You 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.Airports across the United States have been plunged into chaos leading into the July 4 holiday weekend as thousands of passengers were hit with flight disruptions.
Airlines in the US will be looking to steady operations after a week of flight delays and cancellations , as the number of people flying has continued to increase after dipping to its lowest levels during the Covid-19 pandemic.United Airlines, with a major hub in Newark, New Jersey, canceled about 786 flights, or 26 per cent of its schedule on Tuesday. JetBlue canceled 16 per cent of its flights, as per FlightAware.As of Thursday morning, United Airlines was “still trying to catch up”, Good Morning America reported. The airline carrier had cancelled over 300 flights, or about 10 per cent of its operations, by the time the show was broadcast.
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With over 52,500 scheduled flights, travel is expected to peak on Thursday – likely to be the biggest travel day of the long holiday period.
A spokesperson for United Airlines told Fox Business the disruptions were due to “several consecutive days of severe weather and lingering thunderstorms in the Northeast” along with “FAA Federal Aviation Administration) staffing constraints”.Transport secretary Pete Buttigieg, whose department the FAA falls under, told GMA the airline carrier “seems to have some issues that are specific” to it.Statistics make clear that FAA availability issues are not even close to being the number one cause of delays and cancellations,” Mr Buttigieg said, adding that “we do want more cushioning in terms of the air traffic controller workforce”.
The FAA has admitted that it is understaffed at key facilities, including one in the New York City region.Last week, the Transportation Department’s inspector general said in a report that the FAA has made only “limited efforts” to adequately staff critical air traffic control centers and lacks a plan to tackle the problem, according to the Associated Press.
Pictures obtained by the Daily Mail capture chaos at different airports across the United States; in one photograph, travellers can be seen crowding a United Airlines customer service booth at Houston airport.
Another shows baggage pile-up at JFK in New York. In a photo taken at LAX in Los Angeles, travellers can be seen forming long queues at the check-in counters.
A passenger at Newark airport, Dean Wheelan told GMA: “It’s my third day here, I was supposed to fly to Miami. We lost our cruise, we had to pay for it. And now they can’t find our bags.”
Margo and Jason Osborne, who were impacted by a United flight cancellation in Newark, reported seeing people looking for unaccompanied minors and heard about stranded travelers who spent hours in line or slept at the airport.
“All these poor people are literally just sitting there at the mercy of a company who is not doing anything to help them,” Margo told the Associated Press. “There is zero customer service right now.”
In a statement to GMA, a spokesperson for United Airlines said it wil be “on-track to restore operations” by the holiday weekend, and will be asking off-duty flight attendants to work those flights.US airport chaos as nearly 9,000 flights disrupted ahead of busy July 4 travel weekend