American Airlines

✅ Trip Verified | Never ever again will I fly this company. I fly at least 4 times a year and it was my second time using American Airlines. The first one was a nightmare, well the second was even worse. Now I will pay any money to avoid this company. They delay flights every time without an explanation, service is not friendly, we had an emergency landing and got home 6 (!) hours later than planned. And they don’t even apologize. Absolutely the worst company.

✅ Trip Verified | Horrible experience and no customer service. My daughter flew to go to school oversees on a flight operated by American Airlines. The baggage claim ticket stated AA, but when she arrived at her destination, they would not help even though her luggage was lost on the AA leg of the flight. They would accept no responsibility, instead blaming the last leg of the flight which was with Iberia. Iberia will not respond at all about reimbursing expenses and AA will not offer any assistance. My daughter was in a foreign country without her luggage for 9 days. I called AA 3 times and they could not care less. They do not care about their customers and will do nothing to help you if you have an issue. Worst customer service ever!

✅ Trip Verified | They don’t really care about customer relations. I have seen several times that they overbook the flights when seriously, with advent of technology, it can clearly be avoided. They don’t even have enough staff at airports to run things smoothly. Let me tell you what I went through: 1) First my flight from Cedar Rapids to Chicago was delayed by 3 hours. You know how far Chicago is from Cedar Rapids? Just 30 minutes if we go by air. This has happened to me twice. You know airlines from other countries are carrying passengers on their transatlantic flights without delays, cancellations and excellent customer service. Its about time they visit those countries and take a lesson on how to provide a valuable customer service. 2) Then, they let everyone board the plane but somehow manage to find an excuse to not take off. We had to wait for take-off on tarmac for 2 hours and on top of that, the pilot doesn’t even announce periodically what is going on. This was agonizing for so many passengers. I purposely selected this flight because I had a 3 hour layover in Chicago and I was going to meet my friend, but because of delays caused by American Airlines, I will have to wait for another couple of months. Don’t even tell me it was a weather related delay as it was sunny! They clearly either didn’t have pilots or planes to provide the service and yet, booked us knowing very well that their services were not adequate in any way. I reached Chicago Airport at 5.30 pm when I was supposed to arrive there around 2.30 pm. But this was just the beginning. 3) Then while waiting for my next plane out of Chicago to Newark, they very cleverly increased the delay by 15-20 minutes at one time so that customers don’t cancel with them and fly with any other airlines because when you incrementally delay flights by 15 minutes, customers are more likely to stay with that particular airline in order to reach their destination. Whereas, if you had displayed from the beginning that it was 2-3 hours delay, customers were more likely to look for other options to reach their destination. 4) Then we boarded the plane at 8.30 pm, 2.5 hours after scheduled time and the same thing happened. We were on the runway for the next 2.5 hours. 2.5 hours! For what? No one knows. Crew failed to provide any update. There was no weather delays again. After 2.5 hours, the pilot turned the plane back to gate telling that he has completed his hours and couldn’t fly. Tell me about commitment levels displayed by American Airlines. Clearly, there is nothing American about your airlines anymore. 5) Then, I was told bags will arrive at carousel 6 and they arrived at carousel 7 instead. Ground staff in baggage claim area didn’t even have a clue that my flight was cancelled. When I asked about where was my bag, I gave him my bag ticket and he was said “what was texture of your bag, what color was your bag”? What sort of ridiculous questions were they? 7) Now, I had to skip my whole day at work. Horrible!

✅ Trip Verified | My sister and I scheduled a flight together and paid extra to claim seats next to each other. Her flight was canceled completely until the next day. We are returning from our trip and her flight and my flight are delayed. Our connecting flight was delayed. Her previous trip was delayed last time she took AA. Don’t take this airline. I went to the desk for help in DFW and the lady didn’t acknowledge my presence. I bought WiFi for $10/an hour and it took 3-5 min per click to download. Never an apology from anyone for the delays.

✅ Trip Verified | Jacksonville to New York via Charlotte. Sleeping at CLT: How a flight crew laid waste our $4105.29 AA Vacation family weekend in New York. First, when I wrote my review of our AA Vacations Westin La Paloma trip in April, I didn't think that experience could be worsted (opposite of bested), so I didn't expect to be writing about another superlatively bad AA Vacation again, at least not so soon. I was wrong. The moral of this story is if you value the welfare of your family, your time and your money, don't rely on AA Vacations. But I've gotten ahead of myself. Here's our story. Things went beautifully on the first leg of what was to have been a fun family weekend in NY to celebrate the end of our son's school year. We sped through TSA pre, were greeted courteously at the gate and took our assigned seats in first class on AA1937. After a pleasant short flight to Charlotte, we connected to AA1981 bound for LaGuardia. When that flight didn't push away on time, the captain announced from the flight deck that a "minor technical issue" would hold us up briefly. I followed a running text stream of delay notices from AA on my phone. Then I received the dreaded notice of cancellation. Oddly, the flight crew were still telling us that the “technical issue” was in the process of being fixed. Specifically, the pilot advised that the copilot had flown too many hours to legally make the trip to NY and AA was on the hunt for a replacement. When I told the cabin attendant that the flight had been cancelled, she passed the news to the captain who, nonplussed, announced that "apparently American Airlines notifies passengers of cancellations before telling its crew." We were advised to deplane and come back at 7:00 a.m. the following day. I immediately called AA Vacations who had booked as part of our package non-refundable tickets for activities and events on Saturday. I got a terrific agent named Kristen who nimbly booked us on a flight to Newark. She even kept our first-class status! All we had to do was run the mile from the end of terminal C to the end of terminal B before the flight's scheduled 10:00 departure. We needn't have run. The flight to Newark was delayed due to a mechanical. First 11:00, then 12:00, then vouchers to Starbucks, then 1:00, then first class boarded, then we were told to deplane, then 2:00; and then it was cancelled. The gate agent, a terrific woman with a superman pin affixed to her purse, explained sincerely sympathetically that because NASCAR was in town there were no hotel rooms left in Charlotte. Like Tom Hanks in The Terminal we were to live in the airport for the night. No options. We dragged ourselves back to gate C19, the assigned departure gate for AA9200, boarding at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday. We were heartened to see an airplane already parked there. With nothing to eat, no place to sleep and no cardboard boxes, we were all newly sympathetic to street people. We put as cheerful a face on the five hour night as we could. When boarding time came, we didn't board. The plane that had been sitting at gate C19, on which we had hung the night's hopes was "the wrong size." Yes, the gate agent said he had been given an airplane "the wrong size" for the number of passengers booked. I could feel the crowd of passengers working itself into a mob. Since most like us had been bumped from the CLT/LGA and CLT/EWR flights the night before, I could well sympathize.

