[Flyer Todd]

Flight 16 (12:25pn sfo-NY) was cancelled on 6/1. Was notified 80 minutes before takeoff. 3rd time this has happened to me in the last 2 months, the reasons given by AA are never clear. Yesterday they said they had a missing part that didn't come in. Cancelled flight is bad enough but they didn't even offer me another flight on the same day. I have been Paltinum with them for 10 years but I am now fed up. I'm sitting on a Virgin American flight that makes me realize how bad AA has become by comparison.

[The_Judge]

What is the complaint? The part didn't come in. It apparently can't be fixed without it. Are you upset at them not having it? Upset at the communication from the airline? Upset that it was 80 minutes before takeoff? Upset that it happened 3 times in 2 months? (Being platinum means you fly often therefore increasing your odds of this happening) Upset that there was no available flight the same day? Other than the part not arriving, I don't see where AA failed.

[jimworcs]

Judge,
Let's say you bought a cable service and it failed 3 times in two months... would you question if the service was reliable?

If you bought a new refridgerator and it broke down three times in two months and you had to have it replaced... would you still have faith in that brand?

Oh yeah, I keep forgetting... airlines are unique. They are not expected or required to provide a reliable service, good customer service or value for money. My question is though.. WHY?

[The_Judge]

A fridge and even cable service have relatively little working parts compared to an airliner. Countless mechanical fallures are possible. With so many systems and moving parts and the tremendous amount of time they spend in the air, I'm surprised they don't break more often. So, imo, not a fair analogy. Btw....I just had a look at AA's cxld flights for March and they canceled 1.2% of them, which is 5th best out of 18 carriers reporting.

Again, my question.....what's the actual complaint?

[jimworcs]

The actual complaint is that they failed to deliver the purchased service 3 times in 2 months AND on at least one occassion failed to get their customer to their destination on the same date. I think the complaint is fairly clear.

Reducing things to percentages doesn't always help in high volume services. If 1.2% of planes crashed for example, we would ground the entire airline as unsafe. 1.2% sounds low, but is a very high number of flights being cancelled.

[The_Judge]

Arghhh. So by your example, should we ground every single airline that has a cancelation % of 1.2 or above?

Even the beloved WN cancelled 800 flights that month. So yes, reducing it to % in this high of a volume is misleading because that number is only 0.8% of the more than 95k flights they had.

My point is, flights get canceled for a variety of reasons. I don't think that a completion factor of 98.8% is bad in the industry. Regulation won't change that number. In fact, as I said, it's more near the top than the bottom.

[jimworcs]

Arghhh. So by your example, should we ground every single airline that has a cancelation % of 1.2 or above?

I think the fumes from all that tear gas must be going to your head. I did not say anything of the sort!!

There are other safety critical industries which could not tolerate a 1.2% failure rate (nuclear energy springs to mind).

My point is simple. The customer has a legitimate complaint when 3 times in two months his flight is cancelled. Why is that hard to understand?

Southwest is a low cost airline and manages to have a despatch rate which is 33% better than AA. Why is that not a legitimate comparison and complaint? Incidently, even Southwest's rate is higher than Ryanair (who I hate), but still manage an even lower pecentage 0.5%.

[Gromit801]

SWA was also nailed for bribing FAA inspectors and skipping or delaying maintenance. Why one of theirs didn't fall out of the sky is pure luck. That leads me to believe for a long time, they were flying unsafe aircraft, with maintenance issues they ignored when possible to keep their on-time or departure percentages high.

And you know, if my cable or my fridge goes out, 200 people aren't likely to die as a result. As a onetime USAF aircraft crew chief, it's a no-brainer: fix the bird. You have to cancel? Fine. They can only complain if they're alive.

[I just want to get home]

Flyer Todd,
do they ever do anything to make up for it?
i just had a flight cancelled and had to fly to another city to get a flight home the NEXT DAY. missed work (and pay) the next day... plus a lot of other crap i won't go into now.
I'm always offered free plane tickets to voluntarily give up my seat on overbooked flights? do they ever compensate you for involuntarily giving up your seat? i only ask because i've spent the last week trying to contat them and of course they make that impossible, unless you want to mail them a letter.
any info you have would be appreciated
thanks

[jimworcs]

Gromit,
SWA has one the best safety records of any airline in the world. Certainly considerably better than any legacy airline. I can send you the stats if you like.. but their fatality rate per miles flown is staggeringly low. Many airlines have been fined by the FAA for technical breaches including AA only recently.

[The_Judge]

Originally Posted by jimworcs

I think the fumes from all that tear gas must be going to your head. I did not say anything of the sort!!

Tear gas aside, you didn't say that airlines should be grounded for canceling, I'll give you that one.

Originally Posted by jimworcs

There are other safety critical industries which could not tolerate a 1.2% failure rate (nuclear energy springs to mind).

Since I have zero knowledge of their failure rate I can't really comment on that. That being said, I find it hard to believe that some parts or systems have not failed leading to non-normal procedures to fix the problem in some plant somewhere in the world in that industry.

Originally Posted by jimworcs

My point is simple. The customer has a legitimate complaint when 3 times in two months his flight is cancelled. Why is that hard to understand?

Easy to understand. Flyer Todd happened to be on 3 flights that had issues. I'd be curious as to the other 2 cancelation reasons and also how many segments he flew in those 2 months.

Originally Posted by jimworcs

Southwest is a low cost airline and manages to have a despatch rate which is 33% better than AA. Why is that not a legitimate comparison and complaint? Incidently, even Southwest's rate is higher than Ryanair (who I hate), but still manage an even lower pecentage 0.5%.

Who said this............???

Reducing things to percentages doesn't always help in high volume services.

Let's throw out the percentages. WN ONLY canceled 539 flights in April, down from 800 in March. AA canceled just 306 in April. Putting the %'s back in, they are both under 1%. I'd say that's pretty good but if you happen to be in that percentage, obviously you'll have a different view. Flyer Todd was and does.

[Gromit801]

Originally Posted by jimworcs

Gromit,
SWA has one the best safety records of any airline in the world. Certainly considerably better than any legacy airline. I can send you the stats if you like.. but their fatality rate per miles flown is staggeringly low. Many airlines have been fined by the FAA for technical breaches including AA only recently.

I know the stats. Irrelevent. They were caught bribing FAA inspectors, and that they haven't had a fatal crash is pure luck, period.

Bribing FAA inspectors is NOT a technical breach, it's a criminal offense.

[The_Judge]

Gromit talks about something I forgot to mention. It's hard to have a bad record and receive fines when you're bribing the very officials inspecting you.

[jimworcs]

Their safety record speaks for itself.... the stats are hardly "irrelevant".. and to suggest that safety is a matter of luck is just bonkers.

[tigger44]

gee...is it possible that airlines may cancel flights that are thinly booked ? who's to know if the flight was cancelled due to a) the part not coming in b) the pilot being sick or c) the flight was empty

[Gromit801]

Tigger, even if the flight is not full, if it's able it flies. The airline needs that aircraft to stay on it's route. So for example, if a lightly booked flight from NY to LA were cancelled because of empty seats, what are the people in LA going to do who were going to board that aircraft for their flight somewhere? The airline have to keep their aircraft in position as best they can, so even if one has a low seat fill, they still need to get the plane to the next destination for those next passengers.