Like all of us observing the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, I found myself facing a flood of emotions and memories this week that I didn’t necessarily want recalled.  I know my friends in the airline industry felt the same way.

As the lead airline reporter at Reuters at the time, I was closely covering not only the human aspects of the tragedy, but the financial ones as well. In addition to coping with the terrible loss of life and the almost constant anxiety that another attack was imminent, we all knew that there was a serious financial crisis underway that could have caused many airlines to simply go out of business. The situation was incredibly dire.

I remember being amazed and yes, proud, that our government reacted incredibly quickly – just 11 days after the attacks – to set up the Air Transportation Stabilization Board.

Almost immediately, the government was able distribute $5 billion in cash and up to $10 billion in loans to all of our nation’s airlines as they faced a major cash crunch when people simply stopped flying. It was the right thing to do.

Now, a decade later, United Airlines and American Airlines – two of our national icons which had absorbed the remnants of early pioneers Pan Am and TWA – are still flying strong. I remember vividly the almost poetic moment when President George W. Bush traveled to O’Hare airport in Chicago on September 27, 2001, to honor the airline employees and spoke with the backdrop of two jets behind him from both of those airlines.

The photo remains a powerful symbol that we prevailed in the face of horror. Everyone who was at that high-security event – including hundreds of journalists like me – was incredibly moved and many wept. I later went to work at United as the company faced ongoing financial pressures and was forced into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a situation that no one wanted to happen. But once again, it was also very fitting that another one of our American treasures, our legal system, enabled United to fix its balance sheet in an orderly way, saving the jobs of roughly 80,000 people.

The airline industry that was born in this country continues to enable commerce all around the world, thanks in large part to the actions of our government and the airlines themselves in the immediate 9/11 aftermath. While flying might not be a lot of fun these days, we should all be grateful and proud that we can still go about our business as we always have.

We should also use this example of leadership in Washington – in partnership with one of our major industries at a time of incredible duress – as proof positive that our government can and should step up to the plate during this current time of economic turmoil. Where there’s a will, there is definitely a way.

kfieweger General Corporate 9/11, Air Transportation Stabilization Board, American Airlines, United Airlines

Apologies in advance for this long post…but you’ve got to hear it all to believe it.

Air travel has become positively uncivilized….and really, when you pack hundreds of people into a flying tin can, there are bound to be issues. Add a lengthy security process, crowded cabins (I know airlines are all touting leg room, but I’d really like some elbow room, please),crowded skies which lead to all kinds of delays and lost luggage, it is no wonder that any time there is an issue in the air, it makes big news.

From what I remember about Economics 101 (which isn’t much), deregulation is supposed to drive prices lower, and increase competitiveness of an industry. We got the lower fares, no doubt. But somehow, the kind of service you’d expect from competitiveness just isn’t happening.

I’ve worked with airlines as clients for most of my career, and I am generally sympathetic to their plight. But sometimes, an airline earns its bad reputation. Take American Airlines….big, aloof, arrogant. And the experience I had with them last month is so outrageous, you couldn’t make it up. Like millions on the Internet, I now believe that American/American Eagle is the worst airline on the planet.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in July, I (over)packed my wheelie bag and headed to the airport for a trip to Springfield, Missouri via Chicago O’Hare. My general rule of thumb is this, “If you need to make a connection to get there, I don’t need to go.” And connections via O’Hare usually spell trouble. But sometimes, clients pick locations that don’t have non-stop options. The ticket agent asked if I would check my bag, as the flight was very full…and I reluctantly agreed – I didn’t want to be difficult, and since I was arriving on Sunday night, I wouldn’t be in a rush.

Despite the blue skies, thunderstorms in the Midwest were causing havoc all over the system. Weather delay number 1. Stuff happens. Not their fault. When we arrive in Chicago, the flight attendant announces connecting gates – and while we are very late, I figure this means that the flight to Springfield is also very delayed. After a fellow passenger dropped the luggage that they didn’t ask him to check on my flip-flopped foot, I de-plane and hobble my way to the gate, which is in an entirely different concourse….only to learn that this flight left long ago. The gate agent advised that he could not help me rebook, and that I needed to go to the rebooking center, where they will rebook me and provide me with a hotel voucher. By now, my big toe is swollen and black…so I gimp it back to the rebooking center (which is back where I started, and if you’ve ever been to O’Hare you know that I’ve covered a lot of distance at this point).

The rebooking center is a BANK OF PHONES…no humans in sight. And no hotel vouchers in sight. So I hobble out to the ticket counter. After a minor scuffle with a duty manager, they agree to get my bag for me (originally they wanted to hold it and send through to Springfield – but I explained that I could not arrive at my meeting tomorrow in a juicy sweat-suit.) I get rebooked – they tell me the first flight of the day is sold out (but I later learned it left with 4 empty seats)…and book me on the next one. I’ll be a little late for my meeting, but it will have to do.

