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The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

dustincurtis.com

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Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#61

Post by tbrooks »

potatolicious wrote: post #21
jrockway wrote: post #16

Ouch. I have top-tier status on AA, and they will be getting a note from me about this. Not cool. That said, I am still confused as to why Dustin thinks AA's website is so relevant to its business model. Their website is not very Web 2.0, it's true. But, they make up for that... I can fly non-stop from Chicago (my home airport) to thousands of cities around the world on AA quite cheaply. They have three-class interna…

"Their website is not very Web 2.0, it's true." One of the original reasons why I disagreed with Dustin. Slick Web 2.0-y goodness does not imply a better user experience. Copious amounts of whitespace is easy on the eyes, but also doesn't automatically imply discoverability or readability. I know first-hand of at least one top-50 website that is very Web 1.0 but absolutely excels at what it does.

Drudge Report

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#62

Post by ErrantX »

Vivtek wrote: post #51
butterfi wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly AA prioritizes the wrong things. I'm betting the guy broke some policy, but is it really a firing offense? Are they going to sack the middle-management bonehead who blew this up into a much more embarrassing spectacle? Like I really needed another reason not to fly AA. These days, its Jet Blue or Virgin America if at all possible.

On the other hand, when I flew from Puerto Rico to Florida with my dog this spring, JetBlue not only didn't have facilities to fly my dog, they had no answer to my dilemma at all. And instead of refunding my ticket, they gave me credit, with JetBlue, who ... can't fly my dog. And then they said, "Well, have a nice day." No help, no money back, no nothing. It took them fifteen minutes even to tell me that they couldn'…

I don't wish to be rude but did it not occur to you to check they could handle your dog when booking?

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#63

Post by njn »

There's a common attribute that makes for good designers, good engineers, good employees, and good companies. For a long time, I couldn't figure out what it was. Was it practice? Was it skill? Was it innate ability? Turns out, it's none of those. It's taste.

Steve Jobs also cited 'taste' as the fundamental difference between Apple and Microsoft. His high-and-mighty attitude almost made me want to puke, as Dustin's does here.

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#64

Post by nrr »

ErrantX wrote: post #62
Vivtek wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, when I flew from Puerto Rico to Florida with my dog this spring, JetBlue not only didn't have facilities to fly my dog, they had no answer to my dilemma at all. And instead of refunding my ticket, they gave me credit, with JetBlue, who ... can't fly my dog. And then they said, "Well, have a nice day." No help, no money back, no nothing. It took them fifteen minutes even to tell me that they couldn'…

I don't wish to be rude but did it not occur to you to check they could handle your dog when booking?

I do this when I fly musical instruments like my bass guitar (for which I haven't managed to purchase a hard-shell flight case, bah) to evade having a damaged instrument at my destination. Some airlines will let you store these things in the bulkhead compartment forward, and others require you to purchase an additional ticket.

So, yes, checking the airline's policies would've been top priority. With JetBlue, this is amazingly easy: http://help.jetblue.com/SRVS/CGI-BIN/webisapi.dll?New,Kb=ask...

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#66

Post by jrockway »

pxlpshr wrote: post #55
jrockway wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Although I do think AA beats the other US airlines on paper, which is why I haven't tried any others. (I have flown on Southwest. Once. I got to the airport two hours early for a domestic flight. Waited in line for an hour and 45 minutes to check my bag and get a boarding pass. The boarding pass was "the wrong one" and security wouldn't let me through. Ticket agent didn't care. Gate agent didn't care. I then…

I've never had that type of experience at Southwest. Ever. It's my choice airline for domestic but I can see how it's not for everyone. I like the early-bird-gets-the-worm approach to their seating, and I print my ticket before I leave because....... And you checked "a" bag in? On a domestic flight? If I can't carry-on on a domestic flight, then I cut down my packing so I don't look like a woman taking my closet. Whe…

I checked my bag so I wouldn't have to buy 3 ounce plastic bottles.

I still check my bag, even though I "know better", because unpacking at the checkpoint is a big pain. I don't think I carry anything on that doesn't have to be taken out of my backpack.

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#68

Post by DrJokepu »

noonespecial wrote: post #26

The mistake Mr. X. made here was not about caring about his job or even criticizing his employer. He contacted an outsider, with his company's email server, ostensibly on their behalf. At bigco, you just can't do that folks. Everything that leaves corporate walls must be vetted by legal, (and probably marketing too). There are lists of 100's (maybe 1000's by now) of innocuous seeming words that you just can't use. La…

I can't help but think that this approach cannot work anymore in the current communicational golden age. We really have social media, twitter, blogs. Content accessible to the public is not constrained by publishers anymore. If you're a big organization, people want to hear things from your employees directly and not from the usual boring PR channels, and they find a way to do so because it's so easy.

I believe companies have to embrace allowing their employees to communicate independently while making it clear that what they say is not the official position of the corporation. There's simply no other way, the age of controlled communication channels is just over. A good example is MSDN blogs - anyone at Microsoft can launch his or her blog and talk about whatever they want (except, of course, confidental information).

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#69

Post by davidw »

jrockway wrote: post #41
wakeless wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is less about AA being crap and more about you being a frequent flyer with ANY full service airline.

Agreed. Although I do think AA beats the other US airlines on paper, which is why I haven't tried any others. (I have flown on Southwest. Once. I got to the airport two hours early for a domestic flight. Waited in line for an hour and 45 minutes to check my bag and get a boarding pass. The boarding pass was "the wrong one" and security wouldn't let me through. Ticket agent didn't care. Gate agent didn't care. I then…

I missed an AA flight in Munich, and they were complete assholes. Actually, I guess it was their 'partner', BA, but even the people we got on the phone were completely unhelpful. My wife, parents in law, and I ended up on three separate flights to Portland, Oregon.

OTOH, on the way back, the nice person at the AA ticket counter saw there were problems with one of our connections, and put us all on a Lufthansa direct flight to Frankfurt.

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#70

Post by Quarrelsome »

noonespecial wrote: post #26

The mistake Mr. X. made here was not about caring about his job or even criticizing his employer. He contacted an outsider, with his company's email server, ostensibly on their behalf. At bigco, you just can't do that folks. Everything that leaves corporate walls must be vetted by legal, (and probably marketing too). There are lists of 100's (maybe 1000's by now) of innocuous seeming words that you just can't use. La…

But what is really weird is that Mr X and AA.com come off pretty well in the email. A bit of humility and a focus on the future. I even liked AA a little bit more after reading it..... until I realised they fired him for sending it.
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