Our Stressful Trip to England and Why I'll Never Fly American Airlines Again

A number of years ago when my husband and I were flying to some destination which I have now forgotten, it was necessary for us to fly American Eagle out of Fort Smith, AR, to connect with American at Dallas. To say that trip was not a pleasant one would be an understatement.

But the thing that really burned me was seeing what they did to a family who was trying to get back home to the Fayetteville, AR area from a trip to Florida. This family had a child with a terminal disease, and the family had been given a trip to Disneyworld by the Fulfill-a-Dream organization. We were waiting in Dallas for our return flight on American Eagle when a young woman came literally running up to the desk, puffing for breath, and said, "We're here. My family is coming on a cart but I ran on ahead to let you know we're here. We're late, because our connecting flight was late, but we're here."

As she spoke, the agent was calling for stand-by passengers and assigning them the seats that were reserved for the family. Aware of what was going on, the woman protested, "Don't give our seats away. We're here." At that time, the cart pulled up and her disabled husband, her ill child, and her mother got off. The agent continued giving away their seats.

Finally he said, "There are still two seats left. Two of you can go on it and the other two can wait for the next flight." I could certainly relate to the lady's problem at this point. It was obvious that she was the only able-bodied member of the family there, and that her presence was necessary for any of the others to make the trip. Which two could go ahead, and why would they choose to be separated for the return trip?

Eventually the decision was made for American Airlines to buy supper for the family and give them all seats on the next flight to Fort Smith. That would cause problems with their ride home from the airport, but they had no choice. It seemed to me it would have been more fair to let the stand-by passengers wait for the next flight. Especially since the family had reserved seats on the plane and were there in time for the flight.

While she was waiting for a decision to be made, I heard the woman say that the whole trip had been a disaster. When they had tried to leave the Fort Smith airport the American Eagle plane had malfunctioned while taxiing down the runway. The flight had to be aborted and they had to wait for another one. The child by this point was afraid to get on another plane, but was finally persuaded to do so.

The delay caused them to miss their connection at Dallas, which made them late arriving in Orlando. When they reached Orlando, their rental car had been given to another customer, because the rental agency had thought they weren't coming. The same thing had happened with the room reserved for them. They had made a call to the Fulfill-a-Dream staff, and eventually got things straightened out, but it cost even more of their short vacation time.

Shortly after the family had left the ticket agent's desk, some unidentified man, livid with rage, walked up to the desk. He apparently had some authority, as he told the agent, "You, your supervisor, and I will be meeting at 10:00 in the morning in his office, and you'd better not fail to be there. You have some serious explaining to do about the incident that just happened." I wanted to stand up and applaud.

Fast forward to April 2nd, 2008. After months of agonizing over the decision of whether or not to take a long-delayed trip to England, my husband and I finally decided to attempt it. Although we have traveled in the past, it had been a long time since we had flown outside the country. We occasionally fly to California to visit my elderly uncle, but we always fly Southwest when we do. The airport to which we needed to go was serviced from the U.S. only by American Airlines.

My husband's nephew teaches school on an air base in England, and he and his family live in a small town several miles away from the base. Stansted Airport is nearer their home than Heathrow in London, and much easier to get in and out of. So, since American is the only airline flying from the U.S. to Stansted, we decided to risk it.

My first clue that this wasn't going to be a fun time came at the security gate in Tulsa. I felt sure that the card I had been given by my doctor's office when I had my hip joint replaced wouldn't impress anyone. After all, anyone can carry a card that says they have a metal hip or knee joint. But I hadn't really expected the extent to which having such a joint would change my life, for good or bad. I stepped up to the main scanner, handed my card to the attendant, and said, "I will set off the alarm." She looked briefly at the card, waved me through, where as promised I set off the alarm, and then pointed me to a roped-off area and told me to wait there.

