Gardyloo

<i>I'm trying to find the reference to &quot;new&quot; LGW service on line -- you'd think I imagined it if I didn't have the mailing from AA in my hand.</i>

For some reason, AA has yet to make the news &quot;public&quot; through a press release or on their website. This is really bad form IMO - it's not so far off that they can assume people will say &quot;No big deal&quot; or some such.

If I had to guess I'd imagine it has to do with their interactions with British Airways in regard to connecting flights through LGW. Up to now, it was &quot;legal&quot; to connect from AA to BA at Gatwick in (I think but am not sure) 90 minutes. Now, of course, anybody going to LHR instead of LGW will need several times that in order to schlep across London to make a BA flight departing from Gatwick. Since one presumes AA connecting traffic represents a small percentage of pax on those BA flights, it would seem unlikely that BA will change their departure or arrival times to suit AA, resulting in many (thousands?) of AA pax having tickets that won't work for connections. What to do?

All in all, it's not being handled very well.

thursdaysd

Ironically, the reason I heard for AA moving from RDU-LGW to RDU-LHR was to make connecting to BA easier!

rkkwan

It will make future connections easier. But not those who've already booked their DFW/RDU-LGW flights with a connection from LGW.

Gardyloo

The trouble is that BA flies to a large number of destinations only from LGW, not LHR. BA has nowhere near the slots at LHR to move everything there, so pax will be forced for some time to connect to/from LGW if they want to fly on BA to those destinations. <i>IF</i> they want to fly on BA.

AlReady2Go

Just called AA Gold desk and the representative didn't have a clue to what I was saying about our flight out of DFW on April 23rd to Gatwick being changed...she told me to call back later...not very reassuring to hear that no one knows about these changes and what bearing it's going to have on our connection flights. If anyone gets an answer to this, please post.

rkkwan

I am really surprised how poor they're handling this changeover.

Gardyloo

<i>I am really surprised how poor they're handling this changeover.</i>

Me too; it's getting to the point where they may be forced to reschedule the changeover. I'm certain is has to do with reaccommodating pax who end up with illegal connection times.

durhamnc

Thank goodness for Fodors. We leave RDU on 23 March; thus far it looks like it's still flying to LGW. I checked in with AA; the agent didn't know about it, but then looked it up and confirmed, saying that it looks like that change will begin in mid-April.

thursdaysd

durhamnc - if you read my post and rkkwan's post upthread, you'll see that the last RDU-LGW flight leaves Mar 28th. Are you flying back from London as well? Because unless you're going for less than a week you'll be returning from LHR. (BTW, hi, I live the other side of RDU in Cary.)

Jeff801

AA 2978 DFW-LHR a 767, has disappeared and has been replaced, as we had been speculating, by AA 78, a 777. But, as we also speculated, because of the change of seating to a 767 and then a 777, seat assignments are very different from those that were assigned earlier.

This is effective with all aircraft departing DFW from 13 April onward.

AlReady2Go

Thanks for the heads up on the equipment change. We did have great seats on April 23rd...wonder where they'll put us now? Still haven't heard officially about the change and it doesn't show up on our itinerary yet. Hopefully they'll let us know soon.

AlReady2Go

UPDATE...decided to call again this morning and to my surprise the changes have been made to my itinerary and much to my satisfaction. Still have the great seats on the DFW to LHR part and they have changed my connection from Gatwick to Heathrow so I'm all set. We do get into Edinburgh about an hour later than originally planned but I can live with that. Hope everyone else that's booked on the original DFW to Gatwick flights do as well with their connections. I hope there are no more surprises with the schedules.

Cassandra

CTS (Not LOL laughing out loud but Chuckling To Self):

Just went to AA.com and logged on w/freq flyer ID, and there's a NetSAAVer alert saying I could get a special fare on one of my preferred routes: RDU to LGW for only $638! -- checked the restrictions and it said: &quot;Fares are valid for travel commencing January 10, 2008, through March 23, 2008. Return travel must be completed by April 22, 2008.&quot;

Have to say, I'd sure like to take them up on the offer, but can't get away and even if I could, couldn't afford to stay there more than one night! ;-)

No mention, of course, that I'd better not miss that 4/22 flight or the gate won't even be there!

rkkwan

Finally, an official PR:

biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080313/lath531.html?.v=2