Dear American Airlines,
Let me tell you about the awesome vacation my husband and I
had planned. It was to start with a noon
flight to Miami, arriving late evening but still early enough to grab some
dinner, get a good night’s sleep in our nice hotel, and spend the next day
exploring Miami. Between 2-3 pm we would
take a leisurely taxi over to the Port of Miami to catch a 4 night, 5 day
cruise around the Bahamas. We purposely
left this extra day so that we’d be sure to catch our ship. Coming from SLC to Miami in one day is pretty
hard, so the extra day’s cushion would remove any stress of not making our
cruise.
This whole trip was a reward for months of hard work on a big project. We were so excited. We bribed, begged, and cajoled relatives to
watch our 3 young kids. Because my
husband’s client was paying for the cruise, we decided to splurge and get a penthouse
suite. It comes with a BUTLER! And it’s something we’d probably never be
able to afford otherwise. This was going
to be the best vacation ever!
And then American Airlines entered the picture. At 4am Sunday morning (Dec 9), we got a
recorded call from AA saying that our flight was cancelled due to weather
conditions in our connecting airport, DFW.
The recording said we were rescheduled to arrive TUESDAY (a day after
our cruise was to set sail). It said if
we needed to change this, to call the number.
So we called the number and were put on a call-back list. About 6 HOURS LATER (during which we laid
awake, stressing), AA finally returned the call. They managed to book us on a red-eye flight
through LAX, departing 7:30pm and arriving 6am. While a red eye is not ideal, and would replace
our fun night in a Miami hotel with a horrible night trying to sleep on a
plane, it was still plenty of time to get to our boat. So we booked a second (cheaper) hotel where
we could sleep for a few hours after arriving in Miami, and then we waited to
leave for the airport.
We got to the SLC airport about 6pm (through low temps and
snow), checked in, and went to our gate.
There our AA flight was delayed an hour due to mechanical problems. Then it changed to two hours. We were now going to miss our connection in
LA. I went back down to the ticket desk
to see what could be done. And very
little could be done. All flights
through LAX were taken, and all flights out of LAX first thing in the morning
were full. Finally the agent was
persuaded to put us on a flight at 11:47 to JFK where we would switch to a
flight to Miami, arriving at 10:30am. Now
we had to cancel our second hotel—we would no longer have time to catch up on
our missed sleep. But we would still
have plenty of time to get to the boat. So we waited 5 hours in that cold airport
entry with our now unchecked bags. Then
after boarding we sat on the plane for 1 ½ hours while the airport slowly used
1 truck to de-ice the plane. It caused
such a delay that we missed our connection in JFK.
Not to worry, we were scheduled for our third attempt to get
to Miami: on the next flight out of JFK, an AA flight arriving in Miami at
12:30, still in time to get to our ship if everything went smoothly. But it did not. That AA flight had mechanical issues as well. We sat fully boarded on the plane for 2 hours
while they kept saying “15 more minutes,” “15 more minutes.” Finally at noon they got us off that plane to
switch to another plane. I asked the pilot,
who was standing at the gate desk, if there were any other flights to
Miami. He said yes, there was one at
12:30 right across from our gate, but ours would be way faster. As soon as the plane arrived from the
hanger, he said, we’d be on our way, well before the other flight. However, an hour later the replacement plane
hadn’t even shown up. The other flight
to Miami across the way was now gone.
And we were still waiting to board.
Finally (1:30 now) the replacement plane arrived and we began boarding
that second plane. It took off on time
and arrived in Miami at 4:45pm. Our
cruise port was still 45 minutes away and we didn’t even have our bags. So, needless to say we missed our ship. We planned a flight that departed 29 hours
before our ship’s departure, just to be safe, and still we missed that
boat. And that is entirely due to
American Airlines and their fleet of broken airplanes.
To make matters worse, the flight we were put on to get to
Nassau, where we would wait 2 days in a pitiful hotel until our boat arrived,
was….you guessed it! DELAYED. Again, due to a broken airplane.
When we (and the other 10 passengers from AA who missed the
boat with us) finally arrived in the Bahamas after midnight, the AA
representative who met us was surly and wouldn’t even speak to us for ½ hour. Eventually she gave us vouchers which she
said were for 2 night’s hotel, but the next day at the hotel they informed us
that the vouchers were only good for one day.
The food vouchers we were given wouldn’t even cover the cost of coffee for
breakfast at the hotel or a sandwich for lunch.
Our rooms were dark, damp basement rooms. The beds were rock hard. And did they come with a huge aft balcony or
a butler? Or all-inclusive food? NO.
Our once-in-a-lifetime vacation aboard a penthouse suite was cut down to
1 ½ days in airports, 1 ½ days in a sub-par hotel, and only 1 ½ days of 5 on
our would-be amazing cruise.
I realize that there is nothing can be done about bad weather. And it is unfortunate that our first leg was
cancelled due to ice at DFW. But every
other attempt (four in total!) to get to Miami was delayed due to incompetence
and mechanical issues on the part of American Airlines. How can you justify this? And more importantly, how can you compensate
us for more than ½ of the best vacation of our life that we missed? How can you compensate us for the time we
spent sitting in airports, missing sleep, and sleeping on hotel beds so hard my
side was bruised the next day? How can
you compensate us for the time our relatives sacrificed so that we could take
this trip? You can’t. Plain and simple, you can never replace what
you took from us. But you should be
honorable and do your best to compensate us for the monetary and physical
portions of this trip that you were responsible for ruining.
Sincerely,