Eventually another agent came and gave me a thorough going over, waving the hand scanner over all parts of my body like they might have done a suspected terrorist. I suppose an old woman could be a terrorist, but I had to think this might be a bit of an overkill. I must say it gave me new sympathy for the young men I saw put through the mill because they happened to have dark hair and eyes and a Muslim-sounding name. As the woman passed the scanner over a pocket, the scanner gave a little beep. I found a small metal button inside my pocket, that I had picked up, dropped in the pocket, and forgotten. I must say those scanners work well.

Then a second agent joined in the search. He retrieved my carry-on bag and asked if it was mine. To my surprise, he said, "I'm going to have to open it. There's something in it that looks like a bottle." Whereupon, to my chagrin, both agents began to lay out stacks of underwear, etc. for all to see. We always try to carry at least one change of clothing for both of us, in case our checked luggage gets lost. Suddenly I remembered a bottle of cologne that I had packed in the middle of the clothes earlier, intending to check that particular bag. When I decided to take it on board, I had failed to remove the cologne from it. When the bottle was retrieved I explained the situation, to which the man replied, "You're supposed to have it in a quart-size bag." I told him that I had sent such a bag through the x-ray machine with my other things, and he accepted the explanation. Both of the agents were very nice, and I know they were only doing their job, which I appreciated and which I had made harder for them, but even so, it was not a good feeling.

Our flight took us to Dallas, then to New York City, and on to England. We made the flight to Dallas on time and that part was uneventful, aside from my husband's losing his cell phone, which fortunately was found right away.

In New York we bought food and ate it in the waiting area near the gate from which our flight to England was to leave. My husband bought a Coke, and I asked him to pour a bit into a folding plastic cup I carried in my purse. As we leisurely ate, anticipating a long wait, we heard the following announcement: "Flight 144 to London Stansted has been cancelled. Retrieve your luggage from Carousel 9 and go to ticketing." At that announcement, the plastic cup collapsed, spilling Coke down the front of my light blue shirt.. I wiped it off as well as possible, then rushed with my husband to the luggage carousel. Once I had possession of all our luggage, which consisted of two big rolling bags with two smaller ones riding on top of them, and an oversized purse swung over my shoulder, I dragged them into a restroom and dug out a clean shirt to change into while my husband located the ticketing desk.

At ticketing, all the intended passengers of the cancelled flight were lined up looking for help. One man was very upset, saying he had spent an hour in line, only to be told he must bring his luggage with him, and when he returned with his luggage was sent to the back of the line for another long wait. Some chose to take a later flight into Heathrow in London. A number of the passengers were English citizens, eager to get home.

The reason given for the flight cancellation was "equipment problems," suggesting that our plane had been declared unsafe to fly. One person was told by an American Airlines employee, however, that our plane was actually sent to Switzerland, since the plane intended for that flight had problems. "I guess they're more important than we are," he said. He was one of the English people trying to get home, and he was not happy about the arrangement. He had left his car at Stansted, so chose not to take the earlier flight to Heathrow, necessitating a 24-hour stay in New York waiting for the next flight to Stansted.

We called our relatives in England, even knowing it was the middle of the night there, and asked if they would prefer we take the flight into Heathrow or wait 24 hours for the next flight to Stansted. Not desiring to drive in London to pick us up, they suggested we wait. Meanwhile, some of the English passengers were becoming more and more agitated, with one woman actually in tears, and several heated exchanges taking place between some of them and ticket agents.

The agent who waited on us was an older man who was very kind and helpful. He gave us vouchers for a room in a Ramada Inn, along with vouchers for transportation and food, as well as reservations on the flight the next evening. When we walked out the door of the terminal building, we were met by a stampede of taxi drivers, but none of them were the one who had been called for us. After waiting outside in the cold for almost an hour, my husband finally called the number we were told to call the next day to get back to the airport. A taxi finally came, with the driver claiming to have been waiting on us elsewhere. The next day we caught the hotel's shuttle back to the airport, and waited around the airport all day.

