My American Airlines Nightmare
Photo by A First-Time US Visitor's Tale of Incompetence and Frustration
So, I was traveling for the first time to the United States to meet this girl and guess what, I made one of the dumbest decisions of my life. I chose American Airlines.
I have traveled with many airlines, but American Airlines had one of the worst services and, on top of that, some of the most incompetent employees I have ever encountered.
The Outbound Disaster
This is what happened. I had a flight from Toronto to Houston at around 11:30. The flight was already delayed for some reason, and on top of that, they stopped/held the flight from taking off for one of their employees. But this dumb motherfucker forgot something (rumors were he/she forgot their passport) and was trying to get by security.
This made our flight delayed by 2 hours. One hour due to some delay and another because of this dumbass. Now, we reached Charlotte where I had a layover for 1 hour or so. And guess what? I missed the flight. That was doomed to happen.
Now, I had to wait for 3 hours for the next flight which they automatically transferred me to (not a bad thing). But the employees at the airport were not willing to give me any kind of compensation for this inconvenience. After so much discussion, this dumb agent gave me a 12, so much money. What could I have done without it?
This $12 couldn't get me the smallest pizza or burger or anything, what a surprise. After waiting for fucking 3 hours. This flight was delayed as well. And the reason was, not enough crew. What a shithole!
So, this dumb airline wasted 7 hours of my time. And surprisingly, the announcer/automated message at Charlotte airport reads, "One of the biggest airports in the world." Do you know how much this could frustrate a person on his/her first visit to a new country? I started hating the US at this point and the reason was American Airlines.
The Return Journey: More of the Same
Now, something happened when I was returning as well. And this was more infuriating. I was at the airport and there was a long line for check-in. Which is fine, but the dumb airline has only one counter for check-in whereas five counters for baggage. I guess money is king.
Not only was there only one counter, but the employee was so fucking dumb he took 30 minutes trying to check in and even after that, he couldn't do it. Do you know how long it took in Canada? 5 fucking minutes.
This was so bad that I had to ask everyone ahead of me in the security check to let me go ahead or I would miss my flight. I ran without shoes from security to the gate to catch the plane. Thanks to God, there was this person who let me do check-in before their turn. Otherwise, I would have missed all flights, AGAIN.
So, this is my rant about American Airlines. See you in the next session 👋🏼