The
official explanation:
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I do appreciate your support and your note of concern. It seems my travel did cause a bit of a stir.
The inaccurate story has me bumping First Class passengers off the airplane at the last minute and not caring about the travel vouchers issued to some passengers who volunteered to travel on a later flight.
The truth is that I booked my flights more than a month in advance when seats were available. Unfortunately, I arrived late to the gate and prior to my arrival three coach oversales had been handled according to policy. The three passengers were then accommodated on the next flight.
My three-year-old son and I took our assigned seats in coach. I was never made aware of the oversale situation. Had I been informed about the overbooking, I would have been more than willing to wait a couple of hours to catch the next flight.
I will tell you that I appreciate the concern expressed by employees, even if the rumor mill is, as is often the case, full of erroneous information. The reaction shows that employees do recognize the difficult financial situation we are in and that's very encouraging as we enter into a period of collaborative discussions on how to achieve the cost savings we need to operate successfully in the new marketplace.
I appreciate you and our colleagues continuing to look for every opportunity to help us cut costs and increase revenue as well. After our ongoing commitment to safety, this is job number one at American in the critical weeks ahead.
Sincerely,
Don Carty
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