American Airlines

We are now vowing to never fly American Airlines again.

We recently traveled to St. Lucia in the Caribbean for a vacation.  St. Lucia was awesome. Unfortunately, there appeared to be only one way to get there from Houston, via American Airlines, so I booked them.

The first knock on them is that we had to catch a 5:20am flight out of Houston on Saturday morning to connect to Miami, change planes and then catch another plane to St. Lucia, but still on American.

I will also never fly that early in the morning again.  We hate to travel the Houston freeways early in the morning, because that's when all the drunks are driving and many end up going the wrong way on the freeway because they're so drunk. In the two weeks leading up to our departure, there were FIVE wrong-way crashes on Houston freeways.

So, we decided to stay at the Marriott Hotel at the Houston Intercontinental Airport (I refuse to call it "Bush".)

It was really no problem boarding the 5:20am flight. In fact, I was able to secure an upgrade to Business Class, so the flight to Miami was fine, with food and whatever else we wanted. 

Landing in Miami was smooth and we had only about a 75-minute layover.  Fortunately we were able to check our two bags all the way thru to St. Lucia, and they actually did arrive correctly in St. Lucia.

The problem began with the flight from Miami to St. Lucia.  On this leg, we were unable to upgrade, so we ended up on the 24th row, and by now we were getting hungry.

When the American flight attendant reached us with the snack and beverage cart, she was out of all the regular food. All she had left was potato chips.  She told us that she ran out of food at about the 20th row, and there were another 20 rows to the back of the plane!

The kicker was when she said, "THIS HAPPENS EVERY TIME!"  In other words, American intentionally does not pack enough food on their planes to feed every passenger. And let's not forget, the era of FREE meals is long gone. Now everyone (in Coach) has to PAY for food. But, even if you are willing to pay, if you sit beyond the 20th row or so, THERE WILL NOT BE ENOUGH FOOD FOR YOU TO PURCHASE ANY.

The flight attendant was visibly upset.  Passengers were visibly upset. It was basically the lunch hour, with another two hours to fly, and no food left. It's rather unbelievable to me that American would do this on purpose, EVERY SINGLE TIME. 

But I guess the thing is, WE HAVE  LITTLE OTHER CHOICE. The conglomeration of airlines has decreased our options, so you take what you get, or just don't go.

Lesson learned: if you want to have some food on an American Airlines flight, either:

1) pack your own food in your bags;

2) pay for Business Class (right);

3) get a seat in Coach higher than the 20th row.

Another cute move on the part of the airlines is that, after paying for your regular fare, if you want a couple of inches of extra leg room, or if you want to move towards the front of the cabin, YOU HAVE TO PAY ANOTHER FEE, anywhere from $30 to $100. This is not just American Airlines pulling this. All the majors are doing this.

Is the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) paying any attention?  Is there still an FAA?