The Wall Street Journal recently published its annual “best and worst” airline list and once again, American Airlines is at the bottom. Is this a fair assessment of world’s largest airline by passenger traffic?
What I like about the Wall Street Journal report is that subjectivity, beyond choosing which parameters to include, is removed. There is no commentary on service, comfort, loyalty programs, or other metrics that ultimately are in the eyes of the beholder.
Instead, U.S. airlines are ranked on the following metrics:
- on-time arrivals
- canceled flights
- extreme delays
- two-hour tarmac delays
- mishandled baggage
- involuntary bumping
- DOT complaints
Here are the rankings:
As you can see, American Airlines finished last in 4/7 categories. The WSJ notes, as we have covered extensively on Live and Let’s Fly:
“For more than half of 2019, a contract dispute between American and its mechanics was essentially negotiated on the tarmac, with passengers paying a heavy price.”
Interestingly, even with its labor issues, American still managed to finish ahead of United, JetBlue, and Frontier in terms of on-time arrivals.
And yet even so we are left with a very negative picture of American. More bumps, more cancellations, and more delays than anyone else.
But to answer my title question, we really have to look beyond these objective stats and indeed look at things like service, comfort, and loyalty program.
I’m preparing a piece for tomorrow that demonstrates how AAdvantage is become less customer-friendly. And yet I’d still rank AAdvantage a far more valuable loyalty program than Delta SkyMiles and perhaps even United MielagePlus (with its recent devaluation).
Service and comfort (including perks like wi-fi) is always fine when I fly American, but I don’t fly AA very often at all. Even so, I do know that all else equal, I’d always choose to fly American Airlines over a budget carrier.
And so we are left with an open question: is AA truly the worst?
And at least for me, the answer is no way. Because I value wi-fi onboard, the ability to earn miles in a meaningful program, and the worldwide connectivity. That’s something American gives me and carriers like Frontier or Spirit simply cannot.
CONCLUSION
I appreciate the WSJ’s objective rankings in terms of taking most subjectivity and emotion out of its list. Still, such a list…if we truly are ascertaining the best and worst…is incomplete. Even with its (many) issues, American still has many perks that make it far more attractive to me than a low-cost-carrier. For that reason, I’m not prepared to call American Airlines the “worst” airline in the USA.
How about you?
AA is a great airline in my opinion, based on the routes I fly, from Chicago to LHR and DFW mostly. And their elite benefits (exec Plat) are without peer. Their CS reps are superb – they answer the phone pronto and get results, cheerfully.
American Airlines is a garbage airline for garbage people.
Yes they really are (of the 5) short sighted customer solutions, lack of innovation, poor route network, poor partner network.. It’s only gone horribly since the merger.
Poor route network? I think AA has one of the largest and best route network and schedules.
To that point, routing and scheduling should be a factor in the WSJ report. Maybe number of flights per day or something? I don’t know if it’s necessarily fair to exclude Hawaiian without giving AA some credit for how damn large they are.
It is 4 of 7, the 8th one is overall rank which is the sum of the seven.
Yes, AA is the worst airline. Neither WSJ or you have considered onboard services as a ranking parameter. It typically ranges from apathetic to just rude. Looking at complaints alone doesn’t define the service.
I don’t think mileage valuation help if the onboard services are not up to par. For me, the journey is as equal as the destination itself.
Also, when you will be discussing AAdvantage, it is important to note that much of the value of the program comes from the fact that you can redeem on other premium partners like Cathay, Etihad and Qatar but no on AA metal. Thus, you are valuing the program to fly another airline. On top of this, you should also consider AA service. Do you call their “attendants” flight attendants? Have you seen their IFE system and how small the displays are? Have you seen the quality of their food? Have you seen the attitudes of staff? Literally, I was on my way to Frankfurt and the lady next to me had a problem with the IFE. So, instead of trying to understand the customer, the attendant states “we only guarantee that you reach your final destination but not anything else.” I mean even you couldn’t do anything about it, there is a way of apologizing to the customer. You only realize how terrible AA is when you fly international competition like Emirates, Qatar and Singapore. These are true airlines.
I think there’s a few reasons why AA has a reputation of “worst airline” today:
1) Hangover effect of the operational meltdown of this summer, which causes people to think of the airline as chronically delayed.
2) AA’s ridiculously stingy Saver and upgrade availability on its own metal, which makes people think of AAdvantage as an increasingly worthless program.
3) The “Oasis” retrofits in Y, which AA tries to bill as an “enhancement”, while DL and UA trot out the A220 and CRJ-550, respectively.
4) Terrible premium cabin catering.
5) The misguided focus on D0, which results in customer-unfriendly practices like shutting the boarding door early, not holding connections, etc.
