American Airlines takes off into the blogosphere

by Jeffrey White on

American Airlines has launched a new blog, titled “AA Conversations.” It went up on Friday, April 11 — the end of one of the worst weeks in recent memory for the world’s (formerly) largest airline, which saw it cancel more than 3,000 flights serviced by its MD-80 fleet. The cancellations left tens of thousands of passengers stranded in major hubs across the country.

Not surprisingly, the first post is an apology for the week from hell, along with some helpful links to pages to seek refunds for canceled flights. The company reported that things were back to normal as of this past Sunday, and the blog’s latest post is on the company’s reaction (they say ‘position’) concerning the recent Delta/Northwest merger, which really doesn’t say anything at all.

Yesterday I wrote a post reporting that a bunch of AA pilots have launched their own Web site aimed at giving upset AA travelers a forum to air their complaints about the airline’s service.

No word yet on whether the AA blog is planning to go toe-to-toe with the pilots’ site.

American Airlines: Tell its pilots your travel horror stories

by Jeffrey White on

American Airlines customers: Are you angry at the company? Well, AA pilots want to hear from you.

Following a week that saw the carrier cancel more than 3,000 flights, leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded, a group of AA pilots has just launched a Web site — Tell Your AA Story — where they want you to air your frustrations about the airline’s recent and future performance. The site has already generated more than 56,000 hits.

Check out this welcome message, taken directly from the site (the caps are not mine):

Had your travel plans destroyed by the actions of AA lately? Even if they’re not listening–we are. Whether you were traveling on business, for pleasure, or for an emergency, we realize that the mismanagement of American Airlines has cost you dearly. It doesn’t matter if you lost a day at Disney with your family, a day of work for your business, or a major family event, the unfortunate truth is that your life has been disrupted, your plans destroyed, your business derailed–all for one bad reason: THE PROFIT OF A FEW AMR EXECUTIVES.

AA’s 12,000 pilots are in the middle of contract negotiations, so the site’s launch seems as much a collective bargaining move as a response to last week’s cancellations, even as the Allied Pilots Association, the pilots’ union, says it is neither.

If you’re flying out of Boston, New York, Miami, San Francisco and a handful of other cities today, you are likely to encounter a few dozen AA pilots outside protesting the company’s recent performance. At key hubs, 30-50 AA pilots will be passing out literature promoting their new Web site between 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.

This just as American says it is back up and running at a full schedule (the pilots say their actions will not translate into flight delays). AA clearly has more than just frustrated customers to be concerned about. I’m reminded of Grant’s post earlier this month about an AA flight attendant who used an awards ceremony as a forum to take AA management to the woodshed over a whole host of consumer and safety issues.

More American Airlines flights cancelled for more MD-80 inspections

by Grant Martin on

Over two thousand flights are being canceled over the next few days on American Airlines for more maintenance checks.

The nation’s largest carrier continues to have problems with their MD-80 fleet. The issue this time is similar to what happened a few weeks back — wiring along the wing hasn’t been inspected properly and needs to be checked. For some reason, inspections weren’t up to snuff last week though, which is why the carrier is grounding much of their fleet again.

American expects to finish the inspections shortly, but at the time of writing most of their MD-80 fleet (and their respective passengers) are still on the ground. Keep an eye on your itinerary if one of these aircraft is involved in the next few days.

“Honored” American Airlines flight attendant rejects award, complains about management

by Grant Martin on

A recent American Airlines award ceremony honoring a flight attendant backfired this week when the woman took the stage, rejected the award and went on to complain about management, maintenance and operations at the airline. She complained for over fifteen minutes as presenters and attendees looked on in horror. Check out this MSNBC video as she tries to explain her actions.

Completely inappropriate or a good time to be heard?

BREAKING: American Airlines cancels 200 flights today for safety inspections

by Grant Martin on

If you’ve got a flight on a shorter American Airlines (AA) route today, you’d better double check your flight status. America’s largest airline canceled two hundred of it’s flights earlier this morning for safety inspections.

The issue is with the MD-80, a smaller aircraft that has long been a staple in the AA fleet. They’ve canceled many of those flights today to make quick inspections of a particular bundle of wires that company and FAA officials were concerned about. Note that this doesn’t mean that they have grounded the aircraft or that a safety issue has manifested, per se, they just want to run all inspections today so are proactively canceling flights.

Why they suddenly decided to cancel the flights today is another issue altogether that this CNN article doesn’t address. One can only assume that they just learned about the issue, otherwise they wouldn’t be scrambling to nix all of these flights. Did someone see something or was a disaster narrowly avoided? Will we ever find out?

Regardless, make sure that your flights are on time today. If you need help with rebooking, call AA customer support at 1-800-433-7300. And if you do find yourself on an MD-80 today, try not to think about this article.