I’ve written for years about the ragged cabins of American Airlines Airbus A320s. One of the more shocking things – beyond dirty seats – has been missing seat backs in first class, with seats taken out of service. The response from the airline (and some readers) has been that it’s better to fly planes in this condition than delay flights to address the problem. But I’ve always wondered, what are they doing when the planes aren’t flying to maintain the interiors so that this doesn’t happen so frequently?
When there are first class seats out of service, passengers also miss upgrades. On sold out flights, American has to deny passengers boarding. It’s not just the bad aesthetic experience, they become an airline that can’t provide the transportation they’ve sold.
So it was striking to see this problem spread beyond the fleet of old A320s to an eight year old Airbus A321, and to see the plane keep flying without cabin maintenance for weeks on end.
This was American Airlines flight 563 from Orlando to Philadelphia on April 26th. Other passengers report flying this aircraft, registration N148AN, over the past several weeks in the same condition. The airline hasn’t taken it out of service or even fixed during an overnight.
April 26, 2024
Here’s the passenger who shared the photo:
[T]he flight attendant complained over the loud speaker about American, stating that they don’t care about their passengers at all. The plane had no catering at all. There was exactly two bottles of Juice and 6 bottles of water for the whole flight. They left the plane completely dirty the night before with even dirty dishes in the plane.
It occurs to me that with delays in the Airbus A321XLR program – the new plane American plans to use for short transatlantics – perhaps they’re just trialing a new lie-flat seat up front?
I’m sure there are ‘supply chain issues’ but we’ve seen domestic first class cabins in disrepair like this for several years, and we’re well past the stage of the pandemic where this was a reasonable excuse.
Beyond the pale for the flight attendant to bash AA like that. I mean was it true, yes. Was it appropriate, maybe if in a funny or humorous way, but I am going to guess the flight attendant isn’t going to qualify for open mic night at a comedy club.
You can apologize in a “pardon our mess” sort of way, but to say the airline doesn’t care? You’re hired as a steward of the brand, a representative of where you work.
Ultimately this is a flight attendant who wasn’t raised right and has zero class. Do you want somebody like that in charge of your safety?
I had a Delta pilot apologize and state he was embarrassed for Delta last year after a series of really dumb things delayed our flight for over two hours. You could tell he was frustrated over the PA. I’m guessing this flight attendant was also frustrated since they were going to bear the brunt of the failures.
You can apologize for your employer (in this kind of case). That’s different from saying your employer doesn’t care about its customers.
I recently flew Business rt to Rome and was taken aback that the seat I was in had nuts on the floor and rocked back and forth. Also, the folks taking care of the Business class section going over, which on both flights was full, were completely overworked. i think there were only 4 of them total.
AA 787 flight from Zurich to Philadelphia in November in Flagship Business. Three seats in J out of 20 were broken and unusable. Maybe I could understand one because something went bad enroute from Philadelphia, but three?
Keep in mind, bean counters run the business. Don’t want to keep any more spare parts around than necessary (no matter what they are) as that has a negative effect on the balance sheet. AA wants to keep those planes around because the lease rates are low enough but they don’t want to spend the $$$ maintaining the interiors because that cost money that they don’t see a return on.
I wonder if this is part of American Airlines’ C-suite management’s profit-making mandate to refuse to repair an aircraft they intend to send to the aircraft boneyard in 50 to 60 more years.
“[T]he flight attendant complained over the loud speaker about American, stating that they don’t care about their passengers at all. The plane had no catering at all. There was exactly two bottles of Juice and 6 bottles of water for the whole flight. They left the plane completely dirty the night before with even dirty dishes in the plane.” When you work for a company for a long time, you should have pride when your company does something right. When the company does something wrong, it is a problem. The flight attendant should have said sorry about the maintenance issues but we complain and things don’t seem to get better. Please let the company know if you have issues with the maintenance. Here are the ways to put in a review. The trouble with this approach is that the sword cuts both ways and the FAs may end up with complaints.
You always need to bring your own water into the plane and in an amount that if there was zero water you would be comfortable.
You need to be sure you do this for yourself and anyone else you would have to provide it for.
I think that if AA didn’t make an announcement prior to boarding about the state of the aircraft and give the option to get on another flight that is torture.
I don’t blame this FA. I would probably do the same thing.
