American Airlines - USA Domestic - Review/Opinion

[levelnine]

Very interesting thread, especially as I'll be doing a lot of travelling within the US on AA in the coming year(s). Would be very happy to hear other people's opinions too.

 

[Max Samuels]

I would allow at least 2 hours. We experienced a number of stressed travellers at the carousel and their comments lead me to believe the delay was normal with AA. They also cancelled a flight on us meaning we only had 45 minutes....

Sounds like a run of bad luck! I would suggest getting the AA app on your phone - it's just like the QF App except better. I think the best thing to do is engage with AA like you were a regular AA passenger - just like you would with QF - check your booking on the App a few days before departure. If your flight is cancelled, the new flight info is pushed to your phone - so no surprises. AA actually allows 25 mins to connect domestically although I never take such a tight connection - it actually warns you about this when you book.

Connecting from Intl to domestic I always allow 3 hours -and it is always overkill - but I know that the day I don't do that my luck will run out!! For dom transfers I allow 45 mins - also depends on which airport as some are more spread out. LAX is easy. SFO is easy. DFW can be tricky. PHL is really hard because the terminals are quite far apart and that is only place I have ever missed a connection.

 

[Max Samuels]

I have 12 x AA sectors coming at Xmas/NYE - incl ORD, JFK, SEA, SFO, LAX, DFW.... all the big ones. Throw in the holidays and possible terrible weather..... I will report back in full on their performance.

And... I am flying Flagship First LAX-JFK!

 

[33kft]

Anyone know how AA have been traveling recently with the maintenance slowdowns? Any improvement in the situation?

 

[dfcatch]

Lol..... VERY rose tinted? I think you should come back here and base yourself in SYD or MEL and try being a regular domestic QF passenger.... see how those glasses work for you then hehe

DL lounge in LAX nowhere near as good as Flagship First, in my opinion.

Are you seriously suggesting that domestic QF or VA is a worse experience than domestic AA??

You're off with the fairies if that's what you're saying.

But - of course the DL lounge is cough, just like the Admirals Club. As a OWS and above you get access to the Flagship Lounge which is pretty good. But you DON'T get access to the Flagship First Dining. You have to be in 3-class AA First to get that. And it's not that special - I'd still choose QF F over it.

 

[dfcatch]

I suppose that if one has only one experience and it is bad, they would come to that conclusion. It would be the same for any first time QF flyers that were delayed 3 days in LAX on QF94 recently? 3 DAYS - not hours. And then, if some of those pax were flying from MEL-SYD a few days later.... 3 weeks ago QF cancelled almost all of its flight MEL-SYD. So if that was someone's first impression of Qantas it would be pretty rubbish!! In summer, the chance of an afternoon flight on the east coast being delayed is really high - so high in fact that regular flyers won 't even book one - esp on a Friday night....

I actually don't factor delays into rating an airline... it happens to everyone. I rate how they handle it. Recently a delay with AA caused me to miss a connection and they just put me on the next flight (different routing).

You're guilty of applying your own survey of 1 - which you criticize the previous poster for.

You really need to fly AA a lot more this year - then you wouldn't be equating "normal delays which happen to every airline" with the current AA situation.

It is not comparable at all.

AA is currently going through extraordinary operational challenges that far exceed normal "roll with it airline delays".

 

[dfcatch]

Anyone know how AA have been traveling recently with the maintenance slowdowns? Any improvement in the situation?

Still horrible!!

Although ever so slightly less horrible than a month or two back.

Regional (Eagle) flights are fine - I have been on an Eagle only diet the last couple of months for AA and they are not affected by the MX issues.

I do have a number of mainline flights coming up - but I also have contingencies planned on UA/DL or others as required.

At least until the contract is resolved - I would be extra cautious about booking anything mission-critical.

Remember - when they go bad - it goes bad big - you can't assume you'll simply go out on a flight an hour later.

 

[Max Samuels]

You're guilty of applying your own survey of 1 - which you criticize the previous poster for.

You really need to fly AA a lot more this year - then you wouldn't be equating "normal delays which happen to every airline" with the current AA situation.

It is not comparable at all.

AA is currently going through extraordinary operational challenges that far exceed normal "roll with it airline delays".

Actually my survey was over a period of 2 years or so on about 30 flights with a variety ports. And, with airline surveys, as you probably know, the preferred method is to establish a closed loop of survey participants, over a period of time, over a range of routes and seasons and time of day, and track the responses of those people. They KNOW, that getting a random survey from a random passenger on a day when random things went wrong (or particularly well) is in no way actually an accurate representation of their "product". Did you also know that in such surveys, when people rate 0-10, they typically only look at responses in the 3-7 range, because the extremes can usually be written off as overly passionate responses? Anyway, my comments were about attitude of the airline and its in-flight service and not about an industrial dispute that hadn't yet occurred.

