American Airlines struggles with delays, canceled flights

Analyst: Hasn’t been ‘a great airline for most of the 2000s’

DALLAS — Lora Paine’s summer beach trip to Florida to celebrate a new job now brings back only frustrating memories.

Her American Airlines flight from California to Fort Walton Beach turned into a nightmarish weekend of flight delays, cancellations and intermittent sleep in airport terminals.

She spent an extra night at DFW International Airport because of a delayed flight, then an extra day at Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport on her return trip.

When she got a ticket back home, her plane dripped water from an overhead leak until a fellow passenger stopped the leak with feminine pads.

“The flight attendants didn’t care that water was dripping on me,” said Paine, a 28-year-old project developer at a commercial solar company.

Experiences such as Paine’s are plentiful in 2019, with passengers of Fort Worth-based American complaining of mangled flight plans, upended vacations, snarky employees and hourslong waits on tarmacs.

Delays, cancellations and angry passengers peaked this summer as American Airlines saw its fleet squeezed by the grounding of Boeing 737 Max jets and a dispute with union mechanics that a federal judge said was responsible for taking more planes out of service.

Passenger horror stories spread through angry Twitter rants and distressing posts on Facebook.

Southwest Airlines, the other major carrier based in North Texas, also has struggled this year with on-time arrivals and cancellations. It endured springtime strife with its mechanics union and lost a portion of its fleet to the Max grounding.

But American is the airline industry’s summer lightning rod. Statistics and industry experts testify to the same thing: American is falling behind on getting its customers where they want to go on time, if they get there at all.

“American has not been a great airline for most of the 2000s,” said Henry Harteveldt, a travel and airline industry analyst.

“Even before the recent problems, it’s been unable to

operate at a high level of punctuality and reliability.”

‘It is top of mind’

For Paine, the most frustrating part of her botched trip was watching other airlines around her run smoothly during the July 4 weekend. She said American canceled or delayed flight after flight, citing mechanical malfunctions, staffing shortages and weather delays.

“It was absolutely American’s fault,” Paine said. “They kept saying it was weather, weather, weather, but all the other airlines were running without delays.”

American’s management is aware of the problems and complaints in 2019 and before, said Julie Rath, the company’s vice president of customer planning.

“It is top of mind and top of discussion with every leader in the company,” Rath said.

Weather, the Max and mechanics are major factors in recent struggles, Rath said. But she said last year’s performance wasn’t what the company hoped for either. Data for the first six months of 2019 also aren’t kind to American.

Among major airlines, American is last in on-time arrivals, with 22.5% of flights coming in late, according to U.S. Department of Transportation statistics. Another 2.8% of American flights were canceled, good for second to last among the four major airlines, a number driven up by hundreds of flights canceled when the Max was taken out of service.

American also lagged behind its competitors during the same period last year, particularly Delta Air Lines and United Airlines.

Harteveldt said American’s stumble in on-time performance makes it a liability to travel planners.

”All of this has had a cumulative effect,” he said. “It puts more pressure on American to offer the best price and buy business with the lowest fares.”

This summer, American lost the title as the world’s largest airline to Delta or United, depending on the measure. Delta brought in more revenue than American in the second quarter of this year, while United flew passengers more miles.

Both Delta and United have consistently beaten American on profits in recent years.

Mechanics and the Max

American blames work slowdowns by union mechanics and the Max grounding for much of the problems.

In May, it took the Transport Workers Union and International Association of Machinists to court to show the unions representing 30,000 American maintenance workers were staging an illegal job action to influence contract negotiations.

A federal judge sided with American earlier this month, ruling that union workers brought on flight delays and cancellations by refusing overtime, taking

more time on jobs and turning down off-site assignments. The airline then asked the judge to impose sanctions against the unions “sufficient to compensate American for losses caused.”

Over the last two months, American said union mechanics caused more than 950 flight cancellations and 280 delays of two-hours or more, disrupting travel for 170,000 customers.

Just a month after the alleged slowdown by mechanics started in February, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded Max aircraft after two deadly crashes overseas.

American has 24 Max jets in its fleet, the second-most of any carrier, and was expecting more to be delivered this year. Southwest has the most with 34.

The Max trouble is responsible for American cutting 115 flights a day, the company said.

Bad luck has worsened performance, too. American counted 25 intense storms so far this year at its main DFW hub. There also have been problems with air traffic

control systems, GPS and other technical issues that delayed passengers.

‘Don’t do it’

Paine said she hopes to avoid flying American ever again. On top of delays, she spent more than $1,000 at airports on food and an emergency last-minute ticket on United when she suspected her American flight might not take off.

For her troubles, she was given a $155 voucher. American pays customers for hotel rooms and other expenses if the delay is the company’s fault, but not if it’s caused by weather or circumstances beyond the airline’s control.

For severe delays and cancellations, it prefers to give miles or vouchers for future flights.

“They told me it wasn’t supposed to pay for the cost of my flight, it was just a gesture of goodwill,” Paine said.

“If anyone asks me about flying on American, I’ll give them a fair warning: Don’t do it.”