American Airlines making reducing/changing flights

[ortech]

same here Mary, my flight back home ,san juan to miami one min. it is there the next not or it says full.. im waiting till Nov. and see if anything changes. but i really can't stand what they have done.. why not leave things alone for those who already booked and screw those who are booking now <evil grin>

[margincall]

Well I ve changed to Continental after i got my refund. At least they have 4 or 5 nonstops from Newark so i feel more confident

[willtup5]

just curious about which cruise you are going on. we also are leaving 1/24/09 out of pdx. Our flights have been changed once so far and actually for the better. Both flights connect tnrough DFW vs chicago, and boston and in wintertime gives me peace of mind. You are right sju hotels are spendy, but perhaps they will come down in price if demand lessens? which hotels are you looking at?

 

sincerely david

[ststop]

I booked the Howard Johnson Isla Verde. Nothing fancy from what I can see. $135.00/night for 3 rooms on Jan 24. We must be on the same cruise with you guys. AOS( Aruba, Curacao, St. Maarteen, St. Thomas). It definitely worked out better for us with the time change, but the 2 couples going with us didn't book in time. They are having to drive to Houston(4 hours) and fly Continental direct( about $460.00 pp). That was much better then the new alternative from DFW that was going to run them over $700.00 pp and connect somewhere. I will look at priceline closer to our departure and see if I can win something a 'lil more upscale than the HOJO. However, I think that will be fine since it is just 1 night and we don't arrive until after 6:00 pm. Probably just sleeping anyway. Hope to meet you on the boat.

[Friscorays]

USA Today piece on this, and its potential adverse effect on the cruise industry:

 

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/cruises/item.aspx?type=blog&ak=51131936.blog

[MoonPet]

FYI - The seats labeled as "disabled accessible" just mean that the armrest on the aisle lifts up to assist a person who is transferring from a wheelchair to their seat. There are loads of those seats on each aircraft and they are available to everyone.

[patches12]

Bob, your quote...

 

Fuel costs are the single largest operating cost for an airline. With oil now up to around $130 per barrel, those fuel costs have to be hitting the airlines hard. American lost money each year from 2001 to 2005. They have recovered enough to earn some profit in 2006 and 2007, but so far this year they are again losing money.

 

All airlines have to eventually make operating profits to pay lenders and investors. We as consumers may like low prices and frequent services, but the airlines have to earn money or they can no longer exist. At that point we are all in a "pickle".

 

One of the other largest costs is the huge bonuses given to get the execs to stay. While they get $7-10 million dollar bonuses, my husband is still making $8.00 an hour there. (He got caught in the layoff of 9/11 and got back there in the only job there was.) Even when they were taking benefits from the workers, they were giving bonuses to execs. What could AA do with those bonuses...pay their fuel bills?

 

These large "board of directors" seem to be on each other's boards and like to give each other bonuses. How is that for economics?

 

While on the subject of economics....oil wells? I have one in my back yard! It was used years ago, but has never been capped. I can tie a string to a cup and put it down the hole and bring back oil. How depressing is that? Oil in my back pasture and no way to get it.

 

Joyride21:

 

I had the same problem as you. I eventually noticed (on AA) that if I booked two separate ONE-WAY flights, I would save about $100.00. It couldn't hurt to look. On AA's site you can click on Schedule, or Price, or Price & Schedule. If you use the last one you get a higher one-way rate. Try using the Price one and you should get lower.

[Texas2steppers]

My TA booked our flight to San Juan in February. Originally our flight was to leave DFW @ 8:30 am and arrive @ 2:10 pm. Just happened to visit AA website a few weeks ago and noticed that our flight had been changed to a later departure @ 11:45. Since we had decided to fly in on the day of the cruise I was getting nervous about not arriving in San Juan until 5:05 pm. I called our TA and she told me we would have to pay $150/pp rebooking fee plus the increased airfare. She did not even try to call AA and inquire. I took it upon myself to call AA direct. They were most helpful and changed my flight to the day before at no additional cost! :D

[Mark]

The problem with the airlines is that they need to charge a price for a ticket that will cover their costs and hoepfully give them a profit...and if that means that some folks cannot afford to fly...well so be it! If the cruise lines need to charge higher prices for their cabins...so be it. Cruise lines and airlines are not government subsidized mass transit like buses and subways and should not be regarded as such...I think this whole mess was created a while back by those start-up airlines that used to charge $39 - $99 to fly almost anywhere in the country...now those airlines are gone and the ones that remain are stuck with the concept of cheap tickets!

