Bill Robertson's Blog

American Airlines Business Practices

I booked a flight for a trip to New York City and was completely floored by what was presented to me.  I found a 9 hour American Airlines return flight from JFK to DFW.

Nine hours?!  What could possible be the cause of that?  I pulled the details for the flight and saw there were two stops.  Remember my goal is to return to Dallas.  I had to read the chart below several times.  I've highlighted the piece that had me completely confused.  Let's play "What's wrong with this picture?"

 

trip

 

Give up?  Yeah, remember my goal flying from New York to Dallas.  My first stop is in...Dallas.  WTF?  To get to Dallas I have to first fly to Dallas, change planes, and fly to Austin.  Then I must change plans again and fly back to Dallas.

Seriously guys?  My first thought was I'll just deplane [their term] in Dallas the first time and cut 5 hours from my trip.  However, if I want to get my luggage I must:

  • Bribe a TSA agent to let me in the restricted area so I can claim my baggage before it gets moved to another plan.  [Sadly, it probably won't be very expensive to bribe them.]
  • Come back to the airport 5 hours later after my trip to claim my baggage.
  • or, Sit in the airport and wait for my baggage to return from its trip.

The fourth option, also the option I executed, was to fly with an Airline that has some semblance of a efficient company, ie Continental.  Sure, requiring me to buy two extra tickets efficiently increases the cash in the coffers of America Airlines, but that sure isn't how I want to allocate my resources. 

Posted: Aug 09 2007, 05:05 PM by Bill Robertson | with 4 comment(s)

Comments

Jay Leask said:

I'm sorry, I can't stop laughing.  In all the flights I've taken on AA in and out of DFW (it's at least two dozen, with half to NYC (usually Laguardia or Newark, but I've flown JFK a few times too)) I have NEVER seen this.

I'm just trying to imagine my own reaction had that come up a few hours ago while I was booking the flight for my brothers wedding!

# August 9, 2007 6:29 PM

Kevin said:

Hehe, looks like they are trying to get you to Dallas Love Field (DAL) instead of DFW airport. They don't fly from NY to Love, nor from DFW directly to Love, so have to bounce you through Austin.

You would think they would just parter with that railroad (Trinity something?) that goes between Dallas and Ft Worth, to transfer passengers who wanted to go to or from Love from DFW.

# August 9, 2007 10:55 PM

Anderson Imes said:

Im sure it's hard to come up with an algorithm to calculate these routes.  It seems DFW and Love Field as two seperate places, when in fact they are really in the same city.

AA *should* have helped you correct the issue by helping you book a flight with a final destination of DFW International, rather than Love Field, if your goal was only to get to the city of Dallas, rather than a specific airport IN Dallas.

Never seen this before, either.  Very funny stuff.

# August 10, 2007 1:51 PM

Bill Robertson said:

Good catch guys! I didn't see the final destination was Love Field.  I had entered JFK to DFW for my search criteria and I might have checked "search regional airports".  I just assumed it would best match my original airport first.  

# August 10, 2007 2:13 PM