A couple of weeks ago in my post Southwest Airlines, I wrote about how amazing they are compared to other airlines. This past week I had the opportunity to fly American Airlines and let them prove me wrong. Guess where I’m sitting…in the airport having just missed my flight. Now, the important thing to know is that we were late, and that was our fault. And since we were late, the gal at the ticket counter was nice enough to call the plane and ask them to wait, then she personally escorted us through security. (Apparently they have more authority than TSA in that area. Who knew?) The flight was supposed to leave at 4:15 PM and we booked it through the airport like we were twenty years younger!
Up to this point American Airlines has redeemed themselves, and I feel like a heel that I talked trash about other airlines in that post. However, at 4:10 PM we got to the gate to find that they had released the 4:15 PM flight at, wait for it……..4:06 PM! WHAT?! We’re not even really late at this point!! Yes, their website has their legal jargon about needing to board twenty minutes early and all that. BLAH BLAH BLAH. But Southwest would have let us on! How do I know that? Because in the over four hundred flights that I’ve had on Southwest, I’ve actually seen it happen multiple times. Times that I was sitting on the plane wondering what we were waiting for, and it turned out to be people running for the plane.
So here I sit thinking to myself, why can’t there be more airlines like Southwest? Again, I am extremely appreciative of the lady who helped us get toooo the gate but not so much the people AT the gate! This was your chance AA to show the world…or at least those who read Chris LoCurto’s blog, that you are a company that takes care of its customers. But today I say like Mike Myers in “So I Married An Axe Murderer”, “nononono…negatory…negatory!!!”
Now, we are on the plane leaving and we have realized that they did some other things that were nice, they didn’t charge us the $50.00 per person flight change fee nor the $25.00 per bag fee. But really, leaving us there with nine minutes to spare, I wouldn’t charge us either.
