Standing by for a flight on American Airlines has become an absolute mess. There are new rules that very few customers know about, and failing to follow these secret changes is costing customers hours of their time.
There’s no more running to the gate to catch an earlier flight. American now turns away nearly all customers who try to do this, even when there’s plenty of seats available.
And as American pushes almost everyone to self-serve, the technology doesn’t work right. People are getting stuck in airports for no good reason at all – because the airline thinks it lowers their costs, but by becoming less efficient and burning customer goodwill they’re actually both driving up expenses and costing themselves revenue.New American Airlines Rules For Getting On A Different Flight
American Airlines changed its rules this year to require customers to join the AAdvantage program in order to stand by for an earlier flight. Instead of pushing the rewards of the program, like free wifi at Delta, they’re often saying “we’ve screwed up and delayed you, and part of fixing screwups is being a member of AAdvantage.” But that isn’t all they did.They also said that standby must be added at least 45 minutes prior to a flight’s departure – no more landing early and running up to the gate of another flight just in time, making it home earlier than planned – unless you’re a Platinum Pro, Executive Platinum or ConciergeKey member.
Actually, no more running up to the gate at all, because customers now have to add standby options self-serve through American’s app or website. They want to reduce workload at the gate, because they’ve reduced staffing at the gate, and don’t want helping customers getting in the way of an on-time departure.
The problem is that customers do not know these are the new rules and also that the tech doesn’t work.Not Knowing The New Rules Means Not Getting On The Flight You Need
Customers are showing up at the gate or customer service, standing in line, and by the time they get to the front of the line the agent says they cannot be helped – standby must be added online or through the app. If they’d known that they could have added themselves at least 45 minutes prior to departure of the flight. But, having wasted time in line, it’s now too late.Using Required Self-Service Tools Still Gets You In Trouble
One reader reached out to me about a recent American Airlines trip where they wound up stranded at the airport for hours because American’s app didn’t work right to get them where they were going on standby. They also posted their story to social media.
An Executive Platinum in the AAdvantage program, they shouldn’t have to use the app. They’re still eligible to have an agent help them with standby. But things weren’t looking good for their travels, so they used the tool to get on the standby list when they were flying Washington Reagan National to Chicago O’Hare.The app let them list standby for multiple flights. That turns out to be a glitch – the airline only means to allow a customer to stand by for one flight at a time. And this glitch ended up being very costly to the traveler.
They showed up early enough to catch the 6 a.m. flight, and they were listed #1 for standby. The gate agent, though, said he wasn’t on the standby list at all because he was “on multiple lists.” The agent wouldn’t help correct things, said he was “busy” and then the agent skipped over this passenger clearing standbys.Customer service reiterates that he’d broken policy but then acknowledges the app shouldn’t have allowed this and that the agent should have just taken him of the other lists and cleared him as #1 to stand by on the 6 a.m. He thought this agent cleared this up.
Flight after flight he got blame and excuses and wound up at the airport for 14 hours.
I’ve verified this happened, it shouldn’t have, and that American should only have allowed standby for one flight at a time. They’re working to find and address the cause, but it was their fault. The self-service tools we’re all supposed to use now caused this passenger to get stuck for a dayYou Must Use The App, But It Can’t Do What Agents Used To
Another reader was flying Montreal to Charlotte and on to Raleigh. They arrived 20 minutes early into Charlotte, and their connection to Raleigh was delayed by two hours. They were looking at over 4 hours in Charlotte, but an earlier flight to Raleigh had seats available.
They asked at the gate about waitlisting for the earlier flight, and were told no – they had to use the app. The app wouldn’t allow it.The gate agent tells the customer that “non-status members can never standby at all” which isn’t true. The flight went out “with 18 seats available,” he couldn’t gotten where he was going as-planned but instead was stuck on an an hours-delayed flight instead for no good reason.Standby Policies Have Been Broken For Years
Even if the tools worked, American’s standby policies themselves have been broken ever since US Airways management took over. They’re far less generous than Delta and American allowing customers to use their network to get where they’re going.
For instance, in addition to not being able to seek an agent’s help to get on a different flight, passengers still have to follow their original routing. There may be plenty of space to get home through another hub, but outside of irregular operations, they can’t use it. Travel to or from a city with only one flight to the hub you’re ticketed through? You cannot standby or use same day confirmed change at all.
That undermines the entire value to the customer in having the largest domestic network and all those hubs.American Airlines Passengers Now Have To Use Tools That Do Not Work
American Airlines is not providing the tech tools to allow for self-service, and telling customers their only option is self-service. Gate agents can no longer do what they used to do for customers. That wastes passenger time, keeps them from getting home early and even on-time – suffering through delays unnecessarily – and keeps American from running an efficient operation moving passengers along and freeing up seats to get other people where they’re going or even seats to sell.