Why are we surprised? As @Gary clearly told us a few days ago, AA doesn’t make money moving passengers, it’s from their credit card deals. They’re all too busy pimping for CITI and Barclays.
Although I’m DFW based I Think I’m going back to United and ask for a status match. I was a 1K for several years and it was better than EXP. Way too many these similar experiences on AA. I don’t trust the hard product on AA at all.
The dirty RON planes are their ground handling staff’s responsibility. A lot of carriers have outsourced that. AA needs to jump on that contractor hard. No excuses.
Broken seats should be repaired any time a plane RON at a maintenance capable city. Letting seats like that fly not only cuts into revenue, but encourages customers to fly a different carrier. It also encourages customers to wonder what else might be wrong on the aircraft.
On time departures aren’t the only things customers care about.
The “old” A320’s we are flying on are mostly ex-America West/US Air equipment that was previously mothballed at Roswell, NM
Definitely shabby abdbin need of, at the very least, a deep cleaning……!
@Steve: I’m with you regarding the BeanCouters running the show, but you lost me on “they don’t want to spend the $$$ maintaining the interiors because that cost money that they don’t see a return on”. Are you sure ? Because a 1st Class Seat on an aircraft that flys up to 6 flights a day is likely giving up around $ 1000 or more daily in lost revenue. The seat repair may well cost $ 1000, but that’s one hell of a return on an annualized basis.
We all make a lot of assumptions and assume we know what’s going on here.
Is it bean counters who won’t authorize the purchase of replacement seats? Is it a third party vendor who can’t provide the needed parts in a timely manner? Is it lazy employees who have the necessary parts but are working very slowly to complete their assigned tasks? Is it employees working without a new contract who are damaging equipment in order to punish their employer? At this point I don’t think we really know the answer?
When everyone can see the items that are in disrepair, it raises questions about the condition of things you can’t see…especially when they continue the mantra of caring for their passengers…
Again, the myth that so & so airlines makes their money on credit card deals is absolutely false. If this were true AA would be classified as a bank. The cc deals help contribute to the airlines profits but aren’t the exclusive source of income/profits. Have a nice day please!
I was on an American Airlines a319 in October 2022. From sat down and put my hand on the armrest and started to relax, when I noticed that my armrest was in shambles. Completely broken, 30+ pieces, very unacceptable for an airline. Plus, it was delayed 2 hours
@Cr- “the myth that so & so airlines makes their money on credit card deals is absolutely false. If this were true AA would be classified as a bank. ”
That’s not what makes something a bank. American Express wasn’t even a bank holding company under November 10, 2008 (financial crisis, this gave them access to government funding).
And airlines are co-brand marketing partners. They rent their brand and marketing lists, they sell a currency and benefits. Those are products and services that get sold to credit card issuers.
I paid for a first class seat a few weeks ago to fly from Phoenix to Orlando and was held at the gate because my seat was broken and they had already upgraded other passengers to any remaining first class seats. I stood at the gate counter while they boarded the entire rest of the plane while the staff found a passenger to bump from an upgrade to give me a seat. They still couldn’t get it fixed by the the boarding was over and had to let me on the plane anyway. I saw my original seat and 2 others (3 total) were out of service in first class. Moreover when I was seated the attendant informed me that tray on my newly assigned seat was ALSO BROKEN ARE YOU KIDDING ME. So when meal service came they offered me an upside down soda crate with a napkin on it to eat my meal. What the actual f***. Apparently the gate agents never fixed my reservation either because I haven’t been issued my miles for the flight and none of my reservation or tickets numbers match in their system to request them. This was top to bottom a massively bad experience. I wrote to American and they haven’t responded at all. I have pictures of the broken seats, tray table, and the soda crate “solution”. They have made no effort to compensate or otherwise resolve this experience. Again, I paid full price for this seat and this is what I got….
As an employee I can guarantee you American management does not care for you. As long as you keep giving them your money it will be same ole.
At least the flights attendant was honest with the passengers when no one else was.
@Courtney Overdorf Good luck getting a resolution. AA Customer Relations employees were all let go as of the end of March along with two other departments. The work of those 650+ employees is now handled by bots, offshore, or the new 135 employee department that replaced the three. Oh, and they say they did this to provide superior service. Let us know how that works out….