Now, some of this is a case of P=R, at least for 1 and 2 above. My reality has been a mostly on-time airline with average, unmemorable service (I didn’t fly during the mechanics’ slowdown, though). I also cashed in a nice partner redemption, so I don’t regard AAdvantage as completely worthless (though it’s hardly a differentiator now, either). 3 through 5 are issues, though. It makes AA look and feel far more like an LCC than a full-service legacy. Personally I would rather someone else just for that reason.
I would argue that 3 is also a PR problem. After Oasis, AA will still have 1 fewer seat on the A321 than Delta does… but yet somehow people are convinced that AA crams people in like sardines and DL doesn’t. I don’t remember how the 737s compare exactly, but for whatever reason people have this mistaken idea that AA will have less room, which is just wrong.
The other part that ignorant people point out sometimes is that AA’s profit lag DL, which they then attribute to AA having a worse coach product. Not to defend AA’s coach product entirely, but if you look at the numbers a huge portion of the gap can be explained by the fact that DL has more pax on their planes than AA does… So again, this one comes down mostly, I think, to PR and optics.
None of this is to say that AA is better than DL, because I don’t think it is. It’s just to say that the gap isn’t quite a large in certain places as some think it is.
Sorry, last sentence of the first paragraph should be “AA will have less room that Delta, which is just wrong”.
In my opinion, the real reason people hate the Oasis planes is not beacuse of the space, but because it is a downgrade on all fronts: lavs, seats, and IFE.
What AVLspotter said is more of what I was getting at. The Oasis planes are a real downgrade on more than just space. You also have them ripping out the IFE, the miniature lava, horribly uncomfortable padding on the slimline seats, etc. It reeks of an LCC experience from the get-go.
I have been flying American Airlines for over 40 years. Of course there are “headwinds ” at times..Life itself is filled with headwinds. BUT overall American is my first choice …and an excellent airline. Superior to other US carriers, certainty
AA is garbage am on ng US airlines.
The bar, however is veeeery low.
I actually really like American. Service has helped me multiple times (rebooked my wife and kids on business through lax to Syd when they cancelled their Ord Vancouver leg). I often get cleared for upgrades to nyc (I have a reasonably high spend due to 4/5 international biz flights a year). Love the lounges (I much prefer aa flagship to Polaris at Ord)
International biz is really nice.
Exonomy main comfort for free for whole family at time of booking (im platinum only).
lets not kid ourselves, UA did not put extra F seats on the CRJ because they wanted to be nice. Their pilot union contracts do not let them fly regional sets above a set number of seats. They did it because they had to, not because they care about customer comfort.
Will be curious to see any reasons why AA might be better than UA (and I’m no UA defender)…you only have 4 SWUs that don’t have the same flexibility as PlusPoints. I guess OWE is better, but that’s more of a Oneworld policy thing vs. an AA specific one.
Only one I can think of is that AA just isn’t as sophisticated as UA/DL in FCM, and thus its EXPs fly in F more often?
And I guess partner biz awards are still a pretty good deal (save for BA and surcharges).
Doug Parker has been allowed to chisel away the consumer experience and has decimated the labor culture at AA. Parker is unfit to run a regional airline let alone an airline the size of AA, until the BOD pulls their heads out of their behinds, AA will die a slow death under his leadership.
Categories should be weighted. Obviously on time perf should weight 80% of the assessment. All others only impact a small percentage of customers.
I will never understand the halo surrounding Southwest Airlines. Every flight I take is like a loud, dirty bus ride. I always think “oh, I’m going from San Jose to Burbank, it will probably just be a bunch of quiet business travelers” and then the plane is just packed full of riff-raff.
Steve, I am sure you ( and now me) will be targeted as elitist pigs – but I agree. I am not sure what it is about WN that seems to attract a significant number of West Virginia trailer park residents. It sometimes feels like a flying meth lab.
Southwest passengers ares no worse than the rear third of American Airlines economy class cabin. However, the front quarter of American Airlines’ cabins (F and Y) are people that should be punished because we need free Medicare for All and free college for all.
You went off the rails at the end there, but you’re probably on to something RE: the seating chart…I’m always in Economy Plus or First on United so my experience is likely more segregated.
And on less popular routes I have noticed that E+ fills up with Basic Economy passengers more and more…
I feel like I’m punished everyday for making an honest living and having a job, especially at tax time. It’s like the people in Y and J have to pay for their tickets and the tickets of the people in economy as well.
No, AA is not definitely the worse US airline. There is fierce competition! United, Spirit, and Allegiant are fighting in the race for last place.
United has so much potential for being the best. Great name. Great hubs. Having hubs at IAH and ORD are far better than SLC and MSP.
