AA 1289 was scheduled to depart JFK for BDA at 7:05 am on July 3. Some of the vacationers, many with small children, got up at 3am to catch this flight. We finally departed after 9 pm — after more than 14 hours, with no explanation, no apologies and no recompense. There were several aborted reschedulings in the interim. At one of them, the flight crew actually boarded, only to deplane 20 minutes later. They explained to the anxious crowd around the podium that there was a maintenance problem with the auxiliary power unit. So, during one of the busiest travel times of the year, at one of AA’s principal hubs, they didn’t have the wherewithal — parts and/or expertise — to make this repair. In other words, this terrible experience was 100% due to AA’s incompetence. Meanwhile, we got closer and closer in time to predicted, severe thunderstorms, raising the suspicion that AA was hoping nature would let them off the hook for canceling the flight. Finally, AA put us on substitute equipment, 3 hours after it arrived from CLT. I’ve been flying AA for 50 years and have 1.6 million miles. This was the worst customer service fiasco in that span.
airlines reviews