We’re just saying: We travel a lot. We fly constantly. And no other U.S. carrier approaches American in terms of destroying our interest \ faith in travel. Are you thinking about flying? Let us suggest:
1) Virgin Atlantic to the UK
2) Air France to France
3) Virgin Atlantic and then a discount airline like EasyJet or Ryanair elsewhere in Europe (building in a lot of time for the transfer, because the latter can be awful about missed ones)
4) Virgin America or Delta to the West Coast
5) JetBlue everywhere they fly
6) We also like Frontier, Swiss, Lufthansa, SAS, and loads of others.
We’re not going to bore anyone, any more than we already have for why we hate America Airlines so, so, so much, but we will say! We will never fly them again. Oh, here’s our story:
We get to JFK on Sunday morning to go to a wedding in Florida. One woman tells us to wait in this line. After half an hour, another woman tells us to wait in an entirely different, much longer line. We miss our flight. We wait five hours for the next one. We wait another four hours while that one goes through a mechanical delay. We get to our hotel twelve hours late, and miss the rehearsal dinner. And then, fine, fair enough, but we call them and are like, Can we please take a later flight back home, since we wasted a day dealing with your idiocy? And, they say, no, you cannot.
We know every airline can be difficult on any given day, but we just dealt with literally a half-dozen people, over three days, who were all spectacularly unhelpful. We wipe our hands of them!
We actually had an unusually pleasant experience with an airline this weekend. We’d flown into Sacramento and drove to Lake Tahoe but the roads were too dangerous to drive back in time for our flight. Southwest was going to charge us $75 per ticket (which were only $120 to start with) to change our flight to the following day but when we told them of our dilemma, they very nicely waived the fee for all four of us. Yay Southwest!
My fiance and I and our friends actually had an unusually pleasant experience with an airline this weekend. We’d flown into Sacramento and drove to Lake Tahoe but the roads were too dangerous to drive back in time for our flight. Southwest was going to charge us $75 per ticket (which were only $120 to start with) to change our flight to the following day but when we told them of our dilemma, they very nicely waived the fee for all four of us. Yay Southwest!
How nice–and rare–to read of a good experience with an airline (Y’s, with Southwest). Bunnyshop, let me warn you to steer clear of Spirit Airlines. Perhaps I’m unfair, since I say this based on only one experience, but they nearly destroyed my spirit and my husband’s on a single NY-SF-NY roundtrip. Never again.
By the way, you stick to your guns. I read recently that the airlines don’t care about the regular coach customers because in the end they know most don’t worry about brand loyalty and when it comes down to it will buy the lowest fares they can find.
Totally! We love positive stories, and we will happily welcome the bad ones as well so others can learn from our mistakes. Re coach passengers—we always think we’ll get incrementally better treatment when identify ourselves as, you know, travel press (makes up for the lack of health insurance.) We think that just made them madder.
UNITED AIRLINES. They are also full of bad will. I was also flying to a wedding (in Chicago). We get on the flight and there are delays. They tell us to wait. They announce there are more delays. More waiting. Finally they tell us this plane won’t be flying anywhere and that we should exit the plane. Then the attendant says, “Have a nice day.” That’s it. No info, no help finding another flight or sharing with us what are options are. After I and my fellow passengers figure out where customer service is (because the attendant at the terminal wouldn’t help up) we find an enormous line. After waiting over an hour, at 4:45, with every passenger from my flight still unhelped, all the people at the counter leave because “their shift is over.” At five, there was still no one at the counter. Half an hour later, a loudspeaker announced that everyone from my flight should step out of line so that people “who could be helped” could make their way to the front. No joke. In the end, I spent 9 hours in the airport (on a perfect weather day) and all I got was a meal voucher and a $25 dollar credit toward my next United Flight. Sorry this is so long. Stay away!
Just to add to the growing consensus: Southwest=good, Virgin=good, United=BAD. I have heard this repeatedly from other people, and experienced them all myself.
i, too, am a fan of southwest. united used to be my go to airline, now they are just terrible. and hooray for ryanair in europe!
I hate flying, but American Airlines always manages to make it a million times worse. Flights are never on time, no one is willing to help or care. Just hearing that signature American Airlines music is enough to give me a panic attack. I love JetBlue, though.
sia is expensive but sooooo good really. and ryanair? sorry no, i had a TERRIBLE experience with them. urgh!
Another airline to avoid: ATA (my family guesses that it stands for A Terrible Airline) – catching a red-eye out of LAX to JFK, one flight was delayed, the next was cancelled due to “mechanical issues,” and the one that finally took off for the east coast got us to LaGuardia. We had to stand in a bunch of lines and yell at tons of people to get a taxi voucher, since our car was at JFK. Never ever again.
Do love JetBlue though – several good experiences with them.
just had to throw in my two cents about international airlines. singapore airlines is HANDS DOWN the best best bestest. their service is great, and sometimes i even wish the trans-pacific flights were LONGER so i can watch more on-demand tv and movies! also deserving honorable mentions are cathay pacific and emirates. seriously, you will wonder how it is possible for all the us airlines to suck so badly in comparison.
Similar experience at JFK – different airline. Never flying through JFK again. All the “customer service” people hate customers.
American Airlines stinks. They have stews who deny passengers oxygen, empty oxygen tanks, faulty defibrillators, faulty wiring that could cause a fuel tank explosion, stews who throw chips and pour water over a passenger’e head, delays, lost luggage and masturbating passengers who leave sperm in the hair of another passenger, etc. They also have a CEO who obviously can’t handle the airline. If he could why are there so many problems on American? I think Arpey should be a ring master at a carnival with a Big Top tent. Whenever there is bad press Arpey sends a spokesperson to cover his rear. I have read nothing but bad things about AA and I have flown them and my flight was horrible. I will never fly or deal with this airline ever again. They had to wait for the FAA to ground them before they did standard maintenance on their planes. This could have been disasterous.
I was actually sexually assaulted by pilots out of O’hare Airport. They told me not to bother calling the police because they could get away with it and have done this many times before. They claimed they had over 400 victims and the count is still rising. These men are pigs and deserve maximum jail time. They destroyed everything that I owned including my clothes and belongings. They said women are meant to be abused and do not deserve to have nice things. I hope one day they are caught and justice prevails.
Please read myspace.com/airlinegangstalkers
I was sexually assasulted by AA and Continental pilots out of O’Hare Airport. These pilots are stinking, filthy pigs and so are the fake rag FAs who help them. The FAs out of O’hare are not real FAs, there is a huge group who are hermphadites who help these pilots rape women. I am exposing this ring by telling my story, please beware when you are near AA and/or Continental, I don’t want to see this happen to anyone else. These people are sick.
At my assault, the pilots asked if I would prostitute for them for a year for pilots on layover out O’Hare, of course, I said, “No,” so they continue to stalk and terrorize me. These guys are sick. Make sure you know what is in the cockpit or galley before you fly this line, if you ever fly this shit line of slobs. Insist on finding out if the FAs are real by questioning their ability. Only real FAs should be on aircraft.
Disgusting pigs.