Monday morning comes, and my flight to Springfield is cancelled, Mechanical Number 1. Rebooked on the next flight. That flight gets delayed due to a Mechanical. Mechanical Number 2.

I finally arrive in Springfield, several hours late for my all day meeting, and wearing flip flops because I can’t get a shoe on. 26 plus hours after I left home. Not a great showing, but stuff happens.

Tuesday comes, we wrap up our meetings and head back to the airport. I’ve re-booked my ticket to go through Dallas, because I am thinking that O’Hare has bad karma for me. That flight gets cancelled. Mechanical number 3. Rebook back to the original flight through O’Hare. We board, get ready to push back, and they can’t close the door. Mechanical Number 4….we get deplaned, sit in the gate, and they announce re-boarding. Here is where the wheels really fell off.

This is my 4th mechanical in 24 hours. I am starting to worry about the maintenance competency of AA. And I am getting worried about being stranded overnight for the 2nd time in as many days. As we board, I asked the ramp agent in a weary voice if we were really leaving this time…because a Delta flight is leaving shortly and I don’t want to get stuck in Springfield. She responded very sarcastically, “Well, we are boarding you aren’t we?” (As if I hadn’t already boarded and de-planed 30 minutes earlier.). Silly me, I thought I might get an “I’m sorry you’ve had such a bad experience, I hope you have a good flight home.”

So in a calm but annoyed voice I said, “Well, I’ve had 4 mechanicals in 24 hours, which seems statistically impossible. Since you seem to be running the worst airline on the planet, I thought I’d ask before I miss the last flight of the day out of Springfield.” In hindsight, perhaps the calmness of my reaction was a problem…but more on that. She gives me a very snide “gee, thanks for sharing” response, and I head onto the aircraft, settle into my seat, turn off my BB and put on my iPod.

I see Julie the flight attendant approaching me, and she indicates that she’s heard I had “a problem with the gate representative”….silly me, I think she is there to apologize. Like Julie McCoy of Love Boat fame, I think she wants to have a perky chat with me and smooth things over. Anticipating this desire to be helpful, I decide to be gracious. I smile and tell her, “You can’t even imagine how many bad things have happened to me on your airline in the past 2 days…but there is no point in talking about it, I really just want to get home and put this trip behind me.”

It was then I realize that she wasn’t there to apologize….she proceeds to tell me that she is going to get the captain, and that I am in the exit row and she doesn’t think I am capable of serving those duties due to my “mental state.” (You know, if you curse and scream at a flight attendant they pop the chute and quit…but if you calmly tell them you’ve had a bad experience, you are the crazy one.)

“Really, you think I would refuse to open the door and let this entire airplane full of people die because I think you run a crappy airline? By all means, if you feel you need to get the captain, go ahead….but I think these people would really like to go home.”

She comes back….alone….and advises me (and the entire aircraft) that she thinks I am mentally unstable and that I need to move to a seat alone in the first row near the captain.

Now I am upset, angry and humiliated, but I know better than to argue with her….because I want to get home today. So I tell her, calmly, that I would be happy to move so that I can be the first one off her airplane. Once I am in my new seat, and she is “guarding me” in the galley, she advises me that she is filling out a report to the FAA because I’VE CAUSED A DELAY!!!!!!!!!!

So I am still speaking in a low voice, but I told her I’d be sending a report of my own to the DOT and that I’d like her name….because she may not like it, but I am certainly entitled to tell them that I am dissatisfied with the experience I’ve had on their airline, and that doesn’t make me unstable or the cause of her delay, and considering that I’ve been booked on 5 flights in 48 hours and not one of them has been on time, I didn’t think her argument would wash. She declines to give me her full name (“against company policy”) and the captain tells her to sit down and stop arguing with me so we can leave.

I arrive in Chicago, take another delay and finally get home to Newark.

Now, throughout the trip I tweeted and used my FB status….and the only thing I got was e-mail from friends at other airlines asking if they could sAAve me. Nothing from American. I got auto-emails from AA telling me that the flight had been delayed to a time that had already passed (so a message that we were delayed until 6 p.m., for example, arrived at 6:15)

I wait a week. Then I send a letter to American Airlines. Not because I want anything from them – heck, lifetime Gold Elite status wouldn’t make up for the bad experience I’ve had. But I would like to know that the flight attendant in question has been advised that she didn’t handle the situation well.
Nothing. Literally. In fact, I haven’t even been able to get the miles posted to my account for that hellacious trip.

72 hours of hell in the air – or in this case, mostly on the ground. 4 mechanicals. 2 other delays. 1 nasty flight attendant. A host of rude, incompetent people. Sorry American Airlines…you have a bad reputation, and as far as I’m concerned, you’ve earned it.

cwinters General Corporate American Airlines, American Eagle, O'Hare Airport, reputation