 

I grew up in the late 50s and early 60s and my family never flew anywhere since we were not affluent...we were a typical blue collar family who never travelled anywhere beyond a 3 hours car ride. The airline problem is similar to the real estate problem where you have people wanting to own large expensive homes and who should not buy them since they cannot afford them.

 

We need to go back to the old fashioned way of living when people tried to live within their means and for the most part were satisfied.

[patches12]

I went on AA website today. They still have the ability to set up flight info so if a flight changes, it will notify you. You have to put in every flight number and date. If you are worried about AA changing your flight, try the notification part of the site.

 

I WISH they would up my flight by 4 hours. I could do Bio-Bay that night!:D

[satxdiver]

My TA booked our flight to San Juan in February. Originally our flight was to leave DFW @ 8:30 am and arrive @ 2:10 pm. Just happened to visit AA website a few weeks ago and noticed that our flight had been changed to a later departure @ 11:45. Since we had decided to fly in on the day of the cruise I was getting nervous about not arriving in San Juan until 5:05 pm. I called our TA and she told me we would have to pay $150/pp rebooking fee plus the increased airfare. She did not even try to call AA and inquire. I took it upon myself to call AA direct. They were most helpful and changed my flight to the day before at no additional cost! :D

 

They changed our flights to SJ also and I did not like the connection times in DFW. They were too short. I called them and they gladly changed two flights to give us more time in DFW. I think that if their schedule change causes problems they will change the flights for free.

[Katfncy]

I don't know if HFLORS will see this or not, but AA opened up a new flight from BWI to SJU direct today. I was able to switch it with no problems and no charge. We booked the direct flight from IAD/SJU back in April.

[Hflors]

I don't know if HFLORS will see this or not, but AA opened up a new flight from BWI to SJU direct today. I was able to switch it with no problems and no charge. We booked the direct flight from IAD/SJU back in April.

 

I found your post again and again I am thanking you! I hope we cruise together one day

 

Helen

[cruiselover00029]

I don't know if HFLORS will see this or not, but AA opened up a new flight from BWI to SJU direct today. I was able to switch it with no problems and no charge. We booked the direct flight from IAD/SJU back in April.

 

Thanks for posting this. I think the new non stops are only on weekends. I was unable to get one going, but coming home I was moved from a flight with a 45 minute connection in Miami to a non stop leaving at 4pm and getting home at 7pm. SCORE!

[jodiedew]

Thanks for the post. I just switched my return flight home back to a nonstop (which I booked originally in April, after which AA changed it to a stop in Miami, and then yesterday they changed it to land at DCA instead of BWI....go figure). Anyway, I was told that the nonstop service--as of now--resumes on November 2. She said to always check back; perhaps they will resume the route earlier. (I leave on November 1; so close!).

[patches12]

AA will be closing some flights in the next few months. My flight to San Juan on Saturday will no longer be there in September! They are stopping service at whole towns and also reducing the number of flights to places like Chicago. For those of you who use AA, don't forget to set up the flight notification so they will contact you if the flights change or cancel.

[cruiselover00029]

AA will be closing some flights in the next few months. My flight to San Juan on Saturday will no longer be there in September! They are stopping service at whole towns and also reducing the number of flights to places like Chicago. For those of you who use AA, don't forget to set up the flight notification so they will contact you if the flights change or cancel.

They have actually already canceled those flights back in June. Since then they have rescheduled people on other flights and now they have added a few more non-stops to San Juan back to the schedule. I guess these were the popular flights. The non stop flight home I was originally booked on was full. They then canceled it and re booked everyone through Miami. I am assuming this was a popular flight that they did well on so they added it back.

[lurkernomore]

We are flying out of Boston in February, and they have changed our flight time twice. We are still on the non-stop to San Juan, but February is a long way off, and it doesn't make us feel very comfortable. This is our third cruise, and the first time we have booked everything on our own (in the past we used a TA). They have been good about emailing us though...

