AA 1529 15 Jul JFK-SDQ--An Irregular Ops Story-well done!

Being alone since Thursday, with the girls on a cruise, I overslept a few minutes yesterday and had to hustle to get to JFK for my 10:55 flight to SDQ. I wound up arriving at the airport around 9:40, which wasn't bad considering there was heavy traffic most of the way. I was driving the wife's Hybrid, which gets best mileage in traffic.

I checked in and proceeded through security (again thank goodness for the F/C/Plat lane at JFK). This time I did get to vist the AC, and eventually proceeded to the gate, and once on board, was greeted by one of the most cheerful crews in recent memory. Settled in to seat 2J, and all seemed well.

Departure time came and went...about 10 min past sched departure, the captain came on and announed that on walkaround the FO had found a leak in one of the wheel wells, and the mechanics would have to check it out. A good amount of time passed, and no more information, although at one point I did hear "cancel" on the walkie talkie of one of the ground personnel on the flight. So now I decide to check with aa.com, and sure enough it showed "cancelled".

I quietly got up as if to go to the lav, and showed the purser my screen. He took my phone to show the captain, who had just heard, and noted that the FO had left to try to get home since the trip was supposedly cancelled. They thanked me profusely for not raising the issue in front of other passengers, and I spent a good deal of time talking to the crew in the forward galley, and to the captain as well.

Finally, a decision was made to "uncancel" the flight by pulling another aircraft from the hangar into service. By this time, I had already received a phone call from AA Platinum telling me I was rebooked the following morning (P R O A C T I V E). However, it turns out the trip was now back on the schedule, however with a long delay.

The replacement aircraft was rolled up to an adjacent gate. The purser was assigning tasks to the remaining FA's, assigning 2 or 3 to go to the new aircraft and get it ready, and maintaining crew presence on both craft. It was also determined that we would transfer via the connected jetway tunnel between gates 8 and 10, so we would not have to exit into the terminal and back through. This procedure was very well thought out, and got off to a good start.

Once the FO was located and returned to the gate, things jumped to high gear. The passengers were all lined up on the right side of the tunnel so crew and essential ground personnel could move back and forth as needed. One of the FA's I had been chatting with pulled me out of the line and told me to wait while she went back and got two other business class passengers, then walked us right on to the new aircraft (nice touch). Boarding continued, and we all settled in while the bags and catering were transferred from one aircraft to the other. During this time they ran the video entertainment, and although some people got a little agitated, it was handled very well and efficiently by the crew.

This was a clear example of thinking on their feet, and adapting to a situation. The captain, purser, and ground crew, figured out what needed to be done and did it. It was excellent teamwork, and although the cancellation and subsequent reinstatement caused some confusion, they had good cause to make those calls at the time.

Once airborne, a very pleasant flight, with a nice pasta lunch, followed by a little sleep. I arrived at SDQ at 6:10PM, rather than 2:50, which was ok since my client was arriving at 6:15 from MIA (wound up being 6:50 but again it worked out).

One can only imagine how another carrier (you know who) would have handled a similar situation--I can only guess there would be many more ticked off customers than there were on this flight.

Kudos to all involved at AA--they took a potentially bad situation and made the best of it, and got us where we needed to be...albeit it late, we got here.

Great Story Glad to see AA doing something to be proactive!

Wonder if they will offer miles for this?

What aircraft was this if I can ask, looking at the route can I assume an A300 or something else?

Alex

Alex,

Yes it was an Airbus A300, and ironically the advanced retirement was announced the same day or day after. This particular route goes 763 next month, and I wonder where all the 767's are coming from....which routes they are being pulled from to do this Caribbean lifting.

The return was uneventful-left 30 minutes late, landed almost on time. The cabin crew on this one, however, were mostly going through the motions-none had the motivation or friendliness of the southbound crew-I guess you always get the best performance on the FIRST leg of a round trip turn...

In any case, one observation I noted was that it is almost impossible to get a FA to hang one's sport jacket on AA lately. They bring predep beverages, look right at the coat and walk away. On this return, it took until they picked up the cups from predep bevs until the purser asked if I would like my jacket hung up, and they almost forgot to give it back...

One nice thing, the approach on the return was the VOR/DME 22L, which came over FRG, and over most of Nassau County-I was able to see many landmarks which were easily identifiable.