After waiting for several uncomfortable hours, we were deplaned in Philadelphia at about 10:00PM. Because the delay was weather-related, we were offered no compensation for rooms that night. The crew of flight attendants did a wonderful job of handling a lousy situation out of their control. The gentleman in the seat next to me and I rented a car and drove to NYC that evening (so I could catch another AA flight to Hong Kong the next morning.) Many of the remaining passengers were stranded and had to re-board the same flight early the next morning, but only arrived at JFK at 12:30 PM, more than 24 hours after they departed San Francisco.
Naturally, I wasn't pleased with my experience and wanted to fire off a note of complaint, but the website offered no email address or phone number to call. The auto-entry complaint form on American's website would not capture the information properly, so I ended up having to fax a letter to Dallas.
To American's credit, they did actually respond with a thoughtful note and offered me something to ease the pain. Had this response come the day after the incident, I probably would have been fairly satisfied. However, it’s taken almost four weeks for American to respond. Other airlines responded to passengers quickly by firing off notes from the CEO and offering travel vouchers. If the Airline Passenger Bill of Rights were in effect at the time, American would have had to shell out $27,500 to each passenger on the flight - not a small sum considering I was in a nearly full 767. In retrospect, this is a pretty lame response.
Dear Mr. Skelton:
I've received your letter and am very pleased to respond. I hope you don't mind, but I've
taken the liberty of doing so electronically.
As you are very well-aware, high winds in the New York City area resulted in unsafe
landing conditions. Thus, we diverted the flight to Philadelphia, planning to resume the
flight once conditions had improved.
Moreover, while on the tarmac, we recognize that parking sooner at a gate would have been
much more preferable than waiting for such a long time on the tarmac. Initially, our plan
was to re-fuel and depart (which obviously did not work out as we planned). However, I
would like to assure you, your comments have been taken very seriously and have been
forwarded to the appropriate personnel for internal review and improvement. Thank you for
taking the time to describe, from a customer's perspective, how that situation unfolded.
Having explained that, and although you did not request any, I would like to extend
compensation for that experience. With that in mind, I have placed 15,000 Customer
Service bonus miles into your AAdvantage® account. You should be able to confirm this
adjustment in 48 hours when reviewing your account via our website.
Although compensation of any kind will not change what occurred, we wanted to demonstrate
our concern for what happened in a tangible way.
On the other hand, I would like to thank you for your kind words regarding our crew. You
were very thoughtful to include you praises for them in your correspondence. I am certain
they will be very pleased to learn their efforts did not go unrecognized.
While I know you are disappointed with our service, Mr. Skelton, I hope you will give us
another opportunity to prove traveling on American can be a pleasant experience. I am
confident we can do a great deal better.
We welcome all customer feedback. The next time you feel something deserves our
attention, please email us via AA.com at www.aa.com/customerrelations. We'll receive your
comments without delay and get back to you as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
XXX XXX
Customer Relations
American Airlines
As long as we're on the subject of poor performance by airlines, I just saw this hysterical complaint letter to Richard Branson reprinted by the UK Telegraph. It's much more entertaining than my letter. Thank you, Greg Young.
