[oba1507]

As a business traveler, I get to experience customer service at variety of airports at least twice a week. Today’s experience was the worst I had in years. At 11am I get dropped off at LAX to catch my 12pm flight to Las Vegas and see American Airlines counter. Left side says “Group Check-in”, right says “Main Cabin”. Figuring out I need Main Cabin, I get in line. There is only 1 agent helping. After awhile, second agent joined. When I reach the counter to check-in and to check-in my bag, lady says: “You have missed the deadline to check-in your bag”. I look at a clock; it is 11:20 am! Deadline to check-in luggage is 45 minutes which means I was standing in that line for 20 minutes, missed the deadline by 5 minutes, and agents would not try to speed things up. I remember two times my luggage was late a few minutes in a similar situation while flying Alaska and Southwest. Both times agents checked in bags and said that they will do their best to get those on the plane but they will not guarantee they will arrive on time. I can definitely say that was a much better customer service than the one I got on American Airlines. All I got from an American Airlines agent is that I have an option of carrying it on board by the route of “throwing all the regular-sized toiletries out” . Not the thing you are hoping to hear when you are traveling.

Furthermore, agent has refused to put me on my 12 pm flight. Her next suggestion? She can put me on a 3pm as a stand-by or confirm my seat on a 5pm flight to the tune of a $75 fee! I took the stand-by and checked-in my bag, another $25 fee. Standing there I could not help myself but think about all the times I have flown with Alaska (I am a frequent flyer) and Southwest – I have never got charged to be confirmed on a later flight nor did I ever got charged for checking in 1 bag. And I got a much friendlier customer service! Before, I thought that their flights are simply convenient. After getting a bad customer service from American Airlines, I came to realize that Southwest and Alaska do things better, sans $125 in fees.

At that point, I have politely explained to the American Airlines agent that I have been standing in line for 20 minutes and did not expect to miss luggage deadline. Only then she said: “You should have checked-in at a self-service next door. Here we only do customer service” (apparently, not a great one at that). When I looked up, there was not a single sign that said “Customer Service” nor was there a sign that said “Self check-in that way” with an arrow.

Now, I am waiting for my next flight, outraged by customer disservice while I could have been at a MAGIC apparel show as originally planned. Can’t help but notice that at all American Airlines gates here have only 2 charging station for about 200 people with laptops and cell phones so flyers are forced to sit on a cold cement floor and hunch over their electronic devices because those need power. I guess, someone at American airlines did not care to install more power outlets. I’m sitting here as well and thinking why exactly would I pay $200 for my flight and have this horrible experience.

2/13/2012