The food vouchers were basically worthless at the hotel. A "continental breakfast" would have cost $13.50 each and the breakfast voucher would have covered $10 each. We could have paid the difference, but chose not to as a matter of principle. Having been told that we could use the vouchers inside the airport terminal, we chose to wait and use them there.

On arrival back at the airport, I once again was subjected to the extensive scanning. Deciding there was no point in even showing the card, I didn't bother. The flight on to Stansted was uneventful, and we reached our destination about 7:00 the next morning after a flight of about seven hours, and allowing for the five-hour difference in time between New York and England.

The rest of the trouble upon arriving cannot be blamed on American Airlines, or actually on anybody else. It was just a series of events that further jangled our nerves and which were as much our fault as anyone's.

When we started to exit the plane at Stansted, everyone was lined up in the aisles waiting for the doors to open, when the pilot announced that he was going to have to move the plane a bit, so we should return to our seats. We did so and then left the plane shortly afterwards.

After leaving the plane, as we rushed down the hallway supposedly to retrieve our luggage, we passed a restroom. I told my husband I should probably stop there, but since there are usually restrooms near a luggage carousel, I would wait for that. Soon we came to an escalator which we assumed was taking us down to the level where we would find our luggage. Just as we reached the bottom of the escalator, my husband gasped, "Where's the camera?" We didn't have it. He knew right away that he had set it down in an empty seat to reshift his carry-on bag while we were waiting in the aisle of the plane to exit. When we had to return to our seats, he had failed to pick it up and had not seen it when we did exit.

Looking around for a way to get back to the plane, we saw no way out but the one down escalator. If you've never seen a 70-year-old man recovering from broken ribs run UP a down escalator, with people on the way down cursing him and pointing out that this was a DOWN escalator (DUH!), you should have been there. I just knew he would fall and destroy his shins on the sharp edges of the steps, but thankfully, he reached the top and escaped unscathed. I saw him in a new light light at that point. It was not something I would have chosen to try, but I had to say he moved like the athletic young man I married so long ago.

I waited at the bottom of the escalator till he returned a few minutes later, empty handed. He said the doors to the jetway back to the plane had obviously locked behind us. We dragged ourselves around the corner to the area where we expected to find the luggage carousel. All we found was a set of double doors that opened automatically every two minutes or so, allowing access to a train that took passengers to the terminal building a short distance away. We had thought we were already in the terminal building. There were no restrooms anywhere to be seen.

Spying a phone on the wall, I suggested we call for help. My husband picked up the phone and located a real person, but in the middle of his conversation, the flight crew from our plane came through. He handed the phone to me and rushed to talk to the nice flight attendant we had been visiting with during the landing. She showed him a stairway and told him to go up those stairs, down the hall, get as close to the plane as possible, and wait till somebody came along to help him.

I thanked the person on the phone and hung up as he rushed off. For about thirty minutes I waited with our carry ons while groups of people came through and entered the train, wishing fervently that I had taken advantage of my only opportunity to visit a restroom.

Finally my husband returned with the camera case, smiling broadly. He said he had waited by the door till he saw a man on the other side and had tapped on the glass in the door to get his attention. The man had called someone from American Airlines and soon the door to the plane was opened. A young lady asked him if he had lost something and he told her about his camera. As it turned out, he also had two GPS units in the camera case, so if he hadn't found it, he would have lost over a thousand dollars worth of equipment. And it would have ruined our vacation. We were so thankful that it had been found by an honest person and everything was returned to us safely.

We caught the next train that came by and thought our problems were over. We were almost right at the door of the terminal when the train stopped. And stayed there. The driver of the train, who was in the car ahead of ours, continued to repeat, "We apologize for any inconvenience," over the intercom. We sat there for about 20 minutes, as the air inside the train cars became more and more stuffy. Since the doors couldn't be opened, I was pondering the wisdom of breaking out a window and escaping to go in search of a restroom. Desperate situations call for desperate measures, and I was getting really desperate. And yes, we were feeling quite inconvenienced.

