Amarillo's early Morning

Today is the day I will switch from American Airlines to Southwest Airlines forever. Here we are at 6:20 am at Amarillo's finest; the airport. Matthew and I were up at 3:30 scheduled to leave at 5:00 am. Yet, a fog delay and the lack of an airplane caused a problem. The solution offered was flying out tomorrow morning. In my imaginary business plan I think, why would you send 5:00 am passengers home on a flight the next day? Does it occur to upper level management that early risers can't afford to get home the next day and arrange an earlier flight for a reason? What if we were attending a funeral, a wedding, a cruise, or graduation? Irate would not suffice and I can't put coherently in words just how fed up we are. This happened on our honeymoon for 7 hours in DFW without any explanation. Southwest will take us to Dallas, from there we will rent a car to Waco, and then head back to Austin. Although not a catastrophe, it's an annoyance that will forbid my money from supporting A.A.

On the other hand, we had a lovely weekend pampered at Amarillo's Ambassador Suites and by the firm Matthew is considering clerking with. We were both flown down on Friday afternoon, taken to lunch at a restaurant that is usually only open for dinner (so yum), given a tour on the Guerilla's (Amarillo's hockey team) plush bus, and attented a progressive dinner/dessert party at the partner's homes. Matthew schmoozed and I discussed marathon running with one of the associates. Yesterday, I would have said that I wouldn't be disappointed if Matthew landed the position. Today, all I will confess, Amarillo is an island in Texas.

Matthews letter to American Airlines is posted below:

After years of traveling on AA for work and pleasure my patience is at an end. Two and one half months ago your airline "delayed" my wife and my flight 7 hours, this was on our honeymoon. No explanation was ever given as to the cause for the delay and, as it hadn't rained in Dallas for about a month, weather was not an issue. We said repeatedly that day that we were never flying American again. And yet we gave you another chance on a business trip to Amarillo. We had choices, Southwest, Continental, etc. but flew American.

And here we sit, at 5:50 in the morning, while we should be going home. While we understand that weather has caused a delay that delay should not last until tomorrow. That is what our option was, be re-scheduled on another flight tomorrow because your business model causes you to oversell flights. Tomorrow, is that the value AA places on the time of its customers? Tomorrow, does that sound like an available option for someone who schedules a 5:50 am flight on a Sunday morning? Possibly we wanted to get home TODAY!!!! Two hours we would have understood, 4 hours would have been an irritation, but an entire day is unacceptable.

But, instead of getting home in time to enjoy our one day off this week we will spend it catching a flight on your competitor then renting a car and driving 2 hours to our destination.

Needless to say your response and remuneration will determine our future flight decisions.