[drterryhooper]

6 January 2015

COMPLAINTS

We have just returned from a holiday in Florida, flying there and back with American Airlines, and our experiences with your airline have left us feeling that yours is probably the worst airline we have flown with in our 40 years or so of flying.

1. The 22 December 2015 flight 733 from London Heathrow to Charlotte, North Carolina, departed late, so was late on arrival. This we understand as it sometimes happens. However, we were assured that your ground staff would expedite our transfer to ensure that we made the connection to the Orlando flight (flight no. 1899). However, your ground staff at Charlotte were particularly unhelpful in telling us where to go to check our bags for the connecting flight, and then telling us almost gleefully that we had missed the connection. The desk clerk then made little effort to find another flight for us, and we were forced to wait four hours for a flight, although we subsequently found out that others behind us in the check-in queue had been seated on an earlier flight that we had not even been told about. There were no apologies given for the delays, muddled reception at Charlotte, or badly managed transfer, indeed your ground staff there were singularly rude. It was only by making further enquiries at your airside terminal desk that we found out that we could have been directed to one of several earlier flights. That desk agent then put us to the top of the standby list for flight 747, which luckily had just enough seats for the four of us.

2. Our bags were not put on that later flight, although we were assured that they would be, so on arrival at Orlando International we had another wait, this time of two hours, before they turned up. Again, for nearly all of that time we could get no information about the whereabouts of our bags. By this time we had been travelling for 24 hours, which is exceptional for London to Orlando.

3. When we started to check in at Orlando International on 02 January 2016 for our return flights (flight 2532 to Chicago O’Hare and flight 46 from Chicago to Heathrow), we were told that because we had missed the connection at Charlotte on our way out – through no fault of ours! – your system had labelled us as “No shows” and deleted our return flight bookings! We were never notified of this, or contacted to find out if we still planned to return as originally booked! This is despite the fact that we had paid for these flights and had them confirmed. This must be one of the most appalling cases of outstandingly bad customer treatment we have ever encountered. Fortunately, the desk clerk on this occasion was able to make a phone call and partially reinstate our bookings. As a consequence of these errors on the part of your airline we were not given the seats we had booked and paid for in advance for either leg of our return journey, nor were we all seated together.

4. At all times we found that queues at American Airlines desks were chaotic and poorly managed. Often your staff would be shouting to, and at, each other, with no-one seeming to be in charge. For example, when checking in at Orlando International there were three queues, with no signs or guidance as to which queue to join. It then took an hour for us to reach the desk, and the queue we were in was closed behind us, with remaining passengers moved to another area. Even your staff were complaining to each other about the chaos. A look at queue management in the Orlando theme parks suggests much better practice!

5. Staff at the gates were often scruffy, chewing gum and giving every appearance of being totally uninterested in the passengers – your customers! For example, when we checked in at Chicago and complained that the seats we had booked were not available, we were told quite rudely that we were lucky to have a seat!

6. Overall, in addition to the unhelpful attitudes of ground staff already referred to we were struck by the general rudeness of your cabin staff. Examples of this include, “Put that window blind down”, and “Put your seat back in the upright position”, said in a rude way. Instead of passengers being addressed politely, with please and thank you as routine, we were addressed abruptly and brusquely, as if we were naughty children. It is probably true to say that the only time we heard the words “Thank you” from a member of the cabin staff was when we were leaving the airplane, and we never heard the word “Please”.

7. The general standard of food on your airline was extremely poor, so that two of us didn’t eat any, and the other two left most of the food provided. While airline food does not generally have a good reputation, yours must surely rank among the worst in the world.

8. We were not the only passengers complaining about your service, on both our outward and inward journeys.

Of the many American Airlines staff we encountered, there were only two exceptions to our experience of rude and unhelpful staff. The first was the desk agent - whose name we didn’t note - at Charlotte who was instrumental in getting us on flight 747 and reaching Orlando on 22 December, and the second was the check in person at Orlando on 2 January, Mr Ray Carneiro, who was able to get our bookings partially reinstated.