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Can This Reputation Be Saved?

American Airlines

The short answer: Probably not.

You can't say that they aren't trying. They even launched a blog for, heaven's sake. Okay, not much of a blog. It's clumsy and awkward, about as feeble as it gets, actually, and to most of the world it just further demonstrates AA's incompetence. But at least it provides a place to leave comments.

I really did believe them when they said that it was the FAA's fault. But that's not going to repair their reputation. The reality is that they affected people's lives -- not just their vacations, but their businesses and their livelihoods. They pissed off an awful lot of people who travel for a living -- people who have long memories and short fuses -- and no amount of apologies and blogging is going to make it better.

My suggestion is to merge with an airline like Emirates, that knows how to treat people, and hope for the best.

Okay, in the interest of transparency, here's my personal tale of American Airlines angst. Two weeks ago, I was taking an American Eagle flight to JFK to connect to an Emirates flight, and the plane was so late I missed the connection. American, of course, didn't tell me that when I checked in. Emirates was very accommodating and put me on the first flight out in the morning. But in the meantime, it took me until 2 am to find a hotel room ($179 for 6 hours), which American wouldn't pay for.

So when I looked at my itinerary for this week and saw "American Airlines," I groaned. And called my travel agent to change it.

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