American Airlines’ rough summer
Cancellations, delays leaving many stranded.
Ethan Wolfe wasn’t fazed when American Airlines delayed his flight three times before he got to Los Angeles International Airport Sunday.
It was the next 13 delays that day that infuriated the 23-year-old music teacher on his way back from a barbershop quartet competition.
The mechanical problems started immediately after boarding. Dent in the engine had to be taped. Crew timed out, everyone off the plane. Air valve issue, followed by a scary brake problem. Another crew timed out. Everyone off the plane for the night.
At 4:30 a.m. Monday, more than 12 hours after he arrived at the airport and about the time he should have been waking up at home in Philadelphia, Wolfe was checking into a La Quinta hotel 41 miles from LAX. American Flight 481 ended up departing Monday afternoon, 21 hours late.
“It was one of those things that, as it unfolded, everyone on the plane, we kind of couldn’t believe it the longer it went on,” he said.
Wolfe is one of tens of thousands of American passengers caught up in what the airline calls a “brutal” situation: a spike in cancellations and delays because of maintenance issues. It has snared vacationers such as Wolfe and frequent flyers, including Sen. Marco Rubio.
American Airlines blames mechanics unions
The airline blames it on a prolonged work slowdown by its mechanics unions to gain leverage in contract negotiations. It says workers are taking an “inordinately long time to repair aircraft” and are refusing overtime work.
American warned of summer travel trouble when it sued the Transport Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO and International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers just before Memorial Day. The unions say there is no organized slowdown and blames American management for the operational woes. American’s pilot union also pins the blame on management for not having enough pilots to fill in when problems arise.
The two sides have been in contract talks since 2015 following the American-US Airways merger.
A dispute between Southwest and its mechanics led to heavy flight cancellations and delays earlier this year.
A federal judge immediately granted American’s request for a temporary restraining order in mid-June, but the
maintenance cancellations continue a month later. It’s as if the temporary restraining order was never issued, the airline says.
In a court filing this week seeking additional measures to compel the union to comply with the temporary restraining order and stop the slowdown, American said it canceled nearly 600 flights because of maintenance issues in the three weeks after the temporary restraining order was granted June 14, affecting 85,000 passengers, including Wolfe. That compares with 644 “mechanics-caused” cancellations over a roughly two month period (March 8May 13), the airline says.
American said the number of aircraft out of service at the beginning of the day, which has ripple effects on American’s operation and hurts its ability to recover from storms, hit 66 on June 18, one of the highest levels ever and nearly double the level of unscheduled aircraft out of service American builds into its schedule.
“The combined effect of the mechanics’ refusal to comply with the temporary restraining order has been brutal,” American said in the court filing.
Add in a spike in weather cancellations, especially at American’s mammoth Dallas hub, which has been hit with a series of storms, and the carrier and its passengers are having a miserable summer.
American flight cancellations outpace other airlines
American led the industry in overall cancellations in June, with 4% of flights canceled, according to aviation data company masFlight. The airline canceled
3,900 flights, compared with nearly 1,600 in June 2018.
And it is on track to take the dubious crown in July, too. American has canceled more than 3% of its July flights through July 10, according to masFlight, with 970 cancellations versus 366 in the same period a year ago.
Airlines generally aim to keep the cancellation rate at 1% or below.
The poor performance this summer comes after American’s executives pledged to get the operation back on track following an unexpectedly poor summer in 2018.
“We are dedicated to improving our operations reliability and that work has already taken hold, and we’re excited about how we’ll perform ... throughout 2019,” American CEO Doug Parker told Wall Street analysts in January.
The extended Boeing 737 Max grounding, which took 24 planes out of American’s fleet beginning March 13, has forced thousands of flight cancellations and given the airline less flexibility when things go wrong, but they represented a fraction of the airline’s fleet of 950 aircraft, and those cancellations have been done in advance.
‘People are just mad’ at American
Brett Snyder, whose Cranky Concierge travel service includes help rebooking canceled and delayed flights, has heard an earful about American. “People are just mad,” he said. Passengers don’t care whether their flight is canceled for a mechanical issue, weather or other reasons, Snyder said. “All they really know is that American is not running a good operation,” he said.
American says it’s doing everything it can
American acknowledges its nonstop flight woes this summer might drive travelers to other airlines, short term or permanently.
“You always have to worry about damage, but I fully believe that we can get our customers to fly with us by continuing to take care of them,” said Julie Rath, vice president of customer experience, innovation and delivery.
The airline is automatically rebooking passengers on other flights and seeking volunteers in advance on packed flights to free up space for potential rebookings as needed. Travelers who volunteer get a voucher, travelers who are delayed or canceled get to their destination more quickly.
American also is letting employees put travelers on other airlines as needed to make an important event, loosening a policy it tightened last fall.
And in June, the airline’s frequentflyer program started pulling daily reports on flight troubles encountered by members, zeroing in on those with repeated problems and reaching out to them by phone.
“They’re going to, most importantly, apologize and they’re also going to talk with the customer. Did they have any out-of-pocket expenses? And offer miles or a voucher for future travel,” Rath said.
What’s a stranded passenger to do?
Wolfe isn’t a frequent flyer, but he’s waiting for American to do something for passengers on Flight 481 beyond covering the hotel and offering a $12 meal voucher. The flight took off 21 hours late.
He reached out on Twitter during the chaos and received a $150 voucher but says that’s not enough for the troubles, which included several hours on a plane that never took off.
He has submitted a complaint to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Aviation Consumer Protection Division.
Beyond the delays and getting stranded overnight, Wolfe said American needs to apologize for how he and other passengers were treated during the ordeal, especially as the night dragged on.
He was especially peeved by attitudes of the customer service reps at the airport when the plane was scrubbed for the night at 2 a.m. .
“We were treated like we were a problem,” he said. “They were annoyed that we were there. And they were annoyed that we were annoyed.”