AA customer service hold times hours long. I’m on hold to speak with a representative, currently at 3 hours and 36 minutes and counting!

[Trompetapiccoloenla]

I’m currently on hold with AA customer service, 3 hours and 38 minutes and counting smh ‍♀️

 

[eolesen]

That's the norm. Get used to it. Might want to figure out how to use the website or another way of shopping/booking.

 

[swamt]

So there is more to it than just a busy summer at AA. Shortage of man power is the root cause here. Maybe AA should have offered a better package for folks to stay home with partial pay so they could call them back when this happens. Instead they chose to do the layoffs and buy-outs, so harder to recover as quickly as other airlines did when the flights picked back up. Now they will feel it going into August travel season as well.

https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrEZ_xqiNBgMAsAzwcPxQt.;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzMEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Ny/RV=2/RE=1624307947/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.fox19.com%2f2021%2f06%2f21%2famerican-airlines-cancels-hundreds-flights-cites-labor-shortages%2f/RK=2/RS=a1IqujRgvkGwCLAPAONKE8EyFDY-

 

[eolesen]

Not quite. AA's problems are apparently mostly with ground handling contractors.

Southwest had another 200+ cancelations today, so that "better package" hasn't really helped them too much, either.

 

[JREwing]

The problem with all the airlines is mostly due to a lack of team members from ALL work groups, from mx to pilots, flight attendants, fleet service, csm's.....everyone. Just like the pandemic, no one could predicted the impact of air travel coming to a halt as quick as it did. And when a vaccine became more widely available just about the time that spring break started, the planes quickly filled up. And because of FAA rules on training, everyone that got either laid off or took a voluntary leave that the company wanted to call back had to have their training file brought up to date as well as getting there SIDA badge back (if that had expired). And that's after the companies had to give at least a 30 days notice of recall to said employees before they showed up to get retrained and put back to work. Again, this training I spoke of covers every airline employee regardless of what their title was. As a non-rev I am very frustrated with all of the flight cancellations due to lack of employees to work the flights, but again I'm not sure anyone expected full airplanes this quick.

 

[eolesen]

Dunno, but I don't think it is "all the airlines"....

Alaska, JetBlue, United and Delta don't seem to be in the same world of hurt right now that American and Southwest are.

AA simply retired too many fleet types (lots of bump and roll forcing schoolhouse time), and WN's early out offer was perhaps a little too rich and they accepted more takers than they should have.