I won’t get into my story in detail, all I can say is my last three trips with AA were terrible. It cannot be a coincidence. The latest episode involved being involuntarily denied boarding, failure to lift a finger to help me get to my meeting, rudeness, lying, torching my ticket, and a missed approach after flying past the airport and trying to dive bomb towards the runway to prevent a go-around (which happened anyway). I had more problems yesterday on American Airlines than I have on Delta.What a crappy airline.

FlymeFunky response:

Jesus where do I start? Well first off you sound like a complete prat. Lets start shall we?

1. Involuntary denied boarding. Most airlines overbook flights and it seems like you drew the short straw. Perhaps you were chosen on purpose just to really piss you off? Regardless, it’s never nice being bumped from a flight though I assume you were given some compensation for the inconvenience (which can be quite generous).

2. Failure to lift a finger. I can imagine the finger you wanted lifted wouldn’t be the finger you wanted raised at your face. Perhaps you should congratulate the airline staff for not giving you the finger and remaining cool calm and collect. As an aside, how is it American Airlines responsibility to get you to a meeting?

3. Rudeness & Lying. Well, this is never nice to get at the best of times, so if you were truly treated rudely you should speak with the airline. But I imagine your irritability by this point had rubbed off on the poor airline rep.

4. Torched ticket. Did they light a bonfire to cast away the demons that were hiding among your travel documents?

5. Plane dive bombing & go-around. Maybe you’ve been watching ‘Pearl Harbour’ and thought that your kamikaze pilot was dooming your flight. I believe that pilots and the job they do is highly regulated and as such I strongly doubt that the pilot was putting the aircraft in danger. FYI the go-around was probably a better option for you as a passenger, so you shouldn’t complain.

Is it a crappy airline? Perhaps. American Airlines isn’t known for its awesomeness, but no North American airline is. But in your case, you missed your flight and this probably turned you into the passenger from hell. Rudeness and lying was probably a fragment of your imagination – spawned from the thoughts that the airline went out of its way to ruin your day.

A couple of days ago I was on UA896 HKG-ORD, and a set of the main cabin lights stayed on for the entire flight. The FA said they were broken. It illuminated the entire cabin fairly brightly–enough that my eye mask really didn’t work that well. I couldn’t sleep the entire flight. In this COdbaUA world, is it even worth sending in a complaint for this?

FlymeFunky response:

I too would be pissed if I was flying economy. But being exposed to constant light whilst flying one of the longest routes in the world must be a test of character. A darkened cabin allows economy passengers to drift off into a twilight zone where they can forget that they are packed in like sardines. The darkness helps you forget that your sitting next to this person.

I would complain and I would expect some compensation. I couldn’t think of anything worse. And you were flying United – you should compensation for that alone.

I was upgraded on a flight from BOG-EWR. Out comes the cheese, fruit and crackers and on the cheese with the red wrapping I notice green mold. It was all over that piece of cheese. Just wondering if anyone has experienced this before and wondering if it is even worth contacting United about. The only reason I havn’t contacted them yet is because I was on award travel and was obviously not even supposed to be upgraded, but who would turn down an accidental upgrade?

FlymeFunky response:

Wait. You got a free upgrade to first class and your complaining about the mould? If I were you, I would’ve picked off the mould, hoed into the cheese and relaxed in my extra comfy chair with a glass of wine. I’ve seen worse punishments on an aircraft (like 3-4-3 in economy class on a 777) so count yourself lucky that you only had to endure a bit of mouldy cheese. It’s not like you were subjected to an episode of Fear Factor… who cares if you had a bit of natural blue vein on your camembert?