By your logic, when AJ grounded the Qantas fleet and stranded people all over the world its product became trash? And BA last weekend? Cancelling all those flights and stranding 1000s of people? That would still not impact my review/opinion of their product, even if I was affected, as I am able to separate the 2 issues....

 

[Max Samuels]

Are you seriously suggesting that domestic QF or VA is a worse experience than domestic AA??

Yep that is exactly what I am saying

 

[dfcatch]

Actually my survey was over a period of 2 years or so on about 30 flights with a variety ports. And, with airline surveys, as you probably know, the preferred method is to establish a closed loop of survey participants, over a period of time, over a range of routes and seasons and time of day, and track the responses of those people. They KNOW, that getting a random survey from a random passenger on a day when random things went wrong (or particularly well) is in no way actually an accurate representation of their "product". Did you also know that in such surveys, when people rate 0-10, they typically only look at responses in the 3-7 range, because the extremes can usually be written off as overly passionate responses? Anyway, my comments were about attitude of the airline and its in-flight service and not about an industrial dispute that hadn't yet occurred.

By your logic, when AJ grounded the Qantas fleet and stranded people all over the world its product became trash? And BA last weekend? Cancelling all those flights and stranding 1000s of people? That would still not impact my review/opinion of their product, even if I was affected, as I am able to separate the 2 issues....

Actually - that's not how NPS surveys work. They don't discard the outliers - in fact they in effect ignore the 3-7 in the middle as they are only measuring "Net Promoters" and "Net Detractors". The "Neutrals" in the middle are a waste of space (practically speaking).

You've made my point.... your experience over a relatively small number of flights in the "past" just isn't reflective of the current experience that someone is likely to encounter on AA.

As you have read from my own comments - historically - your comments are reasonably accurate in my opinion. But they are not accurate today.

 

[dfcatch]

Yep that is exactly what I am saying

I would encourage you not to stop taking medication without consulting your physician.

 

[Max Samuels]

Actually - that's not how NPS surveys work. They don't discard the outliers - in fact they in effect ignore the 3-7 in the middle as they are only measuring "Net Promoters" and "Net Detractors". The "Neutrals" in the middle are a waste of space (practically speaking).

Actually NPS is a completely different thing from what I am talking about. I gave a detailed, thoughtful review, using words to describe things. NPS doesn't take into account words. You are correct about how NPS is calculated - however that is not what we are talking about. NPS is flawed and no company takes it super seriously (I always laugh at our NPS for big phone company I work for). They prefer to conduct scientific market research to get a true insight. With NPS, if you have 10,000 neutral responses, 10 bad ones, and 5 good ones, the NPS will be negative. Without the context that 10,000 people didn't mind one way or the other, it sounds bad. But with the context you think "wow there were only 10/10,000 that hated this so mustn't be too bad".

Anyway... I still think your criticism is unwarranted as I was never talking about the punctuality of the airline. I was just saying that it was a pretty good domestic carrier, had improved a lot, was easily as good as QF or VA, and better in some regards.

And I would never assume to give you medical advice simply because you disagree with me

 

[justinbrett]

FWIW I take 10-15 Domestic AA flights a year and I 100% agree with Max.

If hypothetically AA was a domestic Australian airline I would fly them over Qantas or Virgin. Maybe I’ve just been lucky. I’ve had a couple of bad flights (usually ORD based crew) but for the most part they are miles ahead.

 

[drron]

Then even with the industrial problems not all flights are late.Took our 9/11 flight.Left on time,arrived early even though we had to wait for a gate because it was early.
Priority boarding worked.
Priority baggage worked.
attentive cabin crew.
All of which QF rarely can do.

 

[Frequent boarder]

have flown a lot on AA in last few years.

NYC/Vail - JFK airport security was a nightmare.

LA/Vail/LA - departing Vail is so easy. No queues for check in or TSA.

The LA/Vail/LA flights never ever seem to be full, but I rarely fly on Friday or Sunday, which is probably when they do fill up.

As a result, with 1/3 to 2/3 of seats empty the service is good, as flight attendants don't have to rush.

 

[Max Samuels]

Just flew LAX-ORD-JFK in "First" (really J) - was planning to do real First on the trasncon but it didn't pan out.... anyway, both flights were amazing. Crew were awesome. Received a personalised hand-written note from the CSM welcoming me back and thanking me for my patronage blah blah blah.... but the thing is I am not their member - I have OWE status through QF - but still treated like one of their own. I know that many people have said this over and over again..... but other OW airlines like AA, CX, JL seem to treat QF elite members better than QF does itself.... so sad QF :-(