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Comment by dcdc123 | Hacker News Reader

I have never had an uneventful flight on American. I avoid them even if it costs me more time and money.

Everyone has “that story” about one particular airline but AA is particularly bad because a large portion of their fleet is old and requires a lot of maintenance which unsurprisingly causes delays and cancelations.

I echo the statement that I’ve never had an uneventful flight on AA. I fly a lot and can confidently say other major airlines are more reliable but usually also more expensive.

Pre-bankruptcy AA was so good. Exec plats were treated super well and their fleet was massive— even if a plane had an issue they could almost always hot-swap it out for another one.

Despite the website feeling dated now it used to be one of the only airlines where the website accurately reflected the backend system (even phone agents couldn’t touch your booking if you had it open on the site) and their lounges were solid too.

These days I agree they’re towards the bottom of the stack sadly… everyone else caught up and they stayed still.

I mostly fly Delta now almost entirely for the on-time performance.

I mostly fly United due to living in one of their hubs and have become accustomed to reliable service on well maintained planes. Every time I hear complaints about rampant delays or cancelations, I wonder what year they’re living in. But then I end up flying American and I realize it’s not the year, it’s the airline. Even in their biggest hubs, there is always delay-inducing last minute maintenance with no hot swap available. I just experienced this recently and was immediately reminded of this time last year when they made headlines about canceling a massive percentage of flights daily for months.

I actually much prefer AA’s website to United’s. AA’s may seem dated but it’s fast and the UI predictable. United’s feels like it’s fighting me.

This is why I’ll only book an AA flight on newer metal. It’s overall a smoother experience.

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