AA1348 12/29/06
 

I haven't heard of it until it became front page story on Wall Street Journal today. Apparently, it has been pretty big news in Dallas.

Go get the Weekend Wall Street Journal (1/6/07), or check out this long thread on Flyertalk.

www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=641387

Don't the AA managers:

1) know about Northworst Airlines?

2) know that passengers now have cellphones, webblogs, Flyertalk, etc?

It's unbelievable that they can still let this happen these days. A bunch of people need to lose their jobs.

I noted that there was one poster on that ft thread that was quick to try to shift the blame to the "airport control people" and away from AA.

What makes all this so ridiculous, and even less excusable than Northwest, is that AUS was functioning, and AA's flights from there to ORD or SLC were going out.

While there was thunderstorms, it wasn't like AUS was under several feet of snow (like what happened at DTW).

It actually didn't get as much play as you would think. AA seems to have most newspapers here in some sort of trance. If this was CO in EWR or UA in ORD, they'd be all over it.

In AUS, AA is the 2nd largest carrier after Southwest. They have significant clout and to blame the controllers is absurd or an employee.

hmm, maybe it was Southwest's fault. they are out to get AA, aren't they?

here is a bit from the ft thread:

quote from the WSJ article

"A few passengers were allowed down the staircase in the plane's tail to the tarmac to walk dogs that had been in the cargo hold."

Unbelievable, except the part that it's AA -- except apparently other airlines were involved.

If the pilot finally "took it on himself" to get to the terminal at 8:15, why not earlier than that? Not that it was at all the pilot's fault.

You can't do that even at a jail... although you can do it in an ER (but at least there are machines and toilet cleaning crews....).

I'd love to see a barrage of lawsuits, but seems to me the actions of the Austin people have to be examined too. With the Northworst/snow incident, the airline essentially "owned" the airport. Here it would seem to be both airline and airport who needed -- shall we say -- better guidelines? Or let's just say "common sense and decency"!

The situation now is even worse when soemthing like this happens, compared to the NWA incident a few years ago, because of restrictions against liquids. I wouldn't have been thrilled if this happened to me pre-August 2006, but at least I would have had bottles of water. I would also have had food. Now I've given up on water, of course. Up to now, I had given up on food rather than try to puzzle out whether something is a solid, gel, or liquid, but maybe that's not a good idea.

My understanding is that the airlines escaped onerous regulations after the NWA incident because they promised to bring in their own. Obviously that didn't work.

I bet they sold all of their snack packs!

Yes, the airline industry as a whole lobbied very hard in Washington to fight off the "Passenger Bill of Rights" after the NW incident. That's why it's so shocking AA can let this happen. Unbelievable.

Interestingly enough, the WSJ article didn't appear in the Fort Worth paper until today - not exactly new "news". Coincidentally, AA's corporate headquarters are in Tarrant County (Fort Worth)...

But of course it was the Dallas Morning News that broke the story last week...

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont....331dc32.html#

While I'm no fan of AA, in today's climate, I could see that happening with just about any of the U.S. carriers (with the exception of NW). As rkkwan alluded to, the Passenger Bill of Rights was killed because of empty airline promises to improve. It's now time to bring this back and get it passed.

It's simple -- in situations like this, after a reasonable amount of time (say, NW's rule of 3 hrs.), the airlines should be required to allow passengers to deplane and provide them with suitable alternate means to get to their destinations.

I hope those passengers sue the pants off of AA! There's absolutely no excuse for this deplorable treatment!

Sad to see that AA lost the DFW Beijing route.....

Good news for Washington D.C. fliers:
http://www.united.com/press/detail/0,6862,57187,00.html

This story made the NBC evening news last night. Keep us informed of what happens. I'll bet people in First Class get miles and people in coach get an apology.