Finally, two workmen approached the train from behind, pried open the doors, and led us back the way we had come from and down the stairs of an "emergency exit." We soon found outselves standing on the grass of the area far below the train platform. Several young men who were speaking German among themselves had been on the train, and now some of them lit cigarettes. I hadn't noticed it until a small truck bearing a sign identifying it as "Airport Security" pulled up. A short, plump, bald, red-faced man jumped out of the truck and rushed up to us. "I want to know which of you guys has been smoking on my train!" he demanded.

After a short pause, during which I saw a man near me ease his cigarette down beside him, drop it, and cover it with his foot, one of the braver souls said, "I have. Are you going to arrest me for it?"

The irate official, caught offguard, sputtered a second, then turned on his heel and stalked off. Another young man said quietly, "There must have been four or five of us smoking. You might think that wouldn't be the biggest problem right now." We had not seen any no-smoking signs, but it's apparently an unspoken rule in England that you don't smoke on trains. I actually didn't see anyone smoking until after we were off the train, however.

Soon a bus appeared and we were loaded on and transported the rest of the way to the terminal building, a distance which we could have walked in a few minutes. We assumed they didn't want us turned loose to wander around the area. As we entered the bus, our cell phone rang. It was our nephew's wife wondering what had happened to us. She told us again where to meet her outside the terminal once we were processed. We were happy to know our phone worked in England, and would have been in big trouble if it hadn't.

Once we had taken care of necessary business inside the terminal, we left the building, dragging all our luggage with us, crossed the street, and went to the area at the end of the sidewalk where we were supposed to meet our ride. We immediately saw signs proclaiming, "Airport arrivals only. No pick-ups here."

Another sign announced, "($$$) fine for pick-ups here." I've forgotten how much the fine would be if you were caught breaking the rule. Not that anyone could, due to guards patrolling the area. We told them we were instructed to meet our ride there and they told us in no uncertain terms that we would have to go to the area below in "short-term parking" to be picked up. We plodded back across the street, back through the terminal, down a long ramp, and back outside, where we called our relative to tell her where to pick us up.

When we finally got together, she said she had seen the guards taking down her license plate number as she had circled through the drop-off area several times. But there was nothing they could do since she had never stopped and picked anyone up.

We had a wonderful visit in England, but I was dreading the flight home. If I thought I had been searched in Tulsa and New York, I should have dreaded England. Their search was actually more hands-on and not as polite as the ones in the U.S.

Our flight back to New York was basically uneventful. But I was disappointed to see that the next leg of our flight would be on American Eagle. I have no doubt those planes are leftovers from WWII that were used to transport the most despised prisoners of war. The seats are apparently made to accommodate small children. While my husband and I are of average size, I had to wonder how a really large person could sit in them at all. Every time he shifted positions, which was necessary in order to breathe, he elbowed me sharply in the ribs. I'm sure I did the same for him. On this particular plane, the faucet in the restroom was taped up, labeled "out of order" and a package of alcohol wipes sat in the sink. My feet stuck to the floor and the odor in there was positively overpowering. The plane rattled like a bucket of bolts when it made its way down the runway and gave a sickening lurch into the air. I started to experience my first-ever air sickness and both my husband and I had major ear problems on that flight, which I had never had before. All in all, it was a most unpleasant experience.

We reached St. Louis and waited for quite a while for our 7:05 p.m. flight to Tulsa. Then the announcement was made that the flight was cancelled due to weather, and passengers should "pick up one of the red phones across the hall and get instructions on rerouting." There were five phones for about 50 people. Some decided to take a later flight to Dallas and on to Tulsa, but we decided we might get stuck in Dallas so we'd just as well stay where we were. We were, however, given reservations to fly to Tulsa via Dallas at 2:00 the next day.

This time we were given a voucher for a discounted room, but not a free one since American has no control over the weather. We returned to the desk of the gate from where our plane was supposed to leave, and were told to retrieve our luggage at carousel 3.