✅ Trip Verified | I purchased tickets Mar. 17 which had us flying out of PDX and arriving in Cozumel the same day. In Sept. 17, I received an email that AA changed our reservations. It seemed fine since it was a shorter travel time than the original tickets. The a.m. of the flight we arrived to check in at PDX, and during the self-check in, we got a priority slip. We took it to the ticket counter and learned that when AA changed our flights, they did not allow their own “mandatory” 50 minutes for the connection flight. As such, they refused to allow us to catch our connection from DFW to CZM. Keep in mind that this was their mandatory layover time and they made the change that didn’t conform to it! AA was unable to locate a flight that would get us into Cozumel the same day, so we were forced to incur an overnight layover at DFW. To add insult to injury, each leg of each flight they were challenged to allow me and my fiancé sit together. We would have to pay at the ticket gate to move seats. Um, we purchased our tickets at the same time, is it too far of a stretch to consider we might want to sit together! So, for four flights we had to take extra time to “sweet talk” the gate agent into letting us sit together. Unbelievable! Due to the layover resulting from AA’s error, we were forced to incur additional hotel and meal costs, spend time rearranging transfers, contacting the hotel, etc., lost an entire day of vacation time/pay, lost our all-inclusive charges and hotel charge from the hotel in Cozumel, stressed out having to pick up the pieces because of AA’s mistake, and now I’m getting the pleasure of fighting with AA since they are only offering is a $250 flight voucher for each of us. That doesn’t come close to compensating for the time, money, and trouble they caused. And actually, at this point, I wish I were fighting with them. They’ve gone incommunicado. Won’t call when they say they will, won’t return calls. and, who would want vouchers from this joke of an airline? The only silver lining was the accommodating flight attendants. Otherwise, this company ought to be ashamed of themselves. Based on my research, this isn’t a one off.

✅ Trip Verified | The staff at the gate was by far the worst I have encountered in my life. After making an announcement over the PA system that bags could be checked complementary, I walked up to do so. We had 2 bags that we weren't going to need thru the flight, plus our back packs. She looked us up and proceeded to become incredibly rude and told us that we had to empty our carry ons and try to cram everything into our backpacks and throw away our brand new carry-on luggage, or pay $210 to check them. After making the announcement that they would check them complementary. She was not helpful, made my daughter cry because we had to choose if what personal items to keep or throw away. We're moving cross country and have downsized to the point that it fit into our luggage, and now forced to throw away extremely sentimental items and look like fools and spoken to like preschoolers.

Not Verified | Harrisburg to Philadelphia. This was the worst experience my husband and I have ever had with an airline. There were consistent delays which then caused issues for us to get to our connecting flight in Philadelphia which was the only flight to Athens. We were given incorrect information by the ticketing department on the phone, which then led us to drive the entire way to Philadelphia. We have spent hours trying to figure out a way to be compensated and they have the worst customer service! We will never use American Airlines again and be sure to make our family and friends aware of the issues they have caused us.

✅ Trip Verified | Don’t fly this airline if you check in bags. A frequent business traveler flying American for many years up until now. 50% of the times I check in bags they are broken into. These are locked and usally broken into in Dallas. Complained for many years got money back for stolen articles but nothing has changed. American can’t seem to fix the problem. This is my last American flight because I can’t depend on their security.

Not Verified | Chicago to Rome. American Airlines, never again to be used on a Transatlantic flight. My partner and I traveled from Chicago to Rome on April 8 and even though I was charged almost $200 more to just be seated together on the only few two seaters available on this flight, it turned out to be the trip from purgatory. The FA kept hitting my shoulder all night long as she was walking back and forth down the aisle. I asked if they had a self service cart with juice/water and snacks in the back galley like most civilized airlines do and the told me it was not the case on this flight. The meal was really average nothing to scream alleluia about. I will truly go out of my way to avoid this company when flying overseas. Why do they call this aircraft the Dreamliner? Perhaps if you travel in First or Business - not so in regular economy. Very disappointed indeed.