Saturday, June 14, 2008

Today was a long day of travel. It began with my early morning SuperShuttle ride to LAX to catch my flight to Chicago where I would meet the other Roy W Howard winners and supervisors of the trip. When I was picked up at 6:50 am, I was mad at SuperShuttle for picking me up so early. But when I got to LAX, I began to see that maybe it wasn’t a bad idea...

American Airlines has very poor consumer service. Lines do not exist; there are only blobs of people, many of whom had no idea why they are where they are and what awaits them at the front of the line.

I was herded first into a line for self-service check-in, which is not uncommon nowadays for airlines. But as I stood in line to check my one piece of luggage, several thoughts entered my mind: 1) I should have crammed everything into a small carry-on luggage as to avoid future baggage lines and 2) the line did not appear to be moving.

With approximately 100 early morning travelers, I only saw around 6 agents. I waited in my stationary line for about 45 minutes. 45 minutes to hand my one piece of luggage to the agent and walk away. I felt very disgruntled with American Airlines, but I thought I would give the airline the benefit of the doubt.

Again, I was disappointed. When I landed at Chicago O’Hare, I was told my luggage would be at carousel 8. Along with the other passengers of AA 54, I waited. And waited. I waited as luggage after luggage was taken off the carousel…by passengers of another AA flight that landed after mine did. Only then were we told that our luggage was actually going to carousel 7, not carousel 8, haha sorry about that mistake. My luggage still did not come out for good 45 minutes.

Other passengers on my flight looked irritated and relieved to be done with AA 54 and with American Airlines. The economy may be going under and airlines may be cutting costs, increasing fares and adding baggage fees, but there should be no compromise of consumer satisfaction.

**added Saturday, June 28, 2008: please note this post was written directly after my unsatisfactory encounter with American Airlines, thus the irritated tone