matt ralston

American Airlines’ Twitter Account Is The Penultimate F.U. To Customers

2 Oct 2014   | Politics

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This has happened to me twice, I’m on a flight, the flight sucks because the government has allowed all these already shit airlines to merge together creating a lack of competition, leading to Velcro magazine pockets on rickety old planes because there is now zero need to invest upkeep in your slumlord airlines, thirty guys get richer and a few hundred million get inconvenienced and poorer. Thanks Republicans! I am legitimately pissed about this or that on about half my flights, so I Tweet that the airline sucks. On this flight I was livid.

A quick recap of why:

7:30: Wake up. Unable to check in online. Call US Airways. They have merged with American Airlines. Call American Airlines. Wait on hold 40 minutes. Give up. 

8:20: Arrive at airport. Go to American Airlines’ counter inside the terminal. Want to get a better seat. My traveling companion and I don’t have seats next to each other. Want to change that. Nobody behind counter even though the flight leaves in 30 minutes. 

8:30: Go back to counter. Airline representative is making a personal call about her nephew paying a speeding ticket. She does not acknowledge me and instead of ending the call switches to a new subject. I yell “Fuck it” and walk away. She does not look up. 

8:45: Plane is boarding. I set a moving screen to locate the only employee available and ask about changing my seat. She says I cannot at this point. I say at what point could I have? She does not understand the question and keeps saying I cannot at this point. I say, can I at a later point then? She says not at this point. This goes on for five minutes.

8:50: Board Plane. My seat bottom is detached from the metal part of the plane. It is just a flotation device which I can easily pick up above my head. I say I need a new seat. They say there is nothing I can do. I say get me off the plane. I am given a new seat. 

8:52: Discover my new seat has a baggie of puke in the magazine holder. 

9:00. Luckily I had some mini bottles of whisky in my bag. Begin to drink them because my hands are shaking from panic. I am not even afraid of flying. But wait til you sit down and your seat isn’t attached to the plane. Because this plane was designed during the Soviet era our flight attendant is strapped into a jump seat facing me about two feet away. He says I cannot drink my own alcohol on the plane. Notice there is no problem with drinking alcohol, you just have to pay American for it. I stare through him and continue doing it and he shuts the fuck up. 

I’m getting sick of these beleaguered money milking sorry excuses for airlines. I know there’s really nothing I can do outside of substantially increasing my income and flying private. The airlines have no reason to help. There is only one going any given place, and soon there will be two major airlines controlling the market. So I’ll be on them again. But it fucking pisses me off. So I send out Tweets.

Below is a portion of my Twitter interaction, if you are curious. I have had this happen with more than one airline. They respond to your initial tweet about how the airline sucks. They pretend to want to help, and do nothing. This is the most infuriating part. The airline is two faced, presenting one impression to the worldwide web, and a completely different one to the customer’s entire experience.

Corporate America has come out on top. And they don’t even have the decency to be a good villain. American Airlines is just a Mean Girl fake ass backstabbing coy little bitch. We are fucked. Its been real America.

Then the airline responds immediately.

Please note that when I called earlier to discuss my issue on their 1-800 number, NOBODY answered and they said the hold was OVER AN HOUR. But on social media they are right on top of it. This is for a few reasons:

1) Nobody outside of myself was listening to my phone call, yet on Twitter my complaint is visible to a billion people. They don’t care about helping. They just want to advertise the idea.

2) Its way cheaper to hire some dork to respond to any tweet about American Airlines than it is to hire a fucking employee to actually solve the problem.  I always find their vague assurance so annoying. “We’re working hard to make a better airline for you.” It has all the sincerity of a Sarah Palin wink. And they’ll just leave it at that. Oh, my fucking seat is a busted flotation device punctured by a steal buttress I have been balancing my perineum on, but I’m so glad you have the time to send out a canned response to advertise you airline, so that I am now helping you do by the way just by having a Twitter account. Fuck you. 

No Response.

No Response.   

And just in case I can make any attempt to get through the soulless text of whoever I am supposedly interacting with (probably a robot.)

Then I get something. A little glimmer of hope. I know its just another ploy to convince whoever is reading this that American Airlines actually cares.

So I do. I Follow American Airlines, because that’s the only way to get in contact with them. For those unaware, you can only send Direct Messages to people who you follow, and who follow you back. So they just got another follower, which I have still forgotten to delete, making them look cool, and me look fucking lame because I follow American Airlines on Twitter. I forgot this rule because I was on a dangerously inept plane and having a panic attack:

Now they’re getting all paternal. Pretending to be offended is just increasing their odds of not doing SHIT.

 

 

Another hollow, clearly robotic response visible to the Twitter universe. At this point I continued checking my inbox for any sort of assistance and hear nothing. I had a few drinks to calm down and shared some more of my feelings but they moved on to pretending to care about their airline publicly to other suckers. Here are a few examples:

 

 

 

Here is a copy of my Direct Message exchange with American Airlines, since they were so eager to help me (the numbers are because they had asked for my confirmation number.)

HSZSCU you gave me a seat not attached to the fuckin plane. Literally a float that was thrown onto a piece of metal are you serious ??!Sep 28

No Response:

Nothing cocksuckers?   Sep 28

No Response:

?????????????? Sep 28

No Response:

Flatline.

America, RIP. 2014.

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