American Airlines review by Zach

I was schedule to fly out of JFK to Charlotte. We were leaving Friday evening and planning on returning on Sunday. We were five minutes out from the airport when we received a text letting us know that the flight was canceled. Not because of bad weather but because of maintenance. After a terrible call to your help line where they were rude and informed me they could not do anything for me, I went to get in line at the airport kiosk to speak to someone in person since I was already there and had already spent $75 on my Uber to get there. That is when I discover the true dysfunction. They had no idea what was going on, and the line to speak to anyone took an hour and a half. They had people that were supposed to be working just standing around chatting with each other with a huge line waiting. Each person that came up to the kiosk took around a half hour to get moving. Ive never seen more frustrated people in one place. Not just because of the flight to Charlotte, but because of a number of different flights. The girl next to me was literally in tears because they had lost her reservation back to Greece (which they eventually made right after acting like there was nothing they could do). The person behind me going to Vegas was denied a boarding pass to Vegas because he showed up 59 minutes before to get his boarding pass. One man was sitting down on the kiosk on the phone himself for over an hour trying to get rescheduled himself after you employees gave him the phone because they couldnt handle the probelm, he felt so bad that he went around and apologized to everyone after and certainly was criticizing American Airlines. By the time I finally got to the front of the line, the woman I was dealing with told me she couldn't get me on another flight that day and couldn't refund my ticket. I had to go online. Its absurd they don't give their employees the ability to help customers in real time. I don't know what CRM they use, but everyone of their employees acts helpless and useless. I called customer service again while at the airport and they said they couldn't refund me and also pointed me towards the website I finally had to take an Uber back at my own expense again, I didn't receive a refund for my ticket, I didn't get reschedule on a flight same night so I had to cancel my trip all together. When I finally get home and try to get a refund on my ticket your site tells me I am not eligible. The fact that I had to call the help line again was absurd. Finally they issued the refund over the phone. Why their customer service rep at the airport couldn't do that I don't know. The refund finally came back and obviously didn't include taxes and your processing fees so I am out another $100 approximately. So when all is said and done they canceled my trip for no reason and could not reschedule me. I am out hundreds of dollars in out of pocket expenses. They wasted hours of my time. And I was not offered any reimbursement or compensation of any type even though I requested it.