The next time you think about flying standby on American be ready to give the agent your name and $50. Starting with tickets purchased Feb. 22 anyone switching/changing flights will have to pay $50 for coach standby status. The days of hanging around the podium and hoping for an earlier flight are over! This excludes elite FF, First/Bus. class or high tier coach tickets, and military personnel. How long before they charge you to ask a question?

(Message edited by copperfieldkid on February 11, 2010)

SSSHHHH!!! don't give them any ideas

If flying domestically infrequently and avoiding bullshit fees is the criterion, one would be an idiot to fly the legacy carriers in the first place, and if they are your only option and you are a leisure traveler and airlines like Southwest are nowhere near you, you might consider MOVING?

For all of US, if you have no status on an airline, you're either an idiot (I WAS for YEARS, re: the airline FF game) or have status so these rules don't affect you.

Your average Kettle seeks out the lowest fare, regardless of routing. A triple hop starting with a six AM flight, a 6-hour layover in the afternoon, a final flight that gets you in a midnight - all this to fly to Florida once a year. They aren't going to fly standby in the first place, although they will show up at the airport 4 hours before their flight "just in case".

Baggage fees, charging for blankets, buy-on-board overpriced sandwiches - those are for Kettles, and I don't really have a problem with that. Charging for getting a standby seat is one of the dumbest fucking things I've ever seen and there's a very good reason why: Airlines should be happy when someone shows up early and takes an otherwise empty seat. That opens up a seat on a later flight for another passenger. It cuts down the number of potential end-of-the day problems, such as when weather cancels the last flight out or, in places like Boston where you routinely have delays of an hour or two in the evening.

American is doing this due to pure laziness. Just as shitty service on aircraft is blamed on "we're security first and service last", this is just a way to cut down on passengers actually asking gate agents to do their fucking jobs. Heaven forbid someone wants to get on a plane, the gate agent will actually have to talk to them and, even bigger horror, check the system to see if seats are available.

This kind of shit is just to paper over the fact that the legacy mainline carriers should simply go out of business. They don't like their customers and their customers don't like them. It's an Irish marriage at this point. I fly United due to the international aspect and all the free flights to Rio I get. For the Kettles who fly to see granny once a year, they should just fly Southwest or Airtran.

If you're AA status this doesn't matter, and if you are or aren't they can charge you a $150.00 change fee unless they decide to waive it because the change benefits them or they want to do you a favor on all discounted coach fares.

As to Senor Porker's comment, I know he's largely right, however I fly about eight trips from Chicago to Southern California each year for personal business. This takes me a good way towards renewing status at 3,500 miles for each round trip and with status these are worth double air miles earning a good part of an Asia trip. In the last five years I've done about three Asia trips per year and eight Chicago to San Diego trips a year. I get first class upgrades on about 60% of my domestic flights for free and about 65,0000 air miles and 15 to 25K credit card miles per year depending on how many trips are through ff miles. On the other hand I give AA about $3,500.00 a year for fares. Some years more or less, so don't beat me up if that's a bad estimate.

If I think back to 09 I made the return half of an Asia trip left USA on 12/10/08 and went home on 2/6/09 as an ff ticket; went to San Diego once in March and April; to LOS in May; San Diego in June, August and twice in Sept. (I drove the motorcycle r/t Chicago to Los Angeles in July; went to AC in October with a five day hold over in San Diego in early Nov.; and San Diego twice in December. I think that at least three of the ORD SAN trips were ff miles. I think the total I paid was about $3,200.00 and I have to consider that I didn't pay for the flight home from Asia in February. I also think that I have about as many miles as I had before I bought the 12/08 to 2/09 Asia ticket.

I think that in 08 I did about the same number of ORD to SAN trips and I went to LOS on an ff ticket 12/07 to 1/08 bought an Asia ticket in March of 08 took a ff ticket in May of 08 bought an Asia ticket in Sept of 08 and did the first half of Asia trip 12/08 to 2/09 on an ff ticket. I think I paid about $3,500.00 for all the trips mentioned.

All through I make about 1/3 of the Chicago to San Diego trips in first class and about 80% of the San Diego to Chicago trips first class. They will no longer give me a first class upgrade on almost any ff ticket and I always go out at 8:00 AM where first class means less to me, and return in the late afternoon/evening then first class has the value of booze and food. Since I don't get enough upgrades for every single flight I tend to use them on return more then outgoings.

So, yes I know that Mr. Porker is right, if I either lived in Mexico or didn’t make so many domestic flights. BTW I never pay a luggage fee and on the rare occasion that I have heavy luggage they always look the other way. Also I fly the exit row on almost every flight that I'm in coach, and they have given me a few free upgrades to Asia over the last five years. I think two one ways on AA Chicago to Tokyo, one on a Cathay Pacific LAX to HKG and HKG to MNL and one other on a Cathay Pacific NRT to HKG.

