthma). By the grace of God, a lot of begging, and the customer service rep taking pity on me, I was able to get on a 4:50pm flight to Philadelphia.
Our flight was delayed to Louisville. What made this worse was they did not have another flight attendant to service the flight. This caused an even longer delay. Then when a flight attendant did show up, she chose to "swap" flights with another flight attendant. Therefore, we had to wait longer for the other flight attendant to come to our flight. This is information that the gate attendant should not have shared. Processes and execution at American are broken. Passengers are feeling it. Fixing this starts at the top of the organization.
Flight was on time. Boarding was smooth and orderly. Flight attendants were friendly and professional. Bags came out soon after arrival.
I thought American Airlines did well considering the adverse weather situation over July 21 and 22. I especially appreciated the consideration given to me when I got stuck in Miami on my way to Boston from Charleston, West Virginia. Thank you for providing a voucher for an overnight stay. Though it was only a few hours of sleep, it was very helpful. I was able to reschedule my medical appointment and got back to the Boston area on the 1st flight out of Miami as a standby passenger. It was very helpful that I was given number one priority on the standby list.
I had a horrible experience from the time I dropped off my bags until the time I landed. The staff taking the bags at the check-in counter prior to security, forced me to check my baby stroller, even though it weighed less than 20 pounds. their excuse was that the wheels were too big. I have never had an issue gate checking this exact same stroller in the past either on American or on any other airline. when I asked for the agent to show me the rule about the size of the wheels on strollers, they told me to look it up on the AA website. I did so, and did not find any indication that wheel size was a problem for gate checking strollers. The only limitation would be the weight of the stroller which mine was below. I was left with a one-year-old child and all of my carry-on luggage, diaper bag, and the like to walk around the airport without the assistance of a stroller and had the same issue when I exited the plane and had to go all the way to baggage claim without a stroller. In addition, while on the airplane, I was told I can only get one bag of cookies as a snack, even though I was with a child. Apparently my child and I were supposed to share a cookie. While this latter issue is a minor one, it is just another example of the absolutely horrible customer service that American Airlines provides. In addition, the 737 aircraft that I was on was extremely hot and the air vents above the seat were so far away from the aisle and middle seats that it was comical. I could barely reach the air vent to adjust it. I had to ask the person in the window seat to do it for me. The whole experience was just a nightmare.
The flight was on time and everything went very smoothly.
Free WiFi and movies were not free - everything required signing up for future billing. Boston bound crew were very courteous and gracious.
