I completely agree. This is why we invented telephony. It should not be difficult for someone in AA Central Reservations to pick up the phone and call the gate in emergent situations such as this. It's common sense. Why does American feel the need make it all so complicated?
The problem I've seen steadily worsening at American is that the left hand has no clue what the right hand is doing. Ask ten different people (CR reps, APO staff) about a ticketing or fee policy, and you're likely to get at least 7 or 8 different answers.
What really needs to happen is for the federal government to stop bailing out the legacy carriers with loan guarantees and the like and LET THEM GO OUT OF BUSINESS. Airlines are subject to the same laws of economics as any other industry. For some reason, consumers and our leaders in Washington seem wantonly ignorant of this fact whenever a major carrier is on the verge of bankruptcy. "Pseudo regulation" ensuring that legacy carriers can stay afloat on a permanent basis has resulted in artificial long lives for many, if not all, of the major players in the industry.
People need to understand this: airplanes aren't going to vanish into thin air if AA, UA, CO, DL, and NW all go out of business tomorrow. The equipment and demand for air travel will all still be there. Investors will come together -- quite quickly in fact -- and create new airlines with far more efficient business models. Planes will continue to fly and the world will not come to an end. In fact, widespread bankruptcy is precisely what the airline industry has needed for a long time. Without such change, there will be very little if any innovation in the areas of service and badly needed technological upgrades.
The alternative, at least in terms of improving service, is very heavy regulation limiting the number of carriers and flights per route, etc. But that would of course drive up fares such that most people wouldn't be able to fly nearly as often as we do today.
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