American Airlines: Bad customer service makes it the worst airline in my Books…another experience
April 9, 2008
A few days back I had the opportunity to travel to the British West Indies. The airline that I had originally booked on called me up the night before informing me of a mechanical failure on the plane I was suppose to be on the next morning for a direct flight. The company representative said “Sorry Sir, but we cannot get another plane into NY within 24 hrs but what I can do is book you on American Airlines to Miami, then you will have to switch to your designated carrier from there. I gladly accepted since I had no alternative. When I got to my final destination in the BVI, I waited and waited and waited for my luggage. It never came! Not surprised, I approached the baggage claims dept informing them of the situation. They said that it usually happens and to be patient. Great, I said. After returning and retrieving my bag at the airport about 7 hrs later, I decided to ask what the issue for the delay was. I was told that my bags were sitting in Miami because American Airlines failed to take it on time to my continuing carrier. What! Now if another flight was not scheduled from Miami to where I was that day, I would have had no bags due to a lack of responsibility from American Airlines.
This experience comes a few days earlier of a article published in USA TODAY “Airlines’ performance near 20-year low” 4/8/2008. The article was a review of a recent study conducted to access the operational performance of US airlines’ and noted that performance in 2007 was the worst in 20 years. Specifically, the study noted that performance dropped in on-time arrival, involuntary bumping, mishandled luggage and customer complaints compared with 2006. As noted in the article, non of the carriers improved their scores from 2006 and American Eagle and Comair were the worst in baggage category and US Airways was the worst among large carriers.
Airline service quality rankings:
|
Rank
|
||
|
Airline
|
2007
|
2006
|
|
Airtran
|
1
|
3
|
|
JetBlue
|
2
|
2
|
|
Southwest
|
3
|
6
|
|
Northwest
|
4
|
5
|
|
Frontier
|
5
|
4
|
|
Continental
|
6
|
7
|
|
Alaska
|
7
|
9
|
|
United
|
8
|
8
|
|
American
|
9
|
10
|
|
Delta
|
10
|
12
|
|
US Airways
|
11
|
13
|
|
Mesa
|
12
|
15
|
|
SkyWest
|
13
|
14
|
|
Comair
|
14
|
16
|
|
American Eagle
|
15
|
17
|
|
Atlantic Southeast
|
16
|
18
|
Hawaiian Airlines No 1 in last year’s survey was not included in the analysis…no reason was given. Rank No 11 was also a mystery. American, Northwest and US Airways were the worst performers among large carriers. Less than 70% of their flights arrived on time. This study was conducted by Dean Headley of Wichita State University and Brent Bowen of the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Andrew
- There are no related posts.
People who read this, also read...
Comments
One Response to “American Airlines: Bad customer service makes it the worst airline in my Books…another experience”
Got something to say?
I haven’t had the pleasure of traveling with AA, but I came across 80 people who have. Here is a review of American Airlines by 80 people. It gave AA an overall rating of 3.5 out of 10.
Not all the reviews are negative, but from the overall rating it received you can guess what the majority of those 80 people thought about American Airlines service.
Click here to read the review and even add your own (good or bad).