RE: Flight Number AA017, July 8th 2011. My wife & I just returned from a trip where we flew AA from St. Petersburg to San Francisco with layovers on New York & Helsinki. Upon landing in New York we went to our gate #46 to catch flight #17 to San Francisco. We arrive over twos hours early, checked in and waited like normal. Prior to the boarding, there was an announcement that flight #177 to San Francisco had been cancelled due to weather (??) and those passengers would be moved to our flight #17. When boarding began, the desk agent made a PA announcement offering the following to each passenger that was willing to give up their seats: $500 travel Credit, Hotel, Meals & Transportation, 25,000 air-miles.
The agent made another request and sounded desperate. My wife & I volunteered. The agent was very pleased as were the people that were given our seats. The agent told us to go sit down and he would get back to us at the end of boarding as he was busy. We did. Just as the doors were about to close, the agent came running up and said: “It seems we do have two seats on the plane and have rescinded the offer” I asked him to repeat that as I was not sure that this was correct. He concurred and said we had to board the plane immediately. He took our boarding cards and rushed us down the gate where we were called to hurry. He then came running up and said: We have moved your seats.
I have one seat in Business class and another in economy. Hurry and go to your seats and he went back to the desk. Upon entry into the plane we looked for our seats and found people sitting in them. They moved and is was chaotic. As a matter of record, we booked this flight well in advance to sit together for a reason. My wife just had an accident and required assistance from me and she recently lost her mother for which I was there to comfort her. We had also purchased a ticket for our son (my stepson). He did not fly back with us as his grandfather died and we changed his flight for 10 days later. So, our vacation turned into a funeral trip.
The last thing we wanted was to be forced to NOT sit together. While trying to assist my wife, I was ushered out of business class to my new seat assignment next to the kitchen seat #22H. A seat I would NEVER book for any flight. I could see my wife from where I was standing and she asked the flight attendant to assist her with putting her bag in the overhead compartment. The flight attendant looked at my wife in disgust and said: “What, You can’t even lift your own bag” My wife replied: “I have a shoulder injury and need help putting it up there”.
The flight attendant replied in a very snide retort: “I have a shoulder problem too, so put your bag up and go back to your seat” and then walked away without looking back. This was very unsettling. My wife waited moment and no help came. She then came back to me at my seat area and asked me for help to put her bag up. The flight attendant was there and looked at me and said: “Are you going to help her?”. I said absolutely and went to her seat and put the bag away. The attendant was nowhere in sight, she had dispensed with us. I returned to my seat and we departed.
About 2 and half hours into the flight, my fight attendant came with a tray of water cups. He asked the lady next to me if she wanted water. When she said yes, he replied” “I will return with some other water for you as you don’t want this tap water” He then smirked at me and asked me if I wanted water. I said no as I brought my own. He returned with bottled water for the woman next to me. Oh, she was a flight attendant from another flight. This in itself was not so bad as was the obvious contempt for the water being served to me. I didn’t worry about my wife, thinking in business class is no problem with water.
But, my wife did not get any offers for any drink until food- service time. Though all the men in the cabin did. The Flight attendant was rude and non-responsive. After this I decided to watch, so I stood up in my area where I could see where my wife was seated. I witnessed the flight attendant flitting around all the men in the seats and totally ignoring my wife.
At one point my wife was fiddling with her tray and the attendant came walking by and gave it a shove as she passed.
This startled my wife and upset her. The rest of the flight was the same. I am not sure why the flight attendant was so rude and disregarded my wife in the way she did.
I do not know if in fact she also had a shoulder injury or some other calamity going on her her life. But to treat my wife with such contempt the entire flight is absolutely uncalled for. Additionally, when the gate agent gave us the offer to fly the following day, I called our transportation that was meeting us in San Francisco and concealed it. By the time we were forced to get on the plane in seats we did not reserve it was too late to call for transportation. So, after being treated like trash for hours, my wife was in tears, I was terribly tired as I had to keep moving for the constant kitchen cart preparations for a flight I had been told we would not be on.
Upon arriving in San Francisco, we had no transportation and we were going home in Santa Rosa. The taxi was $257.00 before tip and we had to wake up friends at 2;30am to bring us our keys as they had them with our car. Very embarrassing. In essence, our seats were given to someone else under the “Promises” that we would be compensated.
We were not and were forced to take alternate seats apart and we were treated very poorly the entire flight that we should not have even been on and left at the arriving airport without our preplanned transportation.
At the baggage claim help desk, I filed an incidence report which I was told would be entered into my file for your retrieval.
Do you think this was a reasonable set of circumstances? Was the flight attendant acting as American Airlines policies regulate? Was it fair to sell our seats then force us to board under these circumstances? I would very much like to talk to you about this and look forward to hearing back from you soon.
