American Airlines passengers slammed the airline on social media for Thanksgiving flight delays, cancelations, and refund issues.
On Wednesday, American Airlines experienced numerous operational hiccups. The airline had 56 canceled flights and 471 delayed flights according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware. And on Thanksgiving, American canceled 27 flights and had 153 delayed flights.
Thanksgiving Flight Delays and Cancelations
Because of the delays and cancelations, some passengers criticized the airline on social media. One user said in a post: “Well, 4hrs delay American Airline? Now I just want to back Vegas American Airline is the worst”.
Then, there is another Twitter user who posted a screenshot of an email between him and the airline. He complained about the airline not offering compensation for the costs incurred because of the flight cancelation.
He said in his tweet that “Cancelling flights, not offering rapid/PCR test for international travel in a pandemic, and not covering out-of-pocket cost due to your cancellations?? @AmericanAir fix this!!!”.
American Airlines, in an email to The Sun, said that they give free miles as a “gesture of goodwill”. However, they “do not accept financial responsibility for out-of-pocket expenses when (they) are unable to do so”.
Staff Shortages
US airlines deal with staffing shortages in the last few months. Last month, American Airlines COO David Seymour said that they are currently hiring pilots, mechanics, and other workers. This problem was slightly alleviated when 1800 flight attendants returned from leave on November 1.
Also, to maintain enough workers on holidays, American offered as much as double pay for pilots working around the holidays. However, the Allied Pilots Association’s board of directors voted against the 150% to 200% premium pay for taking holiday trips. Instead, the union wants permanent changes to the airline’s schedule.
Reduced Flight Schedule for December
American Airlines quietly removed 20% of its scheduled flights for the second half of December. The airline told Fortune that the changes were “based on demand”.
It’s possible that the airline is looking to avoid a repeat of the Halloween weekend when it had to cancel almost 2,000 flights.