After waiting for some time for our luggage, my husband found a luggage office and asked about it. He was told it might take quite a while for it to arrive.After a wait of over two hours, he returned to the office and demanded that a search be executed. When it was done, our luggage was located. It was in Dallas.

We arrived at our room for the night to realize my husband's blood pressure medicine, as well as his shaving kit, were in checked bags in Dallas. The hotel gave him toiletries, including a disposable razor, but he had to do without his medication. He had chosen to put his shaving kit in checked luggage because of some things in it that wouldn't go through security. We learned at that point that we must be more careful to take anything on board that is necessary and hard to replace, as lost luggage is always a possibility. I must add that it was the first time in all our years of travel that our luggage had been missent.

The next morning we returned to the airport at 9:30 in hopes of catching an earlier flight to Tulsa. The ticket agent we talked to was very helpful. She told us, regarding the reservations we had been given the night before, "I see you cancelled those and rescheduled for the 7:05 flight." We hadn't done that and had no idea how it had happened. She said there was a flight at 1:30 p.m. going directly to Tulsa, and she would give us stand-by reservations on it, and would also give us reservations on the 7:05 flight in case we didn't get stand-by seats. We didn't.

We were delighted when the 7:05 flight was not cancelled. It was an American Connection flight this time, but it was no better than American Eagle. During the time we were waiting for the flight, the one flight attendant scheduled for our flight was visiting with the ticket agent at our gate. The female agent told her, "I've got him in three seats. You should be able to get another passenger to change seats with him." She said the plane was overloaded so they were going to have to leave two seats empty.

When we got on the plane, we noticed an off-duty pilot sitting near the back in a row of three seats, with the other two empty. The flight attendant soon asked the man sitting in the single seat on the front row if he would trade seats with the pilot "so he can be up here with the crew." Neither the passenger nor the pilot appeared to be too happy with the trade. We had seen the attendant flirting outrageously with the pilot before we entered the plane, and she now had the poor guy right where she wanted him.

As we were sitting near the front, it was our misfortune to hear the flight attendant prattle on and on to the poor pilot as the plane took off and as she prepared the beverage cart for serving. As she gave the safety instructions, she appeared to be completely bored with the whole procedure, and once through she rushed through the cabin with the cart and hurried back to continue her monologue. The poor pilot listened as politely as possible while she talked about her shoes, two pilots she had recently had to fly with (one "a big old guy with white hair") who "treated me like dirt and stayed on my back the whole time," etc., etc.

I was feeling a bit claustrophic and queasy already, and wanted only to sit still and quiet and try to ease my aching head. The girl's voice echoed off the walls of the crampled plane and each word she spoke was like a whack on the head with a hammer. Just before landing, she made one mad dash up and down the aisle to collect trash. Other than that, we would have been better off with no attendant at all.

That flight was finally over and we caught up with our luggage at Tulsa. When we got home with it, I discovered that everything in it was soaking wet. Not damp. Soaked. At some point, it must have been left out in the rain.

Am I being too hard on American Airlines? Perhaps. Our son-in-law flies almost every week on his job, and he says all the airlines he has flown on have lots of problems.

We met many wonderful employees of American Airlines. Most of them seemed to try very hard to be helpful and patient. But I think the management is at fault.Do I remember correctly that in the past the company has asked its employees to take cuts in benefits, and then turned right around and gave huge raises to its executives? I suppose that is common practice among corporations. But that doesn't make it right.

What bothers me the most is the lack of consideration American Airlines has for their customers. Just cancel their flight and leave them dangling. No apology. Nothing consistent except disappointment and frustration.

I may be misjudging American Airlines. But I don't think so. In yesterday's newspaper, I read that American Airlines has the worst record and American Eagle the third worse record for late flights. Could that be a coincidence?

If I have a choice, I will remember my previous vow and will stay as far away from American Airlines, American Eagle, and American Connection as possible in the future. I just don't need the aggravation.