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I am not the kind of guy that gets
upset when my plane is
delayed. I fly too much. If I let it get to me every
time I
saw delayed
on the board I'd have had a heart attack long before now. This
week is going to be kind of crazy. I
have a flight out to the Long Angeles
area on September 11th, a fight back to Fort Worth on
September
12th, a flight out to San Jose on 13th and finally a flight
back to Fort Worth on the 14th. So 6,500 miles, Two round
trips to the coast, or 4 flights in 4 days not the most I
have flown but still a busy
week.
American has a good Flight Status Notification
system
which I setup to send a text message to my cell phone.
I got one for this flight around 5:00 pm:
The message tells me that my 7:20 pm flight is now an 8:20 pm flight.
I still get to the airport at
6:45 and I'm at my gate at around seven, just in case the
flight
information was wrong. It wasn't. The flight is
listed on the
board as:
Flight 1203 Orange County 7:20 PM Now 8:20 PM
Food for Purchase 3 hr 10 min
This does put a smile on my face because the Orange County
airport has many names, it is also known as the John Wayne Airport or
as the Santa Ana Airport and sometimes
as the Santa
Ana John Wayne International Airport . If you are running
late and you
want to check what gate you are flying out of you have to scan
the whole board to see what
they're going to call it today. The weather was pretty bad in the
afternoon but it had cleared up. It looked fine until I was
riding the Skylink
from the parking lot to the terminal, a flight attendant pointed out a
line of thunder storms coming in from
the west. The photo above taken by Tom Fox ran the next day
in the Dallas Morning News
it shows that anyone flying out of Dallas / Fort Worth might
want to
understand that there could be a delay or two today.
I find a seat at the gate where I can keep an eye on the board
and pull out my computer so I can catch up
on email. It is getting close to our
updated departure
time when the storm breaks. I figure I
will be getting a couple more messages before I fly out
tonight.
I was wrong I would get only one more message:
It says the my flight is CANCELLED and that I should call 800.433.7300
to change. I say, "Son of a Bachelor" or something like that and walk
up to the counter.
The board changes immediately
From:
Flight 1203 Orange County 7:20 PM Now 8:20 PM
Food for Purchase 3hr 10min
To:
Flight 1891 Phoenix 6:25
PM Now 8:30 PM
Food for Purchase 2hr 30min
Three American employees are standing behind the counter
looking
at their computer screen saying, "Son of a Bachelor." They
have not made an announcement
yet and since I got special text message it is just me and
two
other people in line. They help the first guy
who is
asking about the flight to Phoenix . The second guy asked
about
the flight to Orange County
and is told, "Sorry sir we are working the
Phoenix flight now, you will have to wait until we are finished." I'm
not mad, I'm not happy either but it is no use yelling
at the people behind the counter. They can't do anything,
except
call security and have to taken away in handcuffs. I take a
deep
cleansing breath and walk away. I bring up the text message.
I
select the phone number
in the message and press send.
You would think the number goes to a message like,
"We are so sorry your flight was
canceled let us take care of you." OK you wouldn't think that,
but you would think the number would go to someone or some system that
can
help you book another flight. It doesn't. It's voice
mail hell. It gives you four options none
of them are,
"If we
just canceled your flight and you would like to know what the heck you
are suppose to do now. Press 2."
I listen to all of the options and choose option two.
It doesn't seem like the
right one. I have
little hope that: "For fares, schedules, changes to
an existing reservation and general travel information press
2" is the
right choice, but all of the other choices are much worst. I
am, of
course, wrong. I get trapped in voice mail madness with no
way
out. The system will not let me back up and when I hopelessly
press "0" over and over it just keeps repeating the menu. If
you
want to simulate how I was feeling, jab a sharp stick in your
eye
and play the provided MP3 file in a loop over and over until you pass
out.
I wasted 15 minutes because I didn't want to hang up and lose my place
in the queue. I walked over to the American Airlines counter
and
by now it is busy. It is crazy busy. 9/11
busy.
Christmas in Salt Lake busy. Lighting just struck the
terminal
busy. All of our computers are down busy. You get the point.
It was busy. I decided to drive over
to terminal A to
see if they can help me since it wasn't hit by lighting. This
meant another trip
on the Skylink to go pickup my car. I get over to Terminal A
only to find the ticket counters are closed and the agents, I
can assume, are
hiding in the back until their shift ends. I call my travel
agent and he tries to blow me off. I tell him my problem and
his
answer is why I'm writing this travel log. The problems I
have
outlined above don't deserve a travel log, they are your normal run of
the mill travel stuff. If someone told me this story up to
this
point,
I'd respond, "So you don't travel much do you?"
I have booked all of my flights for the week together. DFW to
SNA
<> SNA to DFW <> DFW to SJC
<> SJC to DFW.
I did this to save time and because I am an
idiot. I
can't get to Orange County now the first part of this
trip.
