Flight operations are admittedly incredibly complex, and that is something that most passengers miss. I’m pretty forgiving of delays because I understand what it takes to make a flight on time (although admittedly some airlines are better at that than others). Here’s something I can’t deal with … American flight status for rolling delaysDelta and United are both good at providing accurate flight status to the best of their ability in the event of irregular flight operations:
And then you have American Airlines … I had booked a flight from Charlotte to Tampa this morning that was long, rolling delay (and eventually canceled). Hopefully the flight status monitor images below give you a sense of my frustration (the time on the left side of the monitor is the scheduled time of departure and the time in the lower right corner of the monitor is the time the image was taken). Also note that all of these pictures were taken prior to boarding. That’s right, at 10:40 am, the flight was supposed to start at 10.30 am, even though boarding hadn’t even started and there wasn’t even a full crew operating the flight. Is that too much?There are constant delays and I understand the reasons why airlines sometimes cannot find a crew for a flight. But if you have a 196-passenger plane and boarding has not yet started (let alone the fact that no crew has been assigned to the flight), why is it so difficult to at least consistently book a departure time of 25+ minutes? the future? I don’t see a single reason why a computer shouldn’t be programmed to do this easily. It shows such a disrespect for passengers’ time. American’s failure to update the flight status monitor resulted in large numbers of passengers crowding the gate for hours. Many passengers arrived at the gate around 8:30 a.m. and stood there until the flight was canceled around 12:30 p.m. All because they thought the flight was leaving in a few minutes, because that was the only information they were given. Well, the decision to overcrowd the gate of course depends on the passengers not really understanding how flight operations work (that’s the amount that American flies through Charlotte these days), although it doesn’t change anything that people are really concerned about were they’d miss the flight if they left. I heard a passenger go to the gate agent and ask if they could use the toilet, which was literally across from the gate without the risk of missing the flight. There weren’t many updates from the gate agents either, other than “We don’t know what’s going on”. Showing a departure time of 25+ minutes in the future seems to be in the best interests of the airline and its customers. It would allow people to keep a little distance, find a quieter place to sit, and not be so frustrated. Instead, passengers cheered loudly every time a pilot or flight attendant in uniform came to the gate thinking it was the missing crew (in reality, it was just staff trying to get a seat on the flight to get home). I suppose if there is any silver lining it is that the American Airlines app now has push notifications when boarding begins. This is useful if you know your way around, but I guess most people couldn’t understand this. Bottom lineAmong the major airlines in the United States, I find American by far the worst when it comes to updating flight status to account for delays. I understand that there are rolling delays and American may not know when a flight is actually departing. However, I think we all agree that at 10:40 a.m., an airline should not tell its passengers that the flight is leaving at 10:30 a.m. even though boarding has not yet started. Can anyone shed some light on why Americans are so bad at this? Does the airline just don’t care, doesn’t the airline think the passengers care or what? This seems like such a simple solution! Via https://globalconnekt.com/why-is-american-so-bad-at-updating-flight-status/
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