What are you talking about? Confusion with Delta? American doesn’t have hubs in SLC or MSP! Delta does
That’s his point. United should be competing with Delta for best, not AA for last
My husband and I are in the middle of an oversees adoption so we have flown back and forth using American around 25 round trip times each. There are a lot of perks. Before we only flew Southwest and we recognized that American always can led flights with everyone we knew. Literally everyone. We have not had this problem at all, however we have had a lot of late, delayed flights causing us to miss connections. The problem I had with this is unlike Southwest, their connection flights were not held even until regular flight time. And by far the biggest issue, customer service in these situations was very unhelpful and rude at times. They absolutely need an overhaul in customer service.
The unspoken story here is that Allegiant, yes Allegiant, came in #1-2 in lost bags and cancelled flights. Not the image of Allegiant you read about.
You know where else Allegiant comes out on top? Profitability.
We can all rag on AA and I’ll be the first to say they have serious issues. But worst airline? Nope? Not even gonna go there.
I call a spade a spade and I’m sorry they are far from the worst. Frontier? Allegiant? Spirit? United?
Shawn
@joseph – right but there’s also another poll asking pilots which airline would they NOT have their family fly and guess what it was allegiant. We can all rag on AA and lord knows I do but I maintain status with them because guess what their Program and still head above heels above DL and UA.
Why anyone other than the trailer park mentioned above flies Southwest I do not know.
> Why anyone other than the trailer park mentioned above flies Southwest I do not know.
Beyond the great customer service, I think they’re popular with small business people (think salesmen and consultants) with tight travel expense budgets (that really come out of their own pocket) that need flexibility on changing their flights *without* a $200 change fee. I have cousin that runs a successful plastics brokering business and lives near IAH, but chooses to drive all the way to HOU to fly SWA because he can change out tickets on the fly as needed without losing money. The free companion pass is pretty popular with him and his wife as well. I’m United Gold at IAH myself, but I understand why he does it.
Yes it is. Horrible performance, even more horrible ground staff attitude.
I have really bad experience with AA few years ago during IROP, and I haven’t flown with them since then, same with UA.
I am base in YYZ, whenever I am in US, I only fly DL or AS. Haven’t try B6 or WN yet.
The unspoken story here is that Allegiant, yes Allegiant, came in #1-2 in lost bags and cancelled flights. Not the image of Allegiant you read about.
You know where else Allegiant comes out on top? Profitability.
So, would you say that a typical AA flier uses things like elite status, loyalty programs, flying outside the US to the extent you do to improve their travel experience? Or might they be more impacted by those WSJ factors than you, you savvy traveler, you?
“News at 11: blogger who flies extensively for a living as a business traveler and knows the sweet spots in loyalty programs has different experience than typical traveler. Also, dog bites man and sun rises in east. And now the weather.”
Fun fact: the Basic Economy experience on AA or UA isn’t a whole lot different than Spirit. I really appreciate UA’s garbage move of not allowing online checkin and making me stand in line without a checked bag because they need to inspect my under seat personal item (read: I didn’t pay enough for the ticket and don’t have the credit card so screw you, you get punished by standing in line). Even Spirit isn’t that customer unfriendly.
But hey, pretend that the rotten experiences Average Joes get is irrelevant, and then be mystified when people choose Spirit or Allegiant over airlines with somewhat better loyalty programs that are slowly having all the blood drained from the turnip.
AA certainty not the worst on the planet for as long as BA aka BestAvoided continue to be show their disdain for customers and get away with it because of fortress Heathrow and their reputation built on historic excellence that in no way resembles the reality today.
A
Just flew American yesterday. Great!!!!
I have been EP for the last 10 years. I did not even try to qualify for 2020. I got exactly 2 upgrades in 88K miles flown in 2019. I told them repeatedly that the only reasonI stuck with them and kept EP status thru so many downgrades was my access to a certain EP agent who booked all of my flights. Now I have been denied access to her. That’s the final straw. Crammed cabins, crappy uncaring service (esp from ex- US Airways employees which has infected all the AA FA’s/GA’s.) Customer Service has always sucked unless you had someone inside to smooth things through. I’ve had repeatedly cancelled flights, lost luggage on one-stop itineraries and no ability to use the 4 SWU’s they parsimonious give for EP. Since the merger, the only use for them is Business to First IF you can find them. Don’t count on the EP agent to even inform you if they are available. Though we live in an area only serviced by AE and connect thru DFW, we are jumping to Delta. We haven’t flown them in years. Their coming in #1 is a big deal. That coupled with fact that my brother-in-law who works for AA, now pays to fly Delta instead of for free on AA. That says a lot about how really bad things have become. The attitude comes down from the top. Doug Parker doesn’t care about his employees and they take their unhappiness out on the customers. Richard Branson said it best, “If you take good care of your employees, they will take good care of you,” and by extension your customers. After Doug leaves and he’s got a trifecta (angry employees, customers and stockholders) whoever replaces him will have huge job trying lure us back if we even consider coming.
this is the third time (week of feb 11) IN A ROW I have flown with AA , and this is the third time there was a delay.
