[jrockway]

Ouch. I have top-tier status on AA, and they will be getting a note from me about this. Not cool.

That said, I am still confused as to why Dustin thinks AA's website is so relevant to its business model. Their website is not very Web 2.0, it's true. But, they make up for that... I can fly non-stop from Chicago (my home airport) to thousands of cities around the world on AA quite cheaply. They have three-class international service, which means I can use frequent flyer miles to get a really nice seat once in a while. They have lounges. They have international partners where my status benefits can be used. I get free domestic upgrades to first class. They have customer service that cares. (I have never been greeted by name on Southwest, but it happens rather frequently on AA.)

So anyway, the legacies are not totally incompetent. I fly at least every month and I would never even consider WN or JetBlue. The fare is about the same, and I have no chance of receiving anything other than a middle-seat on the back of a 737. No thanks. Perhaps the website UX is nice, but the rest of the trip won't be. And when I'm in a metal tube for 18 hours, I don't really give a damn about how much AJAX the website had.

(I am a little defensive here, I know. AA has been really nice to me, so I feel that they deserve some compliments for that.)

[potatolicious]

"Their website is not very Web 2.0, it's true."

One of the original reasons why I disagreed with Dustin. Slick Web 2.0-y goodness does not imply a better user experience. Copious amounts of whitespace is easy on the eyes, but also doesn't automatically imply discoverability or readability. I know first-hand of at least one top-50 website that is very Web 1.0 but absolutely excels at what it does.

[jfarmer]

Amazon?

[buugs]

Google!?

[donw]

Hacker News?

[techiferous]

Craigslist?

[marbletiles]

RyanAir (especially apropos, albeit not top 50)

[tbrooks]

Drudge Report

[wakeless]

I think this is less about AA being crap and more about you being a frequent flyer with ANY full service airline.

[jrockway]

Agreed. Although I do think AA beats the other US airlines on paper, which is why I haven't tried any others.

(I have flown on Southwest. Once. I got to the airport two hours early for a domestic flight. Waited in line for an hour and 45 minutes to check my bag and get a boarding pass. The boarding pass was "the wrong one" and security wouldn't let me through. Ticket agent didn't care. Gate agent didn't care. I then ran around the airport like a crazy person, "oh, you can connect in Kansas City, go to gate whatever". "She told you that we had room? HA! Try Oakland." Then I was stuck in Oakland for 6 hours.

This was before I was a frequent flyer and perhaps I was being stupid. But I have missed a fair share of AA flights and have never had any problems.)

[pxlpshr]

I've never had that type of experience at Southwest. Ever. It's my choice airline for domestic but I can see how it's not for everyone. I like the early-bird-gets-the-worm approach to their seating, and I print my ticket before I leave because.......

And you checked "a" bag in? On a domestic flight? If I can't carry-on on a domestic flight, then I cut down my packing so I don't look like a woman taking my closet.

When the two are combined, you only need to show up ~:30 minutes before a domestic flight assuming security isn't a mess.

[encoderer]

Southwest is a fantastic business and a competent airline. The business-hacker in me gets thrilled by all the little refinements one can see in the Southwest process.

Things that let them offer better service significantly more affordably than their competitors. Processes to make due with fewer attendants, for example.

All I know for certain is that I can fly a 1.5 hour Southwest flight, check my bag for free (if I so desire), get a free soda (or 2), and a free snack.

[demallien]

This is really off-topic, so I apologise to everyone, but I really have to point this out to my American 'Net neighbours:

The expression is "to make do", not "to make due". Ask anyone from an English-speaking country that doesn't pronounce "due" and "do" the same (ie, not in North America).

Thankyou.

[jrockway]

I checked my bag so I wouldn't have to buy 3 ounce plastic bottles.

I still check my bag, even though I "know better", because unpacking at the checkpoint is a big pain. I don't think I carry anything on that doesn't have to be taken out of my backpack.

[shard]

Does security still prohibit >3oz bottles? I've flown domestic and international out of LAX this year, and they never bothered asking or checking.

Also, I have to open my bag anyways, it has my laptop in it.

[callahad]

> so I don't look like a woman taking my closet.

Could you please reconsider your phrasing? Thank you.

[davidw]

I missed an AA flight in Munich, and they were complete assholes. Actually, I guess it was their 'partner', BA, but even the people we got on the phone were completely unhelpful. My wife, parents in law, and I ended up on three separate flights to Portland, Oregon.

OTOH, on the way back, the nice person at the AA ticket counter saw there were problems with one of our connections, and put us all on a Lufthansa direct flight to Frankfurt.

[anApple]

So why did you miss the plane? Was it your fault or the airlines?

If it was your fault, what do you expect to happen? If you travel by TGV in France and miss your train, your place is also gone and you have to buy a new ticket.

[goatforce5]

I once overslept and missed my NYC -> Australia flight on a dirt cheap lowest-of-the-low economy Qantas ticket. Called them up, fearing the worst, and think I was going to have to pay crazy sums to fly out the next day by buying a last minute ticket.

Because I was calling at a weird hour, my call got routed to Qantas in Australia. Guy answers, I tell him in a panic about my situation and he's like "Yeah, no worries mate. Changed your ticket to tomorrow. How's New York? OMG! Have you seen the Statue of Liberty?!" Ha!

[davidw]

We expected to have to pay something to fix the situation because it was "our fault" (there was a big accident and an hour long wait on the autobahn), but we also expected them to work with us a bit to try and fix things in some way. We did, after all, still have return tickets that we wanted to use, rather than buying a complete new round trip. Indeed, we finally did get a hold of someone on the phone and they managed to patch things up with roughly 100$ each, which wasn't that bad, all things considered, and seemed 'fair' to us. The problem was that they should have done that at the beginning (in other words, the person working at the terminal) rather than basically just telling us to get lost.

The difference really came down to how we were treated - a little bit of sympathy and trying to work with someone goes a long way to take the sting out of a bad situation.

[Imprecate]

Agreed. Dustin just comes off as whiny and self-important, though I don't think the employee should have been fired considering the content of his email.

Also, booking flights is very straightforward on aa.com. Dustin could have provided some substantive comments on usability, but instead simply called it ugly and slapped together a minimalist southwest.com knock-off. The only thing that really annoys me about the site is how confusing it is to get a list of your current reservations.

A majority of the public only shops based on price and availability. Unless the website is so bad that they can't figure out where to put their credit card number, it doesn't matter.

[wizard_2]

Is he whiny? He's a designer, this is his 'blogazine' about design, of course his post is going to be about AA's design. Later after posting from a result of his and Mr. X's actions Mr. X go fired. If I was Dustin I would have been concerned and outraged too and dam well would have written about it.