It’s very simple: The countless stories about bad experiences flying AA clearly prove beyond any doubt that their leadership doesn’t care about the passengers and their only interest is to continue trying to lure unsuspecting people to fly them, collect their pay check, give a middle finger to the customers, and see how long they can continue to get away with this.
America West. What we serve is you
AAs favorite thing is defer, defer, defer. Overnight maintenance went by the wayside years ago. If that plane is nearing its big check or is going to be retrofitted with new interior, it most likely will not get fixed until then. The employees don’t understand either why we have to be embarrassed on a daily basis. Isom sends us letters and expects the FAs to apologize and keep the customers coming back but yet Isom has zero respect for the FAs and can some how justify not giving them a raise for 5 YEARS. If you have been with AA for 20-30 years you remember when AA was a great, respectable airline. Everyone from top to bottom took pride in the airline. Not today. Current management is proof that income and education does not make one sophisticated, visionary or have any self respect and self pride. They are setting the example and it is a fruitless fight for those of us that still take pride in AA and love our jobs. Not only is Isom and the gang flying around dirty, broken, under supplied airplanes they are rewarding themselves handsomely for it and have zero respect for the employees that have to some how make up for all their short comings and failures. It’s like going from having management that came from the Ritz to now having management that came from Motel 6. I personally cannot comprehend it. But it’s inline with what we see in society today.
Here is an interesting insight from fhe Financial Times about continuing supply chain shortages with aircraft seats…
https://www.ft.com/content/b07ee882-5058-4098-8ae5-1667ce63a130
Courtney I am sorry for your experience. As a FA for AA we are embarrassed DAILY. It is disgusting and unacceptable. But truth be told Isom and the gang do not care about any one but themselves and all the money they can suck out of the public and some of their workgroups. They show it EVERYDAY.
I have dealt personally with this issue and the photo shows a passenger sitting behind it. That is NOT allowed as that passenger has no brace position in case of an emergency landing. So actually the revenue lost would affect TWO seats legally. This happens more than you know and I just shake my head and think, “Hete we go AGAIN”…
I worked at AA for 17 years, and the current management could care less. They want your money so they can pay off “Parker’s Palace”, the ginormous new HDQ they opened a few years back. My advice; If you have any status with American, I would be calling United and Delta asking for a status match and never give American another cent. Besides United and Delta have a much better domestic first class so at least you’re getting something in return for giving them your money. Having flown on both United and Delta recently, you can clearly see the difference compared to AA in the hard and soft product. Do yourself a favor and say “Bye Felicia” to AA.
@GlobalAdventurer – the article is all about widebody seats, and remember that narrowbody deliveries are slowed
Bring back regulation.
@joseph along with water and snacks, should I also bring a toolkit and duct tape?
Forget about the seats, what does the person in the orange shorts think they are doing ?
Aside from the fashion faux pas, allowing your skin to touch a part of the seat that has God knows how many bacteria on it shows terrible judgement.
If the cabin seats are in such poor shape, one can only begin to guess what the rest of the aircraft is like. On one recent flight the cockpit door was open during boarding. I just looked in to say Hi to the crew, and oh my, there were so many MEL ( minimum equipment list) Stickers on the overhead panel it was unbelievable.
I’ll drive before I’ll fly in a plane like that again.
Courtney, I was waiting to read about the goats walking the aisles and hockers on board. Can we say Third World?
Why so many broken seats? Oversized loads?
Regarding Airline credits cards. Delta has reported their income from Amex is on par with total passenger revenue.
A “front of house” employee must be frustrated beyond acceptable levels for them to say what they said and the company must be incompetent and uncaring beyond acceptable levels for allowing their planes to become so slovenly. It’s the front of house people who get to deal with customer dissociation on complaints, not management that sits in an office well removed from the flak. Poor management is totally to blame, not the messenger.
Oh how I long for the stricter regulation that Pres. Jimmy Carter stopped. American Airlines used to be a decent deal, with a relatively generous mileage program and the possibility of booking business or first on trans oceanic routes with One World partners. No more. It is impossible to book those awards now. Don’t tell me to book on the day they are released because due to lack of partner support for AA means no seats are available. We have revenue first on a round trip MCO/PHX. It will be interesting to see if the seats we have selected will even be there and functional. The flight attendants and crews should strike and teach Isom a lesson. The decline of AA started when he became president in 2016. As Pres. Truman said, “The buck stops here.” Shut it down until he makes the improvements necessary.