1. mechanics failed to do all items in the check list before take off-thank god pilot did his job. Sat on tarmac for 2 hours waiting for them to come back. (delay 2 hours)
2,passenger health issue on one flight, took 30-45 min to resolve… however, 30-45 min was too much and pilots would have not had enough hours to fly the plane. Delay = 24 hours. Why would they staff pilot hours without more than 45 min buffer? And no other options but to wait a whole day?
3. Mechanics at airport didn’t know how to fuel the plane. Delay = 1.5 hours + missed connection… total delay 6 hours, would have been 9 hours, but I had them fly me into ohare instead of mke and decided it better to drive a rental car for 300$ then bother working with AA (also my travel agent is worthless and I can’t rely on them to help me with anything) and also risk another delay with AA on the later flight.
Overall, never flying AA again unless I have no other option. If drive time (or train time) is 8 hours or less, I may just drive to my destination instead due to how poor the airline industry is overall.
Before boarding both American Airlines flights June 23rd, 2020, a flight attendant at the gate made the same statement:
“everyone musk where a mask through the flight. If you fail to comply you will escorted from the plane and if you fail to do during the flight you will be banned from flying American Airlines ever again”
I am not certain of the AA policy in dealing with drunken disruptive passengers but this man had no mask on. He rushed to the front while the plane was still boarding shouting that the forgot his bag and he had to get off of the plane to retrieve it.
AA flight attendant did not follow protocol and escort this man off of plane for not having a mask on. Instead he blocked the aisle at the bulk head to keep him from getting off of the plane. He told him to sit down and to go put on a mask. The man fell backwards almost hitting the ground and then sat in the seat across from me in the aisle spewing droplets everywhere on top of me. I was buckled into my seat on the aisle of bulkhead with a mask on. He was shouting towards me about needing to get off the plane to get his bag with 2 handles and coughing. I turned my head sideways and leaned as far away as I could but the droplets were going everywhere and I was strapped into the seat. The flight attendant kept his distance and told the man it would be a “breach of security for him to get off of the plane.”
AA flight attendant’s handing of this situation put me in direct contact with a potentially infected person spewing droplets at me.
The man got up and stumbled back to his seat talking loudly and coughing with no mask on spewing droplets on everyone else in the cabin.
Everyone’s safety on that flight was compromised but your flight attendant’s response to the situation.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/downloads/2019-ncov-factsheet.pdf
-You can become infected from respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or talks.
shouting man to ramble up down the aisle back and forth with out a mask spewing droplets on the entire cabin while the plane was still on the ground boarding.
That -stay at least 6 feet away from others
AA customer service representative responded:
“it’s easy to understand your disappointment. We let you down and we are truly sorry. There is no question that you were inconvenienced”
“Disappointment and inconvenience” would not be be the words I would chose to describe an American Airlines flight attendant allowing a disruptive passenger to stumble up and down the aisle with out a mask yelling and coughing while the plane was boarding.. recklessly exposing am entire cabin to COVID 19 droplets.
“disappointment” and “inconvenience” are words I would use to describe a flight delay.
That was Tuesday night.
I quarantined at home as I was very concerned that I had been exposed to COVID 19 on that flight. Sunday June 28th, my symptoms started. I had fever.. headache… chills.. loss of smell and taste.. I scheduled a test at a nearby urgent care Tuesday Morning. I am waiting results to report to CDC for contact expose on flight. My chills, aching, and fever have continue. Now my husband has fever.
I flew Delta outbound on this trip and the the plane was spotless. Everyone had a mask on and we were handed sanitizer and water and snacks in plastic bags. The flight attendants kept everyone in check. Delta obviously wonders the health and safety of all passengers as their top priority. Now my only regret is not flying Delta on the return flight. I will never fly American Airlines again.
Maybe I have a “flight angel” with me , but in flying AA at least 6-8 times
per year for several years, I have never had a bad experience. The flights have always been on time, and the flight attendents have always been friendly, polite, and helpful. Many times, I have been in economy but several times have been upgraded to 1st class. Yes, the leg room in economy could be better but don’t see much difference in the leg room on Delta and United. If I were to grade those three, it would be AA 1, Delta 2nd, United, 3rd.