Flying American Pt. 1

Well, it's gonna be an interesting day for my wife. At least once a year, she takes a week and flies to Pennsylvania to visit her family. She usually goes sometime in January or February, but with the winter being as unpredictable as it was this year, she put it off until now. So, about a month ago we booked her flight to Philadelphia. The best deal was on American, so we got her on a flight scheduled for today. The 2nd leg of the flight was through O'Hare and on an MD-80. Late yesterday we got the word that her flight was cancelled because of the round of inspections that AA is going through right now.

After 45 minutes on hold, I got through to American customer service and she has been re-booked on a later flight, but who knows what's going to happen once she gets to Chicago. The person I spoke with at customer service was very pleasant and helpful. I can only imagine how her day was going. It doesn't help to get angry at these folks...they are doing the best they can in a really bad situation, that they didn't cause.

I have to say that the initial check-in in Omaha was quick, simple and painless. The automated check in kiosk's seem to work great. We got her boarding passes and luggage checked in less than 5 minutes.

Oh, and one final note, the American Airlines automatic status notification also works great. If I hadn't signed up for that, I probably wouldn't have known about the cancelled flight for several more hours. So I recommend that if you are flying, you sign up for these notifications. I used the "voice call" option, but I would bet the text message might be even more convenient.

I'll re-post once she gets to Chicago.