Yes American Airlines Still Sucks

American Airlines inconveniencing customers, nooooooooooooo.
American Airlines has done it again, done what you ask what else. Stranded customers in places around the country, and blamed it on someone else than themselves.

"AMR Corp.'s American Airlines will scrub 900 more flights today, adding to 1,550 already canceled this week, as it continues another round of inspections and groundings that stranded 171,000 passengers.

American said it had ``no choice'' in parking almost half its fleet of Boeing Co. MD-80 jets, after the planes again failed to meet a U.S. safety order. The move came in response to spot checks by the Federal Aviation Administration that found the world's largest carrier" (Bloomberg, April 10)

171,000 passengers and all they can say is, we had NO CHOICE. So it is the National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA's fault for finally trying to protect the consumers from a potentially dangerous situation.

"Falling short of FAA requirement for the earlier wiring adjustments meant that American didn't have the option of parking some jets on a rolling basis while flying others, Chief Executive Officer Gerard Arpey said. Fort Worth, Texas-based American checked all the MD-80s in March in response to the FAA order, resulting in groundings and hundreds of scrapped flights.

``A very high percentage'' of American's 300-plane MD-80 fleet wasn't in compliance as the jets were rechecked"(Bloomberg, April 10)

So if it was up to American Airlines, they would have continued flights without wiring adjustments that are deemed necessary for safety. It's not our fault consumers, you cant have it both ways. "You can either be delayed and receive horrible service on in compliant planes, or we can fix them and you will be delayed and never have to receive our horrible service" Ill take the never flying on American Airlines, and not worrying about their service. Maybe they will go the way of ATA.

I have a valid idea instead of crying about not having a choice to inconvenience customers, how about you do regular maintenance on your planes. You shouldn't need the governing body to remind you by grounding your fleet, to maintain the planes. The amount of money the federal government has given AA seems to make them feel invincible as a company, since they know they can't go out of business. The government wont let AA file bankruptcy again to forgo paying for the millions in loans they owe to the government. Shouldn't the fact our tax money continues to support this airline make their rules and compliance more stringent? Shouldn't all citizens get discount tickets since they all technically paid for part of the company?



You can use your cell phones on planes.... In the Europe

"European regulators have dropped the ban on in-flight cellphone calls, but passengers' ability to chat will depend on which airline they fly. European Union regulators on Monday loosened the rules on cellphone service, a satellite-based technology that can be turned on by a captain at about 10,000 feet. It also can be turned off at any time. The ban remains in place in the United States, so U.S. airlines aren't affected. Air France last week became the first international airline to offer mobile service as part of a six-month test to gauge customer response. Other carriers, however, are shying away from the feature, saying that passengers don't want chatter and ring tones invading their space."(USA TODAY, April 10)

Sounds like some cool technology, I just didn't think about the negatives. That would be horrible on a cross country flight, if this technology was available for use in the United States. They amount of conversations you would have no choice but to listen to, unless you had some good earplugs. That's is a bad dream, that you would be paying for. But honestly I think it would be cool at least once to call someone from 20,000 feet up, to say I almost home.