I think each person has to carefully look at their needs and chart out what will work best for them. In the mean time I won't cry for Mr. Snooky as I know that he has more miles and status then I do both with the airlines and the Asian girls. But I do take my hat off to him in declaring that all his Thai and AC girls are community property when he's not there. I think that AC and Pattaya gogo bars should issue ff miles toward free barfines!! Then Snooky will be near to retirement.

LET'S DRINK TO SPRING TIME IN ASIA WITH SNOOKY!

I agree with a lot of what Catacony said, (Happy Monger will want to kill me) but it doesn't change my reasons for staying with AA. I think the funniest thing of bad service that ever happened to me on AA was when I left a nice leather jacket in the luggage bin on a ORD-DFW flight and realized my mistake five minutes after I got on the connecting DFW to SAN flight (only thirty minutes after the ORD-DFW had let me off). I asked the flight attendant on the DFW-SAN flight to try to call and save my jacket. She asked me if it was a nice jacket and I told her it was a designer expensive leather jacket. She told me that she didn't need to call it was already stolen because it was too nice. I got mad and told her that if she wouldn't do her job I wanted her name or employee number to write a complaint and the next thing the Co-pilot came back and threatened to have me arrested in San Diego for making a disturbance on the plane.

I also have to give credit for stupid AA behavior to the flight attendant who services the right exit row section on the ORD to NRT flights on Thursdays. If a newbie passenger asks her for help with luggage she responds with a selection of either "What the fuck do you want" or "Oh Shit". At some point I was talking to an AA executive on the phone and asked him how they tolerate this on one of their Flagship flights and he said that she has so much seniority and power in the union that there is nothing they can do about her.

before I say bad words about the Kettles, of which I have many. Such as when they bitch about how did I get the exit row on the ORD-NRT or smack around my carry on. I have to remember that these flying idiots help pay to keep the airline in business for me to fly.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at Roadglide's post. The only good side is that AA doesn't charge any of the add on fees, ie. baggage or such to status fliers and if they want to pile it on for the Kettles so that I can still get a better fare, god bless.

I don't think I paid more then $313.00 all charges included to go from ORD to SAN in 09. A lot of my tickets were $212.00 all in. I also got 7,000 miles for each r/t purchased (almost 30% of a domestic ticket or 10% of an Asia ticket) for each flight. When they wanted more in prime spots I used my ff miles.

People tell me that an air mile is worth a little over a penny so I figure that I flew for about $125.00 to $230.00 for my r/t tickets to San Diego last year depending on the fares at the time I went. With status there were no bag fees or other add ons.

There were a couple of times where I couldn't get a ride and didn't want to take the bus and train in the cold with baggage to or from the airport where the fifteen mile cab ride was $25.00 to get to the plane and that was where I felt like I got most screwed.

How much cheaper can I go across the USA.

I know it's selfish, but screw the Kettles if I get a better deal.

Unfortunately, some of these "Kettles" are employees of mine. They only make 3-4 business trips a year, so never achieve status. So I pick up all these add-on costs in my budgets. More often than not, low-cost carriers are not an option. So I'm pretty pissed at this trend. AA is the fucking worst company going.

United is worse than American IMHO. Their employees hate the company and their jobs, and this is reflected in how they treat their customers. And this is coming from a former United Global Services customer.

I don't disagree that American is awful as well; just not as awful based on my experiences.

One survey of worker discontent suggested United is about as bad as they come. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/21/worst-companies-to-work-f_n_397565.html

Bwana,

"AA is the fucking worst company going"

Hence the title of this thread.

My experiences have been somewhat different. Both are bad, but my experiences with AA have been surreal. I will now take bizarre routings to go with another company. UA workers may be unhappy campers, but the corporate culture at AA is a clusterfuck of incompetence.

PS. Note that AA is likely to get hit soon with one of the largest safety violation fines ever given out by the FAA.

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2010-02-10-american-airlines-faa_N.htm

Approx. 7 yrs ago all carriers with MD-80's were notified that the wiring bundles were to be replaced, and a date given for this mandate. Cost of replacement was approx. 1 million$ per aircraft. This, and other reasons [fuel efficiency, fleet commonality, etc] was why all carriers except American phased out the "80's. [This was due to the DC-10 accident over Boston yrs ago due to the onboard game/elec sys, same system as on the 80].
AA knew full well this was an FAA directive and has dragged their feet on this. I personally fault both the carrier and the FAA. The FAA is a bunch of fucking idiots that are more concerned if the i's are dotted and the t's crossed than safety and responsibility.

