I was a passenger aboard an airplane for a 10 hour flight that departed at least one hour and 39 minutes late. 2 lavatories aboard the airplane were disabled. All passengers were served a single cup of water for breakfast.
Guess with which airline all of this — and much more — occurred.
10 Hour Flight. 2 Lavatories Disabled. A Cup of Water For Breakfast. Guess Which Airline.
A
- While waiting out the delay of the flight, members of the flight crew were gathered in a huddle behind where I was sitting at the gate. The information kept changing but was rarely accurate — especially when the departure time had passed but was still being displayed on the overhead monitor. This lack of process was confusing to both customers and employees of the airline.
- During the delay, several passengers — not I — asked employees of the airline about vouchers for meals. “We are not allowed to discuss vouchers until a delay of three hours or cancellation of the flight.”
- Once the passengers were finally aboard the airplane, one of the members of the flight crew was overheard as congratulating herself to her colleagues for enduring the first day of her fast. A fellow crew member asked if she was eating protein, to which she responded “No, it’s a three-day water-only fast; and I have made it 25 hours.”
- When we approached our seats in the second to last row of the airplane, a member of the flight crew was busy applying blue tape on a white piece of paper to the doors to both lavatories in the rear of the economy class cabin.
- A meal service followed not long after the airplane was in the air. The first course was a small package of pretzels. The choice of meals was chicken or vegetarian pasta tetrazzini.
- A passenger was frantically waving his hand with a roll in it to catch the attention of a member of the flight crew and complain that the roll was cold. She snatched it out of his hand and plopped it on the tray of a different passenger, whose roll was given to him. Fortunately, the rolls were wrapped in plastic.
- After collecting the refuse from the meal service, the members of the flight crew were never seen again until 25 minutes prior to landing, when they quickly served cups of water for breakfast. Moderate turbulence was to blame, which did briefly occur 90 minutes prior to landing…
- …but turbulence was completely predictable. The flight map showed that the airplane was going to cross over the Andes mountain range near La Serena in Chile — and turbulence often occurs when traversing across the peaks of mountains.
- Although portions of the flight did experience moderate turbulence, it did not occur for the entire duration of the flight. In fact, the Fasten Seat Belt sign was deactivated during portions of the flight…
- …but members of the flight crew never emerged during those periods of time — not even to distribute water despite the importance of regular hydration during the flight.
- I went to the rear galley to see what snacks were being offered. A member of the flight crew informed me that no snacks were being offered because there was not enough of a demand for them, as passengers are usually sleeping anyway.
- In all the years that I have traveled globally, I do not recall a time when no one wanted something on which to munch. In fact — more often than not — supplies of certain snacks or drinks were usually depleted well before the conclusion of the flight.
- The member of the flight crew did scrounge up three small packages of pretzels for me — but despite this rare act of customer service, I did not buy the story of not enough demand for snacks during an overnight flight.
- Instead of tending to passengers, members of the flight crew stayed in the rear galley chatting away so loudly that they helped to drown out the cries and screams during most of the flight of a child with Down’s Syndrome who was seated across the aisle.
- Moreover, the curtain which separated the galley from the remainder of the airplane was left wide open for the duration of the flight after the meal service — so the bright illumination of the galley spilled over into the darkness of the passenger cabin.
Many questions need to be answered:
- What was the reason for the delay, which was never explained?
- Why were the two lavatories in the rear of the aircraft disabled; and how could an airline send out an airplane
- Why was no apology given for not serving breakfast?
Final Boarding Call
With perhaps a couple of exceptions, the members of the flight crew seemed indifferent to the needs of the passengers. The service was abysmal in the rare moments when any service at all was available from these flight attendants.
What was a person who had only been drinking water doing working aboard an airplane for a flight of greater than ten hours?
The airline — which should be of no surprise — is American Airlines, with whom I had an experience earlier this year that involved an eleven hour delay; an overnight diversion; and more on my way to Australia.
I could not believe the statement I read on the in-flight entertainment screen:
Who We Are
Our purpose is to care for people on life’s journey. Focused on creating a world-class customer experience, we’ve renewed our fleet and offer thousands of flights daily to over 350 destinations.
Based on this experience and previous experiences with American Airlines, this statement is simply not true.
I realize that the main goal was to get passengers from Point A to Point B safely, which American Airlines did accomplish — but then again, so does every other airline in the world on a daily basis.
The members of the flight crew should be terminated from their employment. They have no idea how to perform customer service.
All photographs ©2025 by Brian Cohen.
