Irrops handling by American Airlines – Part 2

 

On New Year’s Day I was booked on American Airlines flights from MIA to JFK and continuing to LAS. My inbound flight into MIA was on time and I had enough time to visit the Admirals Club next to Gate D15.

About half an hour prior to the scheduled departure I got a notification from FlightStats that my flight AA 1048 MIA-JFK will be delayed approx 50 minutes. Ouch. My connection in JFK was just 55 minutes… Checked the current arrival time of the inbound aircraft performing flight AA 2003 MCO-MIA to learn that it has 1:07h delay (arriving 12:22 instead of 11:15). AA 1048 was scheduled to depart at 13:10. Went to the gate area and took a seat. Suddenly the gate information showed 13:15 as a new departure time and boarding started accordingly. After we were ready to be pushed back the pilot informed us that the APU does not work and we do need a ground staff to turn on the engines. That took a while, of course. We finally left MIA with 45 minutes delay.

During the flight, crew announced several departure gates at JFK including my AA 257 JFK-MIA. Our arrival Gate was C40, the departure Gate C45 just across. We were at the gate at 16:50 (not sure why FlightStats says 16:55), AA 257 departed 17:00 according to schedule. I was one of the first pax to deboard the aircraft and kind of ran for my life to C45 where I was at 16:54 just to see the plane being pushed back :-( So I missed that one, of course :( Really bad move from American Airlines. They knew I was coming and it was possible to make it within 2 minutes so why left the EARLY? It is the only flight per day from AA to LAS…

Asked a gate agent what to do and was sent landside to the check in counter. At the first class check in desk I was welcomed by a very friendly agent so I just politely explained to her what happened and asked about my flight options to Las Vegas. She offered me within seconds to be rebooked on a Delta Airlines flight to LAS in 2 hours in Business Class. I agreed and was sort of happy. Wow, not even a discussion. Nothing. Just rebooked on another carrier, even from another airline alliance! US Airways, did you hear that?? On another carrier!

Actually, the Delta Airlines flight DL 1629 was pleasant. Will probably write a separate blog post for that flight.

So again, it was a very positive experience with American Airlines.

Nevertheless, there is a really bad downside on this which makes me unhappy and it is really annoying! Irrops occur, no problem. I fully understand that. And in fact, I was treated every time pretty good so far. But I’ll explain in a next blog post, why I am very unhappy with this situation and why AA/BA are not willing to help.

Regards,
Dieter

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