[Matt_FLL]

“Mom, I would love for you to stay an extra day with us,” you shout with enthusiasm. “But of course, that’s only if you booked your flight in the Q inventory.”

If your mother is a keynote speaker at the next airline Revenue Management seminar, she may return a remark about how love has no fare buckets. But if your Mom is anything like mine, she’d be very confused. Fare buckets: Grossly complex, brilliantly capitalistic, and the reason why I have some respect for the phone agent who has to explain that a fare increased by $100 since the phone call started. Fair? Perhaps not. But we can agree on one thing: It would be a bit foolish to assume that the passenger sitting next to you will know what fare bucket he booked against.

There is a blizzard outside. You are supposed to go to the airport tonight. You go to AA.com and it says you can change your ticket for free. Excellent! You pick your new flight and call AA. "That flight only has Y seats! You booked a Q seat. That will be $1,300," the agent snarls. You are stunned.

Every Travel Alert on the AA.com has a final condition: “Original Inventory Required?”—Yes or No. As a road warrior I know what that means. It explains why everyone in the economy cabin paid a different fare. Does your next door neighbor know that? And you know how this story ends. After two supervisors, you will vow to never fly AA.com, miss that important business meeting/funeral/family party--whatever it was, and then go to airlinecomplaints.org and post your complaint.

AA is run with an egregiously anti-consumer methodology. They act like they are the victims when the "dumb" passenger doesn't know what a fare class inventory is. This is a perfect example. Management ought to publish content in regular terms, avoid policies which make their employee’s environment nothing but a telephonic shooting range, and also coach staff to better understand who they are speaking to on the other line. Why put everyone through this emotional ordeal? Don't say that everyone can change their flight for free when it's not true.

If anything, be careful American Airlines, your archaic ideology is bringing you to extinction. Your revenue management department is far too focused on complex formulas and fare buckets, and much less concerned with the true source of revenue: real people, like our mothers.