[kcmitchell]

I am a frequent business traveler, sometimes as much as three cities a week. In the past month, I have been delayed or cancelled on American Airlines on no less than 50% of flights that I have been confirmed on. My most recent, Friday 4-11-08 - 5:15pm from New Orleans to St. Louis. We were told that the Flight was at first delayed due to a broken gadget that allows the airplane to land in windy conditions. We were told that there were three potential resolutions - 1: Winds die down in STL, 2: have replacement part flown in on a flight arriving at 8:00pm, or 3: plane swap. Never was it mentioned that cancellation was an option. After waiting for 2 hours, the flight was cancelled at 7:30pm.
IF AA would have been honest and cancelled the flight earlier, all the passengers could have had the opportunity to arrange for other travel. However, by 7:30pm there were no other options by air.
As it stood, there were no available seats to depart New Orleans until 5:15pm the next day. Important family commitments made it necessary for me and (3) three other passengers to team up and rent a car and drive the 10 hours back to St. Louis. I arrived home at 6:00am the next morning exhausted, but still able to make my daughter dance recital that she had been working toward for nearly a year.
Waiting till such a late hour to announce the cancellation was akin to fraud!!! I paid over $1000 for this round trip!!! American Airlines didn't even have the courtesy to allow its customers the ability to help ourselves by announcing that cancellation was a possiblity.
This story is only the latest of many others. In the past 2 months I have had 4 flights out of New Orleans to St. Louis and of those, 2 have been cancelled at a late hour.
I will go out of my way in the future to NOT fly on American Airlines. It is too bad, as American was at one time a great airline. No more - there are too many other choices when I fly. American will go the way of so many other mismanaged airlines if they don't do something and do something quick!