[bbenson]

Our flights have changed twice as well....we are connecting in dallas, there are no direct flights from our regional airport. We are a group of 9 with three people coming from one airport and six from another and we all connecting in dallas where we are all on the same plane to SJU.

 

The first time they moved our departing flight up about 4 hours which gave half our group a 3 hour layover and the other half a 5 hour layover...and coming back they pushed us up 2 hours...which we still thought we could make off the ship but we had a 45 minute layover and a 6 hour layover!!

 

Then they changed our flights again last week. They pushed our departing flight up another hour and gave us a different flight in dallas so now we have a 1 hr layover and a 2 hour layover......coming back they moved us even further forward and at that point we decided we couldn't make the flight since it was now a 9:55 am flight.....so we asked that they move us to a different flight...which they did..to a 2:45 flight...and it was simple. But this now gives us a 2.5 hour layover for 1 group and a 1 hour layover for the other so really it's the best itinerary yet. Even better than the one we originally booked.

 

I hate that the flights keep changing but every time we've had to move something to put our group back together AA has been VERY easy to work with.

 

I can honestly say at this point that even though they are changing our flights I'm more likely to fly with them in the future after how great they've been moving the flights...everytime I call I expect a fight but instead all I've received is cooperation.

 

I feel sorry for their customer service reps who are taking all the heat for the changes even though they have absolutely no control over the changes.

[lurkernomore]

My brother-in-law is a pilot with a major airline (not AA). I used to think he had a dream job, but after listening to him the last few years, it is a tough industry. I look at it from the travel perspective, but the airline employees are constantly being threatened with lay-offs, and I know that their benefits have taken a huge hit.

[xsnowman99]

DH and I were booked on a flight from Richmond, VA to St. Lucia for a November trip...we booked, and paid, in March. I found out, quite by accident, that US AIR has cancelled our flight. We can go to Charlotte, however, apparently that is where they want me to spend my vacation for a week since it was from there that they cancelled the connection. I spoke with 4 people on one day who were less than helpful, one the next day who said what the 4 told me the preceeding was were wrong. Finally, I talked to a lovely lady who really tried to help. It is only costing me hotels for 2 additional nights (layover in San Juan) and the food for this new itinerary. Otherwise, it was going to cost me a hotel for one night and the loss of 1 nights vacation that I have already paid for...

 

To date, US Air has still not notified me of any change in schedule. A friend who is also travelling (she is leaving from Illinois), just on a whim, checked her flights and found that one was missing. So, apparently, they are not even being vigilent about notifying people. Although it is very frustrating that all of this is happening, I know that there are severe changes for businesses to stay afloat (or so they say). But, it would seem to me that the one thing they can still deliver that wouldn't cost them a dime is good customer service. While a concerned, helpful customer service person could not changer my situation, any help that could have been offered and that with a 'we are so sorry" probably would at the very least make me think about changing airlines for future trips. This, I know, doesn't make any difference to them.

 

So, for us all who are trying to travel I guess patience is the word...all of the airlines know they have us over a barrel and we really have no choices. What are we going to do--punish them and stay at home???

[High Cs]

We are flying from SJU to Miami with a connecting flight from Miami home. We originally had an hour and a half to make the connection.

 

Now, since AA changed the flight times we have only 40 minutes. Assuming the flight from SJU to Miami is on time, can we (and our luggage) make our connection? Are the AA arrival and departure gates at terminal in Miami close together?

[Nanatravel]

We are flying from SJU to Miami with a connecting flight from Miami home. We originally had an hour and a half to make the connection.

 

Now, since AA changed the flight times we have only 40 minutes. Assuming the flight from SJU to Miami is on time, can we (and our luggage) make our connection? Are the AA arrival and departure gates at terminal in Miami close together?

 

That is tight! Do some homework before contacting AA. Go to kayak.com, check on your return date as a one-way flight or go to AA.com. I would look at what options for a later or non-stop flight you might have. If there is a better flight for you, call AA and let them know you have had your flights changed and are concerned that "they won't work for you." Reference the preferred flights and ask if they can get you onto that/those flights. This worked for me at no charge. They made the change. Do hurry though as these seats are filled up fast.

 

Bon Voyage

Nanatravel

[High Cs]

Looks like I need to do some fast research! Thanks Nantravel. Great suggestions.