The travel agents
tells me not to worry, I'm all taken care of because American has
"protected me" on a
flight out tomorrow morning. This flight will get me in
just in
time to catch my flight back to DFW, but too late to make
the event. I tell him, Thanks but that won't work.
I
ask him to cancel my hotel and to credit my account for the canceled
flight.
This is the good part. He tells me, "Sir since you
have not started your flight we can not credit your account."
I
respond feeling the a pain in my right eye from the stick I am shoving
into it, "I'm not changing my flight. American has canceled my
flight
I'd be happy to fly tonight but they don't have a plane." He tells me,
"I understands completely." but, of course doesn't understand or he
doesn't
care. We argue about
it for 15 minutes and then he puts me on hold for another 10 minutes
only to come back and tell me that, he is now on hold with American.
Fifteen minutes later he comes back to me sounding really
happy
and tells me,
"Mr. Hartman (It is always a bad sign when they call me Mr.
Hartman) we have it all worked out. American will give you a
full
refund on
your ticket." I thank him and I'm just about to hang up when
he
offhandedly says, "Mr. Hartman, all you need to
do now is go on-line and
book your flight to San Jose."
I tell him, "No don't cancel the San Jose flight." He tells
me
that he has to cancel everything but not to worry I
will get a
full refund.
I ask him to look up how much a flight to San Jose will cost
if
I book it right now, two days before the trip. I already know
the
answer.
It will cost a lot, but even I'm surprised when he comes
back
with
sixteen hundred dollars. I black out for a second from the
pain
then tell him again, "Don't cancel the fight. I know you
can't
help me and it won't do either of us any good for me to
continue to yell at you. Leave
the flight as is, with me flying out tomorrow and I'll call and yell at
American.
I call the American Airlines Platinum desk since I figure they will be
happy to help me. They tell me the same thing.
They have
me on a
flight out tomorrow that will get me into Orange County just in time to
catch the
flight back to DFW or they can give me a full refund of $731.16.
I can then book a
new flight to San Jose for $1,600 dollars. No
matter how
many times I
explained that I am not trying to change my flights.
I just
don't want to lose the flight that I booked a month ago. She
would listen politely and say, "Mr. Hartman, we can not let
you
use that ticket, that ticket was a
14 day advanced ticket and you are trying to change your flight now.
I keep saying, "You canceled my flight."
She would say, "Mr. Hartman that was weather related we can
not
be held responsible for cancellation due to weather. I
respond,
"I'm not holding you responsible I just want to keep my ticket and not
be
charged an extra thousand dollars because you canceled my flight."
"Mr Hartman I explained that was weather related."
It was
like the Abott and Costello
Baseball skit except not funny. "Who's on
First?"
"That's right Who's on First." "Who?" "Correct
Who."
I went on and on trying to get my meaningless point across and then she
pulled the old trick of pausing. It was a
painfully long
pause one I am sure was meant for me to negotiate with myself and
accept that I would have to pay them $1,600.00 I
have been
through too many sales trainings to fall for that one so we both
endured 10 minutes of silence. I was getting pretty nervous
because the other trick is hang up on the person and if by some miracle
if they call back and get connected to the
same operator, the person can
always say, "I'm sorry I thought we were disconnected."
She blinked first and said, "Let me talk to my supervisor."
Five
minutes pass then she comes back on and says, "We are going to
make an exception and
exchange you current ticket. So you now have a
flight out of
Orange County to Dallas/ Fort Worth, Dallas/Fort Worth to San Jose and
San Jose back to Dallas /
Fort Worth. I thank her and then I say, "Wait a minute is
sounds
like you have an extra leg in there." I am in
Dallas I
don't need a flight out of Orange County. She
sighs in
exasperation and says, "Let me talk to my supervisor." She
comes
back and angrily says, "Mr. Hartman, You have a flight out of
Dallas to San
Jose on the 13th of September with a return to Dallas on the 14th of
September. Thank you for choosing American. Goodbye."
I'm
not sure if I am more annoyed because they didn't want to
refund me for the flight they canceled or that they
wanted to make an
additional thousand dollars off me because they canceled my flight.
I
did have the privilege of getting to drive to the airport spend six
hours waiting for the flight that they canceled then got to
spend
at least an hour on
the phone in voice mail hell, with my travel agent and with the
American Airlines Platinum desk. I'm sure they felt that the
entertainment value of that experience was worth at least $1000.
I have tried and tried to make this as funny as possible but I'm sure
it isn't. I will still post it because it is the only way I
know
how to complain. I am also pleased that no matter how low on
the list I am when people "Google" American Airlines and American We
know why you fly this article will show up.
I"m also
pleased that you enjoyed this train wreck enough to read it this far.
American, We know why you fly.
Disclaimer: "American Airlines" and the slogan "We know
why you fly." are trademarks of the AMR corporation and are used in
this
article as satire. The Author would be happy to remove them
for
$731.16 or if it must be removed in the next two days for sixteen
hundred dollars.
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