MD-80 = worst plane in the sky

I actually like MD-80s, although the lack of video is bad when it's filled with tourists who aren't bright enough to bring a book or stack of magazines to read on a flight.

While the Kettles may feel the brunt of the nickle-and-dimeing, fares are pretty cheap. My monthly transcans are rarely over $500 and that's booking usually a week in advance, IAD-SFO. Those flights 10 years ago would have been over $2,000 and just five years ago would have been closer to a grand than $500. So, it's not really the cost, it's the inconvenience of having to pull out a credit card every time you turn around.

Procedures were not followed [and this trip/aircraft was being flown by a chief pilot]
This picture is an aerial view of the crash photo shown above.

There was a total of 139 passengers aboard flt 1420
41 had serious injuries
64 had minor injuries
24 no injuries
10 fatalities
The Captain [Richard Buschmann] died instantly. Total dead:11

(Message edited by copperfieldkid on February 12, 2010)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkMDPK1isg4


Here is a MD-80 Emergency Landing due to one engine failure. (Kewl to hear the captain explain why he decided to "shut down our engine....")

For the aviation challenged, a very informative airplane livery.

Being charged to fly 'standby' was bad enough [see AA], now a new charge is about to be levied for SPACE.
To clarify, Continental is going to charge $59 extra for a coach seat with extra leg room. The definition of this has not been made clear, but I would guess it would apply to the bulkhead row/seats and the emergency isle seats as both locations provide the extra room. No other cabin modifications are being done so it makes sense these are the locations being affected.

I received a notice from them about this; however, they said the price would depend on the length of the flight, and the market.

What is curious is they also said the elite frequent fliers will continue to get these seats for free, and they would only be available to non-frequent fliers within 24 hours of the flight. If all they are talking about are the bulk head and the emergency aisle seats, one wonders why they are bothering since I assume the emergency aisle seats go quickly to the elite frequent-fliers and the less desirable bulk-head seats maybe also.

OTOH, I suppose these seats may open up as some of the elites get upgraded to first class during the countdown to the flight, but this seems like a lot of to do (and not a whole hell of a lot of extra revenue) about very little.

I wonder if some dim-witted exec lamented about how they don't make any extra money when they upgrade elites to first class, and as a way to satisfy this rather lame concern, someone suggested they could start charging the peon non-elites extra money to take the place of the upgraded elites in the preferred coach seats, thereby indirectly making money from the upgrades. If not this, probably something else equally stupid underlies this new policy.

"...something else equally stupid underlies this new policy" <-----------yes, it's called greed!

(Message edited by copperfieldkid on March 04, 2010)

Several other airlines are charging for specific seat locations (Airtran, Continental, Frontier, JetBlue, Spirit, USAir) and some others, such as United, charge extra to sit in their economy sections with added legroom. Most wave the fees for elite flyers.

You'd think elite level flyers would gobble up the prime exit row seats, but I almost always fly in an exit row aisle seat, and 1/2 the time I have no one in the row with me (last night's flight from DCA-ORD I had the exit row to myself). It seems that most FFlyers take whatever seat is assigned by the computer, and the computer doesn't assign bulkhead and exit row seats. You have to request them for each flight you take.

There's a good chart summarizing all the various add-on fees carriers are using to disguise their higher charges:

http://i.slimg.com/sc/sl/graphic/u/ul/ultimate-guide-to-airline-fees.pdf

We get E+ seats for free, but a lot of people don't bother with a seat assignment until they get to the airport. Probably the same elites who don't know they get upgrades either, and I've met plenty of guys with 1K on their boarding passes who don't know what a CR-1 or systemwide is.

I like the E+ concept, if some enterprising non-elite wants to pay for the "upgrade" - or plunk down $450 to get access for the year - then I don't really have an issue with it. None of them pay for it until check-in, at least that I've seen, so they're basically duking it out with the clueless elites at the airport for seat assignments.

Me personally, I check available seats before booking a flight and have no problem flying earlier in the day if I can guarantee a row in E+ (or a confirmed upgrade) as I book. If not, I'll check on-line a few times a day for better seats if all that's available is a window or a seat in regular economy and it was the only flight available or fit my price/time constraints.

And of course lowly trailer park Southwest has never engaged in any of this nonsense, consistently almost always has the lowest fares, is easy to rebook with no penalties, flies nonstop almost wherever you want to go in the US, has NEVER killed even one single passenger in 43 years, and at the same time is the ONLY airline that is consistently profitably for it's shareholders in good times and bad. Capitalism rules!!!

Too bad Southwest doesn't fly to any mongering destinations...

Atlanta??????

Yessssss. The Crack Whores of Atlanta. I have such fond memories. Toothless T'shanalia was